Pandemic Parables: Mysteries

Pandemic Parables: Mysteries
July 10th 2020

Mysteries abound at the hospital in Frederick, Maryland, where I am working as Resident Chaplain until the end of August. Some are more serious than others.

On the lighter side, I’ve had another strange phone call.

Some of you will remember that a few months ago the operator called me saying, “Chaplain Geraldine your husband is on the line.”

This wouldn’t be odd at all, except that I’ve never been married.

I told the operator so.

“That’s what we all thought,” said she.

Which I find pretty mysterious in itself.

It is unusual, methinks, but delightful, that the operators, who are always gracious and wonderfully efficient, but whom I’ve never met, know my marital status.

Apparently the chap was pretty insistent he speak to me. But when the operator went to connect him he had hung up.

Another one bites the dust.

I got another inexplicable call earlier in the week. Well I didn’t, our staff Chaplain from Kenya, Chaplain Peter, whom I admire greatly, did. The person asked for me and so he took a message.

He phoned me on my hospital cell phone. I was doing rounds.

“A woman just called asking for you. When you weren’t available she said you were to urgently call this number,” and he relayed it to me. “I asked for the name of the person you were to contact,” he continued. “She said you would know who it was the moment you heard the number.”

The digits meant nothing to me.

I looked them up on my personal phone wondering if a contact’s name would pop up.

Nothing.

How bizarre!

I called the number. A charming sounding man with a deep resonant voice answered.

I didn’t know him. He didn’t know me.

“I don’t remember calling the hospital,” he said. “And I can’t imagine any of my friends doing so on my behalf.

“Do you need a chaplain?” I responded.

“Noooo,” he said hesitantly.

We had reached a point where we both realized this was a very strange conversation.

“But you can stay on the line if you like,” he said finally.

I didn’t think pastoral care was what he had in mind. And so I graciously declined.

At that moment Chaplain Peter rounded the corner with two new-to-the-hospital interns in tow. (One had done a previous semester in Hospice.) He was giving them a tour. He confirmed the number, and then gave me the number of the woman who had placed the original call.

I called her. The line was malfunctioning. I tried several times. Each time the phone rang a few times before cutting off.

Was this a supernatural dating service gone askew?

Perhaps there is a simple explanation?

But in the meantime it remains a mystery.

Others are facing mysteries in the hospital this week.

The interns are among their number.

After a five-week hiatus where the Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) Intern Program was put on hold because of the virus, the Pastoral Care Department is approaching normal again. A normal where all the classes and supervisory sessions are on line. And when chaplains are physically in the hospital, masks and social distancing are in place.

The interns do classes on a Monday. For the foreseeable future these will take place in their own homes via computer. Every week each of them has a different day on duty in the hospital from 4pm to 9pm, followed by being on call overnight until 8am the following morning. In addition, they work one Saturday evening a month.

For one of the interns this is her first semester. Everything is squeaky new.

Chatting with her on her first day I was swept back to when I started as an Intern for the prerequisite semester needed before becoming a Resident. It seems so very long ago. An eternity.

In actuality it was last May. (My Residency started at the beginning of September.)

I am very unmedical, I had rarely been in a hospital before. It felt like I had entered a different world.

Everything was a mystery.

On walking the hospital’s halls I constantly saw things that bemused me. On one of my first evenings I did a double take when I saw a sign on a door.

I thought it said Insensitives.

“Oh my goodness,” I thought. A room for insensitive staff?”

I went back and read it again. It was Intensivists. It would be a long time before I learned that these are certified physicians who provide special care for critically ill patients.

Another time I walked past a door that was marked “Sound Physicians.” I spent far too long wondering where they put the unsound ones.

Later I was to discover that Sound was the name of an agency that supplies doctors to the hospital.

But the time when my imagination went into overdrive was one Wednesday evening near the beginning of my internship when I was the only chaplain on duty in the hospital.

The phone rang in the chaplain’s office.

“Chaplain Geraldine,” I answered.

“Chaplain,” said a female voice, “Stand by for an exhumation in about thirty minutes. The family has requested that a chaplain be there. I’ll call again when we are ready.”

At least that’s what I thought she said.

My first thought was. “How odd, for a hospital to be doing exhumations. And then my often over-fertile imagination took me to a misty night in England where eighteenth century grave robbers were digging furtively by the light of a flickering lantern…

I snapped out of my reverie.

“An exhumation?” I asked tentatively.

There was a silence on the other end of the line and then the now shocked voice said. “No. An extubation.”

“Oh silly me, of course,” I responded. “I’ll be ready when you call.”

And then I went and found a nurse to ask what an extubation was.

Now I’ve attended several such events where a patient is taken off a breathing tube and their family sit vigil expecting, but not knowing for certain if, or when, their loved one would slip into eternity.

I have learned it is an honor to be so close to the mystery of dying, death, and a family’s grief.

A profound, sacred honor.
 

There are other mysteries that abound in the hospital, besides the ultimate mystery of how magnificently and intricately the human body is put together.

A social worker, who has been in the hospital throughout the pandemic rather than working from home, recently talked to me about the mystery of human behavior.

She is a big hearted, enthusiastic woman who will do anything to care for the patients and their families who are under her care.

Rules have been a little relaxed in the hospital recently. The number of Coronavirus patients continues to fluctuate but is still relatively low – as of today we have six Covid-19 positive patients and five under observation. However during the height of the virus no visitors were allowed to visit Covid positive patients, and later only two people could visit a patient who was imminently dying.

My social worker friend had one patient with five offspring, all who were desperate to be by their mother’s bedside as she died. They would have done anything to all be there, but they had to make hard choices. It is heart breaking for the family, and painful for the social worker that such rules had to be enforced. And although she has been at many bedsides in full protective gear holding ipads so that families can say goodbye, she is acutely aware that nothing is like the touch of someone you trust and love.

However what concerned her the most during this season was the incredible fear that went with this dreadful virus. She has had adult children living in their parent’s house who refused to have their relative back because of fear. They would prefer to leave them in the hospital for weeks than let them return to the home that they love.

In another case, a man wept uncontrollably on the phone to my friend because he didn’t want his elderly mother, who had been released from the hospital, to have health care personnel come in and look after her. He was terrified of having people in the house in case they were contaminated with the virus. However he was unable to look after his mother by himself. Although he begged for a reprieve, he had no other workable solution for his mother’s care. In the end he had to accept the inevitable or my friend would have had to involve social services, something that she really did not want to do.

She is amazed how this virus has brought the best, as well as the very worst out of people.

This has been a strange season for all of us, and yes, frightening in so many ways. Full of changes, upheavals, financial insecurity, frustration, and for many, deep loneliness.

Our established ways of life have been upended. Our realities changed. We stay away from people because we love them.

Although some will even sacrifice a parent’s wellbeing because of fear.

The ground of our certainties has shifted beneath our feet. Is still shifting. Might be shifting for a long time.

Which reminds me of something that Steve Jobs said once: “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”

In other words you have to trust that as things have worked out in your life so far, so they will in the future. The ground will eventually stop shifting. There will be a solution to every looming problem, even though it might not be one that you have chosen. But perhaps that caterpillar of an answer that brought you disappointment and grief might eventually turn into a butterfly, achieving heights that you never dreamed were possible.

Or at least peace of mind and quiet joy.

It says in the Good Book that perfect love casts out fear.

There is a lot of fear in a hospital. Fear of dying, fear of letting a loved one slip into eternity, fear of a changed life less a limb or a lung. But I have seen peace slide into a room on the back of prayer and surround a patient, or a family, and in its own time, bring resignation, and with it acceptance.

Strength to face whatever lies ahead.

An inner knowledge, a quiet certainty that the dots will connect. And as love was there in the past, so it will be in the future.

May it be so for all of us.

May we feel and know the love of the One that loves us with an incomprehensible love, no matter where we have been or what we have done. May His love encircle us, push all the fear out of us, and take it far from us.

May God’s Mother Father love comfort us in these unsettling times. And provide for us.

And may we be conduits of the love that we receive. Bridges of love and understanding in a world that is far too segregated by color, creed, and political persuasion.

Then somehow we will be part of His answer.

And that indeed is a mystery.

Pandemic Parables: Both Sides

Pandemic Parables: Both Sides
Sunday July 5th 2020

As the old Joni Mitchell song says, I’ve been looking at life from both sides in the hospital in Frederick, Maryland where I am working as a Resident Chaplain until the end of August. I have been observing anew that people can see exactly the same thing, but from a completely different perspective.

Take July the Fourth - for example. This was my fourteenth year to celebrate Independence Day as a proud, naturalized American Citizen. Even with all its current challenges - opportunities - I love this nation, and I am grateful to be able to call it home. However, growing up in Britain, July the Fourth was no different from any other day, of course. And even though my first degree, from England’s Bristol University, was in history, the only reference I heard about the Revolutionary War was: “Mad King George lost the farm...”

History is written by the victors and we definitely lost that war.

A Pennsylvania-born fellow chaplain at the hospital, who spent several years living in England, told me that when over there she had a special ritual every Independence Day. With a reference to the incident that sparked the Revolutionary War, she would hand out tea bags to her bemused friends. As she did she’d quote the words spoken at the Boston Tea Party by the Sons of Liberty as they threw a whole shipment of tea into the harbor.

“No Tea! No Tea! Down with King George.”

Incredibly no one responded: “Off with her head!”

My brother, who has been a good naturalized citizen for a lot longer than me, jokes that July the Fourth is England’s Thanksgiving Day. Why? Because that is when they got rid of the Americans.

Ba Da Boom...

Depending on what side of the pond you stand, Independence Day looks completely different. I am grateful to have seen it from both sides now.

I’ve been seeing other things in the hospital from both sides recently.

Babies for example.

It was the same fellow chaplain who told me of the preparations that were being made in the birthing center at the end of last week.

All the newly hatched babies receive a beautiful, soft, white cap to keep their precious tiny heads warm. The caps are made with love in every stitch by members of our incredible hospital auxiliary. On Friday a nurse was preparing these caps for Independence Day births by threading red, white, and blue ribbons imprinted with stars through their soft fabric.

Those babies will be patriotic from the getgo!

Other aren’t so fortunate.

On Friday, not long after those caps were finished being adorned, there was a pediatric code blue. This means that a child under the age of eighteen is being brought into the hospital dangerously close to death. I’m the chaplain for the Emergency Department. When I got there I discovered the code blue was a baby, a few months old, and a team was desperately working behind a closed curtain to save the child’s life.

There was a lull in the normal frenetic atmosphere of the ED. Staff members were looking towards the curtain either praying or willing that baby to survive.

I joined the small cluster of nurses and social workers that I knew well. We were waiting for the parents to arrive.

“When I heard the code, before we knew the age of the child, I phoned up my husband and asked if our son was OK,” one of the nurses said in a voice hardly above a whisper. He said, you just phoned ten minutes ago and I told you he was doing good. Why would things be different now?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“I had to know,” she said nodding towards the curtain, “because things can change so fast.”

One mother’s relief is another’s nightmare.

The police arrived. Depending on whether the parents live in the city of Frederick or the County either the police or sheriff’s department will have jurisdiction.

Whenever a child pediatric code blue is called, particularly for a baby, and the patient doesn’t have a medical history that would warrant such a call, the law is involved. A social worker told me that an officer will often drive parents to the hospital.

“How kind of them,” I said. “It must be difficult driving when you are so concerned about your child.”

The social worker gave me a knowing look. “They also want to keep an eye on them to make sure they’ll be available to be interviewed later.”

I looked towards the officers, who usually wait quietly to one side until the medical intervention has ceased before asking the parents questions. Sometimes, as in this case, one or more will be behind the curtain watching the team as the baby hovers between life and death.

One of the main tenets of the Clinical Pastoral Education course that I am taking is the saying “the patient is the book.”

In other words you are plunged into the real life of the hospital. You learn about how to handle situations correctly, as well as managing your own emotions that are triggered by that situation, afterwards, either in class or in a weekly individual supervisory session.

Months ago I misread a situation with a baby. I was standing outside the same curtained room flanked by a social worker and a young sheriff’s officer. We waited in silence as a medical team worked on the other side of the cloth divider. The parents had already arrived and were in there watching those incredible medical professionals save their child’s life.

I am a feeler, and I felt tension and deep emotion coming from the officer by my side.

“Is everything all right?” I said to him quietly.

“Yes,” he said too quickly. “Of course it is.” His professional veneer was firmly in place.

“I have my chaplain’s hat on,” I said. “So I was just checking. And I’m praying.”

We both carried on staring at the closed curtain. I felt some of the tension ooze out of him. Then, without moving he said softly. “I have a kid at home the same age. This one is hard for me.”

Moments later he walked away out through the stretcher entrance doors to get some fresh air, and he didn’t return for a long time.

There were several other officers in the ED department at the time, one in plain clothes. I stepped into the curtained room to be with the parents at the same moment that they were coming out. They said that yes, they would like to talk, and certainly wanted to pray but they didn’t want to go into a private room to do so. The distraught mother said she wanted to be as close to her baby as possible, but they had both needed a quick respite. The mother was in tears, the father looked stunned. So we prayed in the hallway.

Words came out of my mouth during that prayer that surprised me. They bypassed my brain. I heard myself praying that the baby would not suffer permanent damage from whatever had happened. That miraculous healing would take place. That the child would recover from trauma and be well.

Soon after I said amen the mother headed back behind the curtain, and the plain clothed sheriff’s officer politely told the father that he had some routine questions he needed to ask him.

I went to the third floor to see other patients but came down a little later to check on the family. They had already left. A nurse emerged from the same room they had been in.

“The child lived and has been flown to Children’s Hospital in DC,” she said. “It was a brain bleed. We found several signs that there was physical abuse, and it had been going on for some time, previously broken bones and the like. The law will investigate more heavily now.”

I had misread the young sheriff officer’s reaction. He clearly knew of the possible abuse situation, whereas I had no idea. It had never crossed my mind. It was my first pediatric code. I now realize he suspected the worst. And he was right.

A couple of weeks later I saw the father’s picture in the paper with an article giving the medical details from both hospitals. He had been arrested on suspected child abuse and was being held without bail at the County Detention Center.

I have no idea if the trial has taken place. We don’t know the end of patients’ stories unless we read about them in the paper. (I scour the obituaries every day hoping not to see the names of my more vulnerable patients...)

But I did find out one further piece of information about the father. While we were standing outside the same curtained room with a different baby last Friday, a social worker mentioned the abuse case. “I saw a picture of him in the paper before he was arrested. He was at Children’s and was holding the baby and smiling. He had started a GoFundMe for medical expenses for the child and had raised well over twenty thousand dollars...”

My fists clenched, and I understood with sudden clarity why the officer had to step outside and get fresh air.

I almost had to do the same.

One of the medical personnel came out from the curtain. The ICU nurse by my side had a quick word with her before the team member hurried back in.

“Oh, Lord! Let this baby live!” I said. My friend, the ICU nurse, a woman with the most enormous, loving heart, said: “I’m seeing things from the other side. I suspect there will be severe, permanent damage, and so my prayer is for a peaceful, gentle death.”

Minutes later her prayer was answered.

The parents arrived and were ushered into a private room with a truly wonderful social worker, and the doctor who had done the surgery. With the parent’s permission, I slipped into an empty seat.

The doctor gave the news of their baby’s death with compassion coming out of his pores. This couple was in shock. Tears slid down their faces, the mother shook in silent grief. The father asked questions. How could a heart attack happen to a child barely months old? The doctor answered every question with great kindness before leaving. The couple was young, a little awkward together. The father finally moved over to sit next to the mother to hold her. She fell into his arms and a high pitched wail came out of her mouth.

It was the sound of a heart breaking.

On Independence Day this year that baby was free. Returned to the One who had made him far too few months before, healed now, and eternally loved.

His brief presence on earth changed the lives of that young couple forever. Their grief will go on for a lot longer than their son lived.

In a much more joyous way, great change was brought to the lives of several other mothers this weekend as they held close a baby wearing a white cap festooned with July the Fourth ribbons.

When I think of that contrast of life and death over this holiday weekend, it is with the soundscape of the Joni Mitchell song “Both Sides” playing in my mind.

Particularly its lyrics:

“I've looked at life from both sides now

From win and lose and still somehow

It's life's illusions I recall

I really don't know life at all.”

This year of 2020 has shown us all that none of us know what will be around the next corner. Who would have ever thought that churches and restaurants would be closed? July Fourth parades and fireworks canceled - or at least severely curtailed?

And that a pandemic would sweep through the earth changing our way of lives; closing our institutions; postponing life events: separating us from family?

Looking at this year from both sides though, who would have thought that we would have so much time to clean our houses?

Bake sourdough, banana, and in my case, pumpkin bread?

To do jigsaws?

To eat together - in some of our cases - virtually?

To be the giver and receiver of a myriad kindnesses - out-workings of caring and love?

In this pandemic season we all have seen both sides of life and love and fear. As the Good Book says where there is darkness there is also great light. John 1:5 declares

“The light shines in the darkness and the darkness can never extinguish it.”

Hurrah!

So even though, like Joni Mitchell, we might not know life at all, certainly not life in this new Coronavirus era, we can count on a few things. That the good we do, the kindness we spread, has more of an impact on pushing back the darkness than we can ever imagine.

So carry on baking, and gifting that comfort;

Knitting socks and sending them to surprised delighted recipients;

Reading a book to a child, yours or others, in person or over the web.

Write a note, send a card;

Leave tomatoes from your garden on someone’s door step,

Phone a long lost friend.

In a season when at times we feel powerless, let us push back the darkness with those things that are in our power to do. Something that might be simple for us, yet might mean the world to someone else. As simple as threading a ribbon through a baby cap.

When we join our pinpricks of light, of goodness together we will have a mighty light.

Our future might still be uncertain. We do not know what it will bring. But of one thing we can count on. The God of light and love will be there rejoicing at how we have fought fear and spread goodness one small action at a time.

How we have spread His light.

With great delight he will provide for us abundantly. That is His promise.

So whatever it holds. No matter what side we look at it from.

The future will be good.

Pandemic Parables: Regression

Pandemic Parables: Regression
Thursday July 2nd 2020

Some wonderful backward steps have been going on in the hospital in Frederick, Maryland, where I am working as a Resident Chaplain until the end of August. As of yesterday there are only five confirmed Coronavirus patients in the hospital.

That’s it!

There is no one under investigation, and one hundred and ninety-one virus positive patients have been released so far. This is the lowest number of Covid-19 patients in the hospital since the very early days of the pandemic.

My insides did a somersault of joy when I read that news.

(But the chaplains are praying fervently for medical centers in other parts of the country where Covid-19 cases are on the upsurge.)

Meanwhile in our hospital there has been a dialing back – a regression – on other fronts also.

The gowns!

It is widely known that there has been a major shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE), particularly disposable gowns, throughout the country during this pandemic. (It is one of the main reasons that chaplains have not been able to go into any isolation rooms – whether the patient has Covid-19 or any other type of virus.)

There has been such a lack that some places resorted to having their medical staff wear trash bags to enter Coronavirus patients’ rooms.

Horror upon horrors!

Thanks to our wonderful volunteers stepping up and making gowns, and a supply of hairdresser style long capes that seemed to miraculously appear, that never happened at our hospital.

Work has been going on feverishly behind the scenes to source disposable gowns. Yesterday we discovered via an update email that the Procurement Team has been successful. The hospital now has – wait for it – one hundred and seventy thousand disposable isolation gowns in their supply chain! They use about a thousand gowns a day, apparently, which means that they have a hundred and seventy-day supply.

Because of that they are going to start transitioning back to disposable gowns.

The email also said that the hospital was in the process of stocking “…a year supply of medical grade reusable gowns. These will be stored for use in the event of an unforeseen supply chain disruption, similar to what we experienced with COVID-19”.

The inventiveness, dedication, and ingenuity of the senior leadership has been inspirational to behold. We have been well led during this season.

An aside.

A large placard on a stand appeared outside the offices used by the CEO and the other top brass a couple of weeks ago. Their doors are on the second floor abutting a corridor with high foot traffic. It is a main artery to the staff parking garage.

The sign says: “Thank you to our Senior Leaders. Your exemplary leadership has encouraged and inspired everyone at Frederick Health.”

I smile at it when I pass by several times a day, and always nod in agreement. 

Back to the gowns!

I had the email at the top of my mind when I walked past the volunteer conference room with its twenty-four seater, enormous, oval wooden table. There was the volunteer director and her assistant folding gown upon reusable gown that had been delivered early that morning crumpled from the makeshift downstairs laundry. They have been doing this for weeks.

“Your folding days are coming to an end I understand,” I said.

Without missing a beat in her folding rhythm the director said: “Yes! There are far fewer gowns today, and hopefully there will be less each day as they soil the stock they have and transition into their disposable supply.”

Pointing to the stack of neatly folded gowns she continued: “Our incredible volunteers have made seven thousand of them. Well almost. They have all been cut out and some are still being sown. They will be stored as the email said, in case we ever need them in a similar crisis in the future.

May that never happen!

I was amazed by the sheer volume! “Seven thousand!”

“Yes,” said the director, “Many of the volunteers originally thought they were going to make cloth masks but they were presented with boxes and boxes of plastic, elastic, and glue and were told they were assembling face shields instead. And they pitched right in and did so. And then we came to the shortage of the gowns. As I told you before, someone in the department who is a master seamstress designed the prototype gown, made the pattern, and passed it on to those volunteers who can sew. They are over in the Annex right now. Still sewing!”

“I am so impressed!” I said.

The director nodded, smiling. Yes,” she responded. They want to get every last gown finished before they leave. Most of the team are in their 80’s but there is one spry young thing in her 40’s. They decided to use this time as an opportunity to teach the community how to sew. So we put out advertisements everywhere publicizing free sewing classes. Guess how many we got?”

I had no idea.

“One! One person responded,” said the director. Well two really. The person who wanted to learn was under eighteen so she had to come with her mother.”

Such a missed opportunity! But I sympathized. I never learned to sew because I was always scared of the sounds the machines made…

Once again I marveled at the folded stacks of gowns, and the selfless industriousness, and dedication of the team that had come together to create such needed largess.

Then I remembered that my nurse practitioner friend told me that when she had a meeting in the new hospital annex, she passed by the cafeteria. Peeking in, she was astonished to see elderly ladies socially distancing and sewing feverishly.

“I felt like I’d stumbled into a secret sweat shop,” she said. Except they were all laughing and having a marvelous time in front of their machines while chatting up a storm. I had no idea what was going on until later.”

The intensity of work that has gone on by dedicated volunteers over the last few months is extraordinary.

I asked the director how we could ensure that no one forgets. Especially now that we are regressing back to the way we were – at least as far as gowns are concerned.

“Well!” she said. “The head volunteer, who has been leading this effort, is talented in so many ways. And it turns out that one of her passions is scrap booking. So she has photographed and documented this whole Coronavirus volunteer aid program step by step from the first days.”

That’s when a thought hit me. A friend of mine, whom I love dearly, is on the library board of the Smithsonian. She told me that they were looking for diaries and descriptions of everyday life during the Coronavirus. They will become first hand sources for researchers in the future.

I excitedly told the director about the Smithsonian project. 

"Wouldn’t it be incredible if they took the scrapbook” She exclaimed.

“Yes!” I declared. "Lord! Let it be. Let it be.”

“That will put a pep in the volunteers’ steps” said the director. “Understandably they are exhausted. They are starting to fade. The thought of their work inspiring future generations will delight them to the last stitch!”

I walked away grinning at the thought and continued doing my daily rounds.

I began thinking about the word “regression.” We might be able to go backwards when it comes to gowns – although the hospital has a current stock unlike anything they had before – but we can’t go back in other things.

Our realities have changed.

In many ways we will have to let go of the certainties of the past to grasp hold of a still uncertain future.

It reminds me of a time, many years ago when I worked as one of the sixteen pastors at what was then the largest church in England. The senior pastor had been a ballet dancer with the Royal Ballet. In other words he had danced at the highest levels and was incredibly flexible. One time he illustrated a point during another staff member’s sermon. The central verse was Philippians 3:13 “…Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead.”

The Senior Pastor leapt on the stage in his well-cut suit and moved one leg back as though it was determined to stay in the past, and let the other go forward as though embracing the future. Much to the delight of the thousand seater multinational church he ended up doing the splits. It illustrated beautifully, and with no material tearing, that we can’t go forward if we are still attached to the past.

I proved that to myself in a far less elegant way the other day. I was racing out of the office when my jacket got caught on the door. The jacket was made from stretchy material and so I plunged forward before being jerked to a standstill. Laughing, I literally let myself off the hook, released what was holding me back, before going onward. 

We have all endured so much during this Coronavirus season. Summer is now here and we long for the rituals of past years.

Cook outs. Fireworks. Gatherings of family and friends.

We want to go to restaurants, and theaters, and cinemas, and not have to worry about infecting others or being infected. We want to go back to an easier simpler time.

A few months ago.

Back when there were certainties, and income, and what now seems like relative peace of mind.

But we can’t. That land of yesterday doesn’t exist anymore.

The future is uncertain. But even so, may we embrace whatever is coming with a sense of anticipation. An adventure in the making.

May we know deep inside the marrow of our bones that as things have worked out in the past, so they will in the future.

Our worlds are being shaken, and shaken, and shaken some more. May the dust, and grit, and grime of our lives fall through the Divine Miner’s sieve leaving nuggets of gold behind.

May we remember who we are, and why we were created. What gives us joy.

And may we have the courage to pursue that wholeheartedly. In a way, regress to the real version of ourselves, before we were forced to put on emotional armor to survive.

And we may we know with great certainty, and in new ways, daily – that the God who made us to be fulfilled, and creative, and living life abundantly, is there in our future. And that He, the Lord, high above all other lords, is longing for us to finally become all that He created us to be.

So whatever form our tomorrows take. No matter what has been stripped away.

What remains will be good.

Pandemic Parables: The Right Thing

Pandemic Parables: The Right Thing
Monday June 29, 2020

Yet another change, a scaling back, happened today in the hospital in Frederick, MD where I am working as a Resident Chaplain until the end of August. The friendly faces that for the past few weeks took your temperature as you entered the building have all gone.

They were the ones who cheerily greeted both staff, same day surgery patients, and the few visitors that are allowed. They asked about any possible Covid-19 symptoms, and gave out colored bands that went around wrists or badges to prove you had passed under their vigilant gaze.

They are no longer.

They have been replaced by a machine.

Ah, the way of the world!

From today staff have to take their temperature at home and stay there if it is 100 degrees or more. Before starting to work they must swipe their badge against a newly installed reader to attest that they have indeed taken their temperature that day and are free from Coronavirus symptoms. Anyone who is not staff will have temperatures checked by the security officers at the main foyer, which is the only entrance that is open, besides the Emergency Department.

So first thing this morning I took my temperature. It was normal.

There was a nurse sitting by the new check in device to guide people through the change.

“What happens if people swipe without having taking their temperature?” I asked.

“Well,” she said, “they will have lied.”

“Do you think they will?” I said.

“Oh yes, people do.” She responded matter-of-factly. “Of course that is not the right thing to do.”

Later I was in Same Day Surgery responding to a Code Blue – called when someone is in danger of dying. The teamwork of the medical staff, their intense dedication, never ceases to amaze me.

I prayed. They worked. The patent lived. Glory!

Afterwards, when the adrenaline had dispersed I overheard a conversation between a couple of nursing assistants who had been observing this medical miracle.

“Did you take your temperature this morning? Really?”

“Yes, I did,” responded the other nurse just behind a curtain and out of my sight. There was a long pause. And then she added, “I really did take it, but after I did, it broke. I managed to break the thermometer!”

I have a feeling that this taking your temperature at home development might not go as smoothly as first envisioned.

In the meantime, the front foyer seems peculiarly empty without the lovely rotating teams who used to sit beside the white, ginormous space divider, greeting people on their way in and out from work.

Let me tell you about that divider.

Several weeks ago, a long, tall, white, narrow, temporary construction structure – a Goliath-sized divider - with a tent like ceiling, sprung up in the hospital’s airy main foyer. It appeared almost overnight like a giant field mushroom and snaked from the covered car park entrance to the main front door. It is still there.

At the time I thought it would have something to do with providing a private space for temperature testing. This was a couple of days before the procedure began. But no, as I was to discover, the screening happened at a station in the shadow of the behemoth.

The screening that is now no more.

For ages I had no idea what that divider was dividing or why.

Then I discovered that a shoulder height, decorative wall that will be topped with plants is being built. Thus ensuring that all visitors and staff with have to pass by the main security desk on their way into the hospital. No more taking a short cut through the Same Day Surgery waiting area.

The project is shrouded in a construction shell to keep debris contained. Unfortunately, this doesn’t stop the intense building noise that seems to happen sporadically.

A few days ago one of the wonderful hospice nurses, that I admire so much, grabbed me.

“I need you,” she said. “Come with me to the foyer.”

It turned out that an older patient had died, and his fairly young offspring wanted to sign the necessary papers without entering a clinical area.

Not everyone likes hospitals.

These young people were shaken. They had seen their father the day before. They knew he was near the end. Everything that needed to be said, was said. He let them know he loved them. Was interested in them and what they were doing.

That’s how they wanted to remember him.

Still, they were grateful when I suggested praying for them, and also committing their father’s spirit to the Lord. We settled in to pray. A hush came over the group. I was about to open my mouth and let out the first word when ferocious drilling and clattering started up from the white edifice directly behind us.

“Wait one moment,” declared the nurse, her face above her mask displaying grim determination.

The noise was so loud we could hardly hear her.

“I’ll get that to stop.”

Much to the amazement of the security guards, the temperature testers, and all in the foyer, she succeeded. This nurse is a tall, elegant, willowy figure, with beautifully coiffed hair, white before its time. She swept across the space, found a door into the construction shell, and swung it open. Then with a finger slash across the throat and a palm raised with five fingers displayed, conveyed to the astonished workmen to lay off the noise for a little.

They took one look at the determination on her face and obeyed.

They definitely did the right thing.

Don’t mess with a hospice nurse when she is looking after the welfare of her patients and their families!

This is the same nurse who told me a couple of weeks ago that she was astonished and perturbed, when going into public places beyond the hospital, to see that people weren’t wearing masks.

People in the hospital are used to wearing masks. It was always normal for the medical staff – but now everyone has to wear a cloth mask to enter the building, and walk through its halls. (However the rules have been relaxed, which means chaplains no longer have to be double masked when seeing patients. My N95 is gathering dust in a shelf in in our office – and I am grateful for that grace.)

Back to the intrepid Hospice nurse.

“I felt unsafe when I was outside and saw people milling around without masks,” she said. And I felt afraid for them. Maybe it is because we have insider knowledge. We know what Covid-19 will do even to a healthy body.”

The same thought was expressed to me recently by a charge nurse on 3B, the section of my floor that now has Coronavirus patients.

“We wear masks everywhere we go outside the hospital because we know the suffering the virus can cause,” she said. “It’s the right thing to do. And besides, if other people saw what we see daily they’d all be wearing masks. Truly”

This section of the hospital has only had the virus patients for the last few weeks. They were originally housed in a sealed off section on the same floor. That has now reverted back to orthopedics, and the Covid-19 patients have all moved to one corridor of this unit.

I asked one of the nurses on 3B what it was like to come late to the party. So much focus was given to the medical staff in the isolation wings at the beginning of the pandemic. Food and gifts poured in, given by grateful hospital staff, and the local community. As we have all become adapted to the pandemic in our midst, that is no longer happening.

It always amazes me how the human psyche adapts.

The nurse smiled. “One of my floor supervisors said that we got the Covid patients when Covid wasn’t cool.” We both laughed.

“But seriously,” she said. “The medical staff in the isolation wings were the ones who took on all the risks – when we didn’t know anything. They paved the way for us. We are learning new things every day. We were frightened at first, but now we have got into a routine and just get on with the work.”

Another nurse joined in. “We have to put on all the PPE when we go into the rooms. It can get very hot and uncomfortable, so we try to get everything done at one time and really space our visits. The patients are really, really sick when they come in. But once they start to get better they are lonely. We organize face time for them with their family, but still, when we enter their rooms they don’t want us to leave. It breaks my heart.”

The way these nurses adapt to different situations always showing grace, care, and love continually impresses and inspires me.

Talking about adapting.

During these last few Coronavirus months we have all had to adapt enormously. We have been hit with a barrage of information – some of which seems to contradict itself.

These are exhausting times.

We have had to give up so much that was familiar, reassuring. Things that we never thought would be taken from our lives. Hugs, church services, toilet paper.

There have been so many sacrifices.

Not seeing vulnerable family members when everything in us ached to see them.

Endlessly using our talents so that we can share with others – baking, making masks, gowns, face shields.

Cancelling plans for festivities, festivals, rights of passages and vacations that have sometimes been years in the making.

Sheltering in place with too many people, or no one, and the frustration or loneliness that come with those scenarios.

Incomes slashed.

Loss upon loss upon loss.

And it seems like just when it was safe to go out, in some areas of the nation the virus is starting up all over again.

Many of us are asking how long? How much more can we endure?

There is a huge desire to have it all behind us. Burst out of confinement. Shake off oppression of all kinds. But, as I keep reminding myself - Geraldine, you’ve come so far. Don’t give up now.

May none of us stumble at the last fence.

I believe this is a time of reaping and sowing. Some people might call it karma.

All the sacrifices, the tears, the determination to carry on amidst emotional pain, have not been for nothing. We are being changed. Prepared for our futures – the futures that have always been ordained for us - in a boot camp that we didn’t see coming.

I want to sow good things. Because I want to reap good things. I don’t want to lie or steal someone else’s health. I’d hate to reap those consequences.

So I’ll take my temperature every morning to make sure I don’t infect anyone at work.

And wear a mask in public for the same reason. Let us all do so.

Although it’s a pain, a hassle. It is the right thing to do. Who would willingly send anyone to be under the care of the wonderful nurses in the Covid-19 wing of any hospital? Or be a patient there themselves.

The Good Book says in Galatians 6:9 – “… let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up.”

The Lord’s promises are yes and amen. He loves us with a love that is more than we can possible comprehend.

Let us all hang on in there. The future is close.

And it will be good.

Pandemic Parables: Hidden

Pandemic Parable: Hidden
Thursday, June 25, 2020

I am unearthing things that are hidden, or at least not obvious on the surface, in the hospital in Frederick, Maryland, where I am working as a Resident Chaplain until the end of August.

For example, I knew that there was a medical library that was located somewhere within the main campus. It was mentioned in the vast amount of literature I was given on starting at the hospital. Recently I wanted to track down a magazine article I had heard of.  But no one I asked seemed to know where the library was, or if it even existed.  Finally, one of the other chaplains said:

“I think I heard that it is on the second floor.  But I have no idea whereabouts.  And I don’t know anyone who has ever been.”

And he is assigned to that floor…

My curiosity was aroused.

I sensed a mystery.

In my head I had visions of a Harry Potter scenario.  One where you needed to summon up faith and walk through a brick wall to find the platform, and the train, that would take you to Hogwarts…

Wanting to get my 10,000 steps in daily, I regularly walk along the long corridors of the second floor before taking the stairs to the third, one of my allotted areas.  These hallways are social worker and administrative assistant land.  Many of the doors have remained shut, the offices behind them empty, during the height of the pandemic. However, a couple of weeks ago one of the assistants returned.  I’ve been seeing her through her open door when I pass by.

I had a feeling she would be the keeper of the secret.

She was.

“Come with me,” she said and led me to a blank white wall tucked around a corner, away from the main flow of foot traffic. 

Inset was a door I’d never noticed before.  It had a sign on it that said:

“Medical Staff Suite. Physicians Entrance.”

“See if your badge works the key pad,” she said.

It didn’t.

“Well, mine does,” she said swiping her badge, and opening the door.  She stood back. “The library is at the end of the hall on the right,” she declared, then left.

Behind that door was a whole different world. A bubble of peaceful comfort.

Suddenly I remembered being twelve and attending a girl’s convent boarding school in England. I had an accident involving a glass window pane being accidentally broken by my wrist. I was pouring blood, and the cookery teacher, a mother of six children - thank goodness - who happened to be passing, went into action. She threw the casserole she was carrying up in the air, grabbed my arm, flung it above my head, and ran me through the nuns' part of the building to get immediate help.

The nuns' section was a secret space much speculated about by my school mates. It was an area shrouded in mystery.

I wasn’t worried about the blood. I wanted to absorb every detail of my surroundings so that I could report back.

Too many decades later I felt exactly the same way.

Beyond the door in the blank wall on the second floor was a full kitchen, a lounge with comfortable chairs, an office section with work stations.

Doctors lounged, worked, ate.

I tried to look confidently medical, and invisible at the same time as I headed down the open corridor towards the back of the space. My ploy worked.  No one seemed to notice me.

A shut door had an attached sign that said it was the library.  A free standing notice barred entry saying a meeting was taking place within.

No!

So I didn’t get in to see the inner, inner sanctum. I didn’t find the magazine article.

But in an odd way I felt that the hospital was giving up its secrets.

I began to wonder why I was so excited to find a hidden section of the hospital.

Perhaps because it mirrors what has been happening in my life. While doing this residency I have become aware of previously unseen old patterns and current triggers. This revelation, and the resulting healing has brought me to a new level of awareness and freedom, which will help me enormously as I go forward.

Also, I have penetrated what was for me the mysterious veil of hospital life. I have become more familiar with grief, death, dedication, and love in action.

We have all learned so much through this harrowing Coronavirus time. True character has been on display. Insecurities and fears have risen to the surface on a wave of exhaustion. But we are still standing. We have endured more than we ever thought we would have to.

Maybe in some mysterious way we are all slipping behind a Harry Potter wall in our lives.

Doors will be opened for us. And if they are not the walls will melt away.

I keep knowing, saying, and believing deep within me that the Lord will make a way for us, even when there seems to be no way.

The lessons we have learned during this pandemic, and the insights we have gleaned are not for nothing.

We are on our way to a new destination. A new chapter in our lives.

And though things aren’t clear yet – the library has not yet been entered – we know what direction to go in.

And we know the space behind the wall, like our futures, is good.