Difficult Seasons

Lifeline Chaplaincy is an organization I’m very close to, and I’m thrilled that the five professional chaplains are now writing regularly for The Lifeline Chaplaincy Blog.

Lifeline was founded 25 years ago to help meet the pastoral care needs of patients coming to Houston and in particular to the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center for treatment.  Folks come to the Texas Medical Center from literally all over the world.  They’re often here for extended periods, far away from family and friends and their churches — their support networks.  Lifeline’s goal is to help fill the gap.

While Lifeline started at M.D. Anderson, it now serves the other four major hospitals in the Texas Medical Center as well.  And during the past few years, Lifeline has expanded to Dallas, the Texas Hill Country, and most recently to Ft. Worth.  Each office is led by a professional chaplain, who is assisted by groups of volunteers who provide pastoral care (lay chaplaincy) in the various hospitals.  I serve as one of these volunteers here in Houston, and also help train new volunteers.

Those of you who have read this blog on a frequent basis know that much of what I write about comes from my experiences while serving with Lifeline.  About a year ago, I began encouraging my friends at Lifeline to also begin sharing through their own blog, as well as beginning to use other social media to better communicate with their constituencies.

The blog has recently come to life, and the content being published is amazing.

I’m not surprised.  The five guys doing the writing are all amazing people.  They have caring hearts, tons of practical expertise, and gifts of communication.  I have great respect and love for each of them, and I love getting to read something from them each week.

I think you will too.  If you haven’t already clicked on the Lifeline Blog link, do yourself a favor and do so now, and while you’re there subscribe.

We communicate to every person we pass in the hall, encounter in a restaurant or store, or share space with wherever.

We either communicate to each person that they have value, or we communicate to them that they don’t have value to us.

If we make eye contact and smile, we communicate in a very strong way that we have recognized their presence, and that we are pleased to share space with them, if even for a moment.

If we avoid eye contact and a smile or nod, then we likewise communicate in a very strong way.  Except this time the message that person receives is, “I don’t recognize your presence, or if I do, I don’t think you’re worthy of my even brief attention.”

There is no neutral.

I was reminded of this truth again yesterday in a series of Twitter posts by Kay Swain (@sandwichINK).  Kay was writing about some time she spent in a wheel chair, and how people would avoid eye contact and act if she wasn’t even present.  Since Kay writes about caregiving, she was applying the importance of being aware for when those we care for end up in wheelchairs.  Kay’s working hard on making eye contact and smiling now.  She learned the lesson first hand.  Thanks for the reminder, Kay!

Then this morning, my friend David Martin, a chaplain in the Fort Worth area for Lifeline Chaplaincy, wrote an article on the same subject in the Lifeline Chaplaincy blog.  David titled the post, Too Easy to Dismiss.  He also talked about people in wheel chairs, but broadened it to anyone who is “different.”  (It’s perfectly fine with me if you click on David’s link and read it before you finish my post.)

This is one of those subjects it would be easy to rant about.  But I won’t, in part because it’s something I have to continually work on.  So rather than preaching, I’ll settle for asking a couple of questions of myself and you as well.

1. What do we communicate about ourselves when we fail to notice, make eye contact with, and give a smile or nod to everyone we share space with, even briefly?
2. What do we communicate about those people to those people we fail to acknowledge?
3. Do we really want to be that kind of person?

I’m sitting at Panera Bread as I write this.  A young lady in the next booth is also writing, and as she got up and went to refresh her drink, we made eye contact and both smiled.  It wasn’t hard, it only took a second, and it felt good.

Won’t you join me in working on this?

When we have suffered a loss and as we move through the grieving that follows, we often express in words what we’ve lost.

Twitter Post by Karen Putz

I was reminded that sometimes how we describe our loss surprises others when I saw this Twitter post by Karen Putz (@deafmom) earlier this week.  Karen’s dad has esophageal cancer, and hasn’t really been able to eat normally for the last couple of months.  So in retrospect, his response to the doctor is right on, but it probably surprised everyone when he said it.

As we’re grieving a loss, we tend to express that loss in ways that are highly personal to us — in ways that truly describe what we miss dearly, and would like to have back.  It’s part of the longing for phase of grief.  Karen’s dad longs to be able to eat his wife’s cooking again — both because it’s good, and because that would mean that he’s dealt successfully with his cancer.

One of my favorite questions while visiting patients in the hospital has become, “What one thing are you praying for today?”

I ask that question for lots of reasons.  It helps me target my prayer with the person to pray specifically for what they want most that day.  There’s often a powerful connection between us as we join together in prayer with the words, “God, my prayer is _____ ‘s prayer.”  And it often provides an opportunity to talk about the real issue the person is struggling with that day.

Karen’s post reminded me of a recent visit.  When I first entered the room, most of my conversation was with the patient’s husband.  The patient was having some pain, and just wasn’t engaging.  But when I asked her if she’d like to pray, and specifically what her biggest request was, she jumped in and took over the conversation.  Her request was simple:  ”I want to be able to go back home and take care of my 101-year old mother, and help my sister get there so she can help.”  It represented both what she had lost, and what was important to her.  As we prayed together, she verbally reinforced my words with her “Amen’s” and “Yes, Lord’s.”

It was a special moment for all of us.  Her greatest desire had been heard and then expressed in prayer.

Karen’s post is one reason I’m active on Twitter — I’m always learning, and often being reminded of what’s important.  Asking good questions like Karen’s dad’s doctor did is important.

Thanks for the Twitter post, Karen.  And I am praying that your dad gets to eat your mom’s good cooking soon!

This week started with a migraine headache on Sunday morning.

We were driving to church, and about half way there, the aura began.  So we made an unplanned stop to buy some Advil, the medicine that works best for me.  I took some, and we went on to church, then a meeting with our family caregiving support group, and then to lunch with Dad and Sara.  The migraine wasn’t gone, but it was dulled.

It bounced back on Monday, and again on Tuesday.  Not bad for a migraine, like they used to be when I was younger.  But migraines anyway.

I’ve always accepted migraines as a message — one that says I’m not doing a good job taking care of myself.  I already knew that before this week’s warning messages.  I’ve been writing about and working on self care for a few weeks now.  But it takes some time and effort to turn things around.  And other things don’t wait for that to occur before they happen — like my Dad’s cancer diagnosis last week.

So this week, I’ve redoubled my efforts at self care.  And I’m getting some support from my friend Jon Swanson, who’s writing about his approach to the same issues.

Having worked as a life coach, I know the elements of self care well.  Practicing them is often more difficult.

Self care starts with getting rid of Tolerations, those things that we are putting up with, but which bug us, bother us, upset us, worry us, and so forth.  Most people can write a list of 25 tolerations in less than 5 minutes, which is quite telling in itself.

So Monday I made a short list of tolerations that also had a urgency component, and started working on them.  Between my headache and generally bad attitude, it was sort of like slogging through knee-high mud.  But I kept at it and made some progress.  Tuesday I picked back up where I had left off, and made some more progress.  And Wednesday, and Thursday, and Friday and today — more of the same.

I’d made enough progress by Wednesday that the headaches went away, and, my attitude about things was much improved.  I was feeling good about some of the things I had gotten handled, hopeful that I could handle what was to come.  We capped the week by cleaning and reorganizing the garage.  The car even fits again.

Getting rid of tolerations — many of which involve clutter and disorganization — is a big piece of self care.  It’s amazing how much more peaceful we feel when things are in order, when things are where they’re supposed to be, when the stuff we don’t need has been disposed of.

It’s taking care of stuff like cleaning the garage.  And cleaning out our closet, getting rid of the stuff we no longer wear, organizing the things we do wear.  And cleaning out my office, filing the piles into folders so that they can be easily retrieved, throwing out what is no longer needed, getting rid of things that I might find a use for some day.  And the list goes on.

Why does working on tolerations help?

1. We’re working on things we have some control over, and we can see progress.
2. We’re simplifying and organizing the things that otherwise bother us every day.
3. We’re spending time and effort taking care of ourselves.

There’ll be progress reports as I keep working on it.

I’ve been writing about self care.  You might want to look at this and also this as background.

We live near an elementary school.  So when I step out on the back porch during the day, I’m often greeted by the shrill delight of school children enjoying recess.  I suspect some of the activities are organized games, as the sounds I hear are cheers.  Other times, I’m pretty sure it’s just kids doing what they do at recess, and expressing their joy at the fun they’re having together on a break from the serious stuff they’ve been focused on in the classroom.

A couple of things generally occur to me as I listen to them.

1.  The noise coming from the school playground can best be described as pure joy.  They’re having fun, and they’re expressing their joy with squeals and screams and they’re loud about it.

2.  I find myself wondering why they get to have recess, but the rest of us don’t.

I remember recess.  It was a long, long time ago, and my memory is not the kind that generally remembers specific details.  But I remember recess, both in my early school years in Abilene and later elementary years in Sioux City.  In fact, as I try to remember my elementary years, specific memories can probably be counted on both hands — and recess pictures are about a third of the total.  It was that important.  I’ll bet if you just close your eyes for a moment, you’ll be able to remember recess too!

So if recess was that important, why isn’t it still important?  Why does recess end with elementary school.  Does the need for recess end?  Does the value of recess end?  I don’t think so.

Just because attention span increases a little, and our ability to sit still increases (again a little), our need for breaks that that make us squeal with joy don’t end.  But seemingly, we’ve structured life as if it did.

As part of good self care, I’m challenging myself — and you — to re-establish recess in our lives.

So if we’re going to re-establish recess, what are some of the ground rules?

1. Recess is something we have to do with other people.
2. Recess has to be doing something that brings squeals of joy, of delight.
3. Recess has to be fun.
4. Recess has to occur daily.

Since it’s been a long time since I’ve been part of recess, maybe you can help me think of some ways we can have recess now.  Comments are open!