I was a chaplain in big city hospitals, including a treatment center for recovering addicts. I had to self-advocate with the Director of the center. Yes, I will organize counselors and groups for all kinds of issues and will supervise staff on request. No, chaplains do not sell any single religion; instead we acknowledge, advocate, and serve as a presence on staff to acknowledge and care for and about spiritual health—connectedness to a Higher Power, the intimate value of Soul, and Prayerfulness.
I impressed myself!
“But these people often feel lost and angry at the church or alienated. They don’t want any religion!” the Director said.
Imagine having to lobby for God? But lobby I did, and LO! The Center magically found the money to hire me as a part-time chaplain, and even make room for a small private office—no, not a closet—with a nameplate on the door, saying CHAPLAIN. I was only part-time, so I had to make sure that I honored the self-definition I’d designed with such jaunty bravado.
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My very first patient was a young girl in her late twenties. She didn’t knock but barged into my small office, sat down, crossed her arms, frowned, and did not respond to my gushingly friendly greeting. I idiotically asked her why she was here, and she exploded.”I don’t need any goddamn god shoved down my throat!!” I said a quiet little prayer to this “goddamn god” and pushed back: “What do you need?” “Nothing from you, you goddamn religious freak!”
Well okay then . . .
I ushered her out, resisting my urge to kick her butt. Then I went to the bathroom for a private cry all my own. God, help me! I thought to quit. I was inadequate. I cannot do this job. Why did I ASK to be called chaplain! I straightened up and said to myself, “Well, fuck her, too!” Then I went to see the Director to resign and and failed at that, too. On the way home I felt my spine tighten up and I cursed God as I drove. “Dammit, where were you when I needed you?”
Hearing nothing from God, receiving lots of love and loving from the omnipresent stuffed fluffy owl-of-my-soul. I regained strength enough to stay on, to be a chaplain, to become what my first patient hated, and even to wear my favorite necklace, a gold cross with an empty space where the crucified body of Jesus usually was. I learned to say the F word when absolutely necessary. Such an opportunity arose during my Spirituality talk. A young black man blasted God with the F word, and I returned the favor: “Shut up and sit down, Sir. I’ve listened to your bullshit. Now it’s time for you to sit down, shut the f**k up, and listen to mine!” He sat down and grinned. Sometimes, you just have to use language—the kind we still bowderlize with * * as if that worked!
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Chaplain Margaret Kibben, now acting chaplain of the House of Representatives, has spent much of her long career as a U.S. Navy chaplain in camouflage. Often it has been the sailors and Marines she has ministered to who haven’t always known how to decipher exactly who they are meeting.
In a recent interview, Kibben recalled a day in the late 1990s at Camp LeJeune, in North Carolina, when she overheard a Marine ask a comrade, “Who the * * * *was that?” Later in the day, after learning that Kibben was a chaplain, he asked, “Hey chaplain, got a minute?” It led to a chance for them to speak privately about his personal challenges.
“For me, that is quintessential chaplaincy,” said the Presbyterian Church (USA) minister and former chief of chaplains of the Navy, the 26th person and the first woman to fill the role. “You are where it matters, when it matters, with what matters. And sometimes the ‘when’ goes over a whole day, sometimes the ‘where’ takes you on a hike and into a camp post, but wherever or whenever you are, you’re there with what matters, and that’s an ear and a safe place and an opportunity to let that person be who they are and to be received with love and grace and mercy in those moments.” (from Religious News Services RNS)
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This is why I advocate for chaplaincy services for ALL people, aging or drunks or teens or kindergarteners. It is omni-important to use the title Chaplain, because it indicates that this person has religious training and identity alongside psychological training.
I am now aging. I live with people in a community for all people who are aging in place—independently. I know that there are many challenges for this group, and I know how proud they/we are about NEVER needing as much help as they/we really do and admitting that trifold care for body, mind and spirit is non-denominationally religious.
Aging with grace is our last job on this earth. So let’s do it with both grit and grace and without fear!
