I found myself challenged this week in encounters with patients. It is hard for those who are themselves healthy and who do not work in a hospital to realize the immensity of the luck of being well. Each day I see people who not only have degenerative disease or stroke or paralysis or brain tumor or any of a host of conditions that brought them to the hospital, but also none has ceased to have the problems of ordinary life that they had to deal with even without being sick: divorce, death of loved ones, losses to disasters, economic challenges, legal difficulties, psychological traumas - you name it! And some patients come to the hospital because they have been subjected to physical violence. Sometimes, patients have so many kinds of problems piled on top of another heap of health problems that it can be difficult not being struck dumb by the great pain of it all.
Sometimes I can only feel helpless at their side.
And then, sometimes there is an experience of grace. Sometimes I manage to focus the patient's thoughts, beliefs, and faith toward a way - consistent with who they are, whether religious or not, whether speaking a different spiritual vocabulary than I do or not - of coping with those realities beyond their control and attempting to reassert a bit of control where possible. It doesn't always happen, of course. Sometimes, the only significant thing I can do is be present.
But sometimes grace appears.
And then I begin again with another patient with his or her own complex array of health issues and life issues, with his or her own mix of beliefs, fears, hopes, faith, practices, community - or lack thereof. And I start over. From the beginning.
Some nights I fall asleep in the middle of my supper...
But on Monday, when I got home from the day's challenges, I checked my messages and found that my oldest daughter and her husband had just adopted a newborn. Their first child. And their first message about it was not in the planning but after the final hearing at which the birth mother had the opportunity to change her mind. I was dumbstruck! And so happy! And proud! Josie Lundstedt, born June 7, 2011, my third grandchild!
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| Josie Lundstedt Born June 7, 2011 |
I didn't fall asleep in my supper that night...
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7:00 PM, Sunday, June 19, 2011
Trinity Episcopal Church
Compline
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| Trinity Episcopal Church Euclid Ave. at Washington Ave., St. Louis MO |
Last Sunday evening, I walked the eight blocks (1.2 miles) from my apartment to Trinity Episcopal Church for Compline. As I entered, at the back of the nave were piano and cello, which provided the music for the service. At the front of the nave, at the bottom of the six or so steps up into the chancel, were the seats of the choir. four rows of three, facing each other. And down the center between them, a prayer rail draped in rainbow colors and white pillar candles on black iron pedestals, each unique.
I was greeted by those present, told they were very informal - indeed, some were in shorts and sandals - and just to take a seat in the choir wherever I wanted. When everyone had arrived, we were one more persons than chairs, so the deacon sat in the first pew facing the choir.
We began together in silence, used the "Order of Compline" from the Book of Common Prayer (1979), interspersed with additional readings expressive of the experience and struggle of LGBTQ persons. The classical selections played by the pianist and cellist were skillfully and movingly rendered. And the mix of spoken, chanted, and briefly sung words of the choir brought the day to a perfect close, as Compline is supposed to do.
I met the priest and stayed late talking with the deacon, who had gone through CPE at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in the previous year. Then I walked back to the apartment to prepare for the following day...
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Wednesday afternoon, June 22, 2011
St. Louis Art Museum
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| St. Louis Art Museum Forest Park, St. Louis MO |
Having served as triage chaplain (on-call) for the second shift Tuesday after a full daytime shift on my floor, I had Wednesday off. After my previous dissatisfying visit to the art museum, I returned - both to make sure I wasn't ruined for the experience of the arts somehow by the experience of chaplaincy and in the hope of experiencing the communion with the aesthetic ancestors that the museum offers. It was a beautiful day, sun shining, delightfully cool temperatures. I parked down the hill from the museum again and enjoyed the walk up. Inside the museum, I went directly to a favorite to see whether I had recalibrated after the previous visit:
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| Portrait of a Florentine Nobleman, detail by Francesco Salviati |
Fortunately, I found I had. It was delightful as ever. I even found joy in a Degas bronze-gauze-satin sculpture that had never done much for me before:
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| Little Dancer of Fourteen Years by Edgar Degas |
This time, when I heard Sister Wendy's voice in my head replaying the line, "You have a cold heart, Mr. Degas," I couldn't believe it. This little dancer seemed so poised, so open, so at home among the van Goghs, Cézannes, and Gaugins of this room. Then, once again, I spent a long time communing with a standing Amida Buddha, as I usually do here:
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| Standing Amitābha Buddha Mid-13th-century Japan (Kamakura Period) |
I spent a refreshing three hours in the museum, even rejoicing in the statue of the city's namesake, on leaving:
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| Equestrian Statue of St.Louis King Louis IX of France, the city's namesake |
It was a very good day, even though it had to end with six hours of homework...
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6:00 PM, Thursday, June 23, 2011
Church of St. Michael and St. George, Clayton MO
Festival Evensong and Service of Re-Dedication for the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist
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| Church of St. Michael and St. George (Episcopal) Wyndown Blvd. at Ellenwood Ave., Clayton MO Photo via Collegium Vocale of St. Louis website |
In the car Wednesday afternoon, I just happened to hear that there would be a Choral Evensong the next day at a church in Clayton MO, just on the other side of Forest Park from Barnes-Jewish Hospital. So after I finished my shift on Thursday, I drove the three miles from the hospital to the Church of St. Michael and St. George. The space had a very English feel to it. And as people arrived, I felt distinctly under-dressed in my black dress slacks, light-blue button-down pinpoint-oxford shirt with a nice tie. Everyone else was in suits that obviously cost far beyond entire my clothing budget for multiple years. Nevertheless, everyone was quite pleasant to me.
What the public radio announcement hadn't said was that this was a Festival Evensong in celebration of the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist and also a special service for the St. Louis chapter of the Priory in the United States of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem. What a mouthful!
It was a beautiful Evensong from processional through recessional. But everything included a bit more pomp, pomposity, and pompousness because of the presence of the Venerable Order. The procession consisted of, in this order, the Cross, Torches, the Choir, the Brigade Colour Standard, Postulants to the Venerable Order, Members, Officers, Commanders, Knights and Dames, Members of the Priory Chapter, the Banner of the Priory in the United States, the Clergy Cross, Torches, Lay Readers, the Guest Preacher, the Officiating Chaplain, and, finally, the Rector of the Parish. My! What a procession!
The order of service included a sermon by an important member of the Order, spoken with that English accent of universal disdain for the rest of humanity, in which he proudly reminded those present that this Venerable Order is a legitimate order of knights and dames under the tutelage of Queen Elizabeth herself. He snorted disgust and even anger at faux orders of knighthood not headed by a reigning monarch. None, of that, it seemed to me, was relevant to celebration of a saint's feast or the saying of evening prayers. Still, the displays of anglo-snobbery were contained enough not to ruin the service.
The processional hymn was "Praise, my soul, the King of heaven" (Words by Henry Francis Lyte) sung to the tune "Lauda Anima." And the humn before the sermon was "Love divine, all loves excelling" (Words by Chales Wesley) sung to the tune "Hyfrydol." The choir, in addition to leading the congregation in the hymns and chants, beautifully sang "The Lamentations of Jeremiah" (Music by Edward Bairstow and scriptural verses selected by E.M. Milner-White) and the anthem "O Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem" (Music by Herbert Howells and words from Psalm 122). The recessional hymn was "Glorious things of thee are spoken" (Words by John Newton) sung to the majestic tune "Austria" by Franz Joseph Haydn.
As I left, the clerics in the receiving line all greeted me warmly and one Rev. Canon of the Venerable Order gave me a thick packet of information about the Order and its work in East Jerusalem. And I went out into a perfect evening and early slumbers.
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7:30 PM, Friday June 24, 2011
Cenral Reform Congregation
Kabbalat Shabbat
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| Central Reform Congregation Kingshighway at Waterman, St. Louis MO |
This Shabbat eve at my adopted shul was a real treat. There was a bar mitzvah of a young man who is from a secular Jewish family who, on his own, became interested and pursued the necessary education to be able to read from the Torah scroll and to give a dvar Torah - a teaching based on that portion. This young man wanted to be able to go off to university having the grounding of being bar mitzvah'd. He started learning Hebrew alephbeth about a year ago at age 17 and in the short span of a year committed all the necessary time to learning and understanding the body of knowledge needed to pass this milestone in Jewish life.
Part of the ceremony was the handing of the Torah scroll down the generations of his gathered family to him. This scroll that was saved from the Holocaust was the Torah of a Czechoslovakian synagogue before the Nazi-era and is over a hundred years old. Knowing this history, seeing the scroll handed from grandfather to grandfather to grandmother to father to mother to son was highly moving. A lump rose in my throat and tears welled up in my eyes even without knowing any of the people involved. Very moving.
The bar mitzvah is a charming young man and gave a good teaching based on a very difficult Torah portion - the story of Korah, who rebelled against Moses' leadership in what appears like a democratic rebellion, who gets swallowed up by the earth in punishment. He got the Torah portion that falls this Shabbat the way every b'nei mitzvah youth does, and he acquitted himself very well.
Normally the Torah reading is done at the Shabbat morning service not at the Shabbat eve service, but an exception was made for this celebration.
There was a wedding blessing included as part of this service, the soon to marry couple being a Jewish man and a Puerto Rican woman. So, because of the Jewish/ Spanish connection and because the bar mitzvah young man's teacher was Rabbi James Stone Goodman, Rabbi Susan Talve's husband who is the rabbi of Neve Shalom, a Jewish Renewal congregation in St. Louis, Rabbi Goodman played Spanish/ Sephardic music in the service, both as the arrangements of the prayers of the service and to serenade the marrying couple. It was a real treat! The dusky, soulful Sephardic style was a beautiful variation on the timeless themes of the prayers sung every Shabbat!
And, as always, I was deeply moved by the speaking of names of deceased loved ones whose anniversary of their death has come, with Rabbi Susan responding sometimes with a memory of the deceased and always with the formula, "May his/her memory be a blessing." Their memory is kept alive through the lifetime of those who knew them and shared in the community.
Pleasant oneg conversation, then I walked home, poured myself a drink, and fell asleep before I could drink it. I woke at 5:30 AM on the couch, figured I would just sleep too long if I got up and went to bed, so I dozed a couple more hours on the couch - still in yesterday's clothes - before getting up to start the day.
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So this morning I gathered up the necessary stuff and hit the road to Mt. Vernon IL. It would be wonderful to participate in St. Louis Pride along with the several congregations I've worshiped with. All of them are making some kind of proudly allied public presence during the LGBTQ Pride events there. But instead, I am home to lead the Pride service at my home congregation tomorrow. St. Louis's wonderful events will get on just fine without me, but at my small home congregation, each individual makes a difference with his or her presence and participation. Besides, if I stayed for Pride in St. Louis, whose participation would I join of all the congregations I've worshiped with there? I am only one place at a time. And this Sunday that place is home.
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