I’ve never really liked hospital chaplains much, as it seems strange to have someone who doesn’t know me at all try to manufacture some interest for a few minutes. When I’m feeling cantankerous they annoy me, when I’m feeling sick and tired I mostly just hope they go away. My perspective has changed somewhat in the past few years, though.

In a move that surprised her atheist family, my mom quit her teaching job to become a minister (just ordained last month!) and has been going chaplain rounds at hospitals and nursing homes since she was in seminary. She looks at it as difficult but important work, and her prime objective is to do what she can to make it easier for people, whether that’s leaving them alone or spending time.

Sometimes people who’ve been caring for a loved one are just so tired and scared that they want someone, anyone to sit with them for awhile and she does that too. I don’t think it’s ever crossed her mind to evangelize at a hospital. One thing I hadn’t considered before she became a minister and a chaplain is that because she’s there so much, she knows a lot about how the place runs. She, at least, absolutely loves it when she can advocate for a patient to get them some little comfort that the hospital staff might not have considered.

I think my mom is great at her job. Probably better than many because she’s lived with atheists for going on 40 years now. She knows that some people are going to be disturbed by her presence, and is respectful of that. I had no idea how hard chaplains work until Mom became one. I know that doesn’t necessarily help with the swirling thoughts and feelings that come with taking care of your mom and pondering mortality, but I thought it might be an interesting perspective.

Thanks again for your thoughtful post.

Thank you for such a touching and honest post. Prayer is one area of my Christian life that I was never able to figure out. The way most people pray never felt all that genuine to me.

I can only imagine what prayer means to a non-believer.

God or no God, I know you have a loving heart and I truly admire your strength and courage.

It’s also nice to see the caring words expressed in the comments, which in some ways seem much more genuine than what you would see in a Christian setting.

You know, I never expected my absence to cause any ripples, but, quite honestly, I was overwhelmed by my own medical cares. There are days when it takes me 45 minutes just to type my name to log onto the computer. And by then I’m too exhausted to do anything.

When I was finally able to get my body in working condition, I was so behind on the work that pays the bills, that’s where my remaining energy and time went. For the last month or so, I’ve been getting back to some of the things I enjoy, like this site.

One of the reasons I tend to avoid posting on blogs or other forums is that I never know when my body is going to go kaplooie and knock me on my butt for weeks or months at a time. Then it looks like I’m just a drive by crank.

Still, I must say your writing about your mother and the chaplain truly touched me. I hope all goes as well as can be for her and for you.

I’ll send Hemant my email address to forward to you.

Thanks again.
PS: I can’t figure how to insert the smiley guys, so just imagine a great big smile right here : – )

HOW ARE YOU!? I haven’t heard from you since April 23, 2007 at 2:00 AM on the thread, “An Atheist Professor at Virginia Tech.” (Not that I’ve been counting, mind you.) A month later I started interrupting popular threads here asking if anyone knew what happened to you and if anyone had a way to contact you. Karen responded and was also concerned because like me she remembered that you had mentioned health issues and then when you dropped out of sight I was worried that, well that you had died. It might sound odd for me to say this about a blog acquaintance, but I grieved.

I’m so very happy to hear from you again. I admired your comments and enjoyed our conversations so much and I really missed you. I hope that your health is better and that that is why you have returned.

Please email Hemant and avail yourself of my email address if you so choose. It has occurred to me often that if something were to happen to many of us, we would have no way to find out what the heck had caused the disappearance. Despite the impersonal nature of this medium I sometimes become attached to people here and when they vanish it hurts.

Welcome back!

I haven’t been to this site, or many other old favorites, in quite a while. (Health problems followed by computer problems.) Yet when I saw that “Richard Wade” had posted an article, I remembered your name and the high quality of your other posts and took a read.

Thank you for sharing these thoughts. It seems to me, that when people are faced with the difficult times you have just described, we get to see them at their “most,” rather than at their “worst” or “best.” You seem to have a great deal of insight and reflection, qualities that can certainly help those around you.

I don’t begrudge anyone turning to whatever modes of thought, including religious thought, that help them get through tough times, even though I have been an unapologetic atheist for most of my life. So long as they don’t patronize me, or start telling me how death and suffering are all part of “god’s plan” for “something better.”

I have an extremely painful progressive disease that, at times, goes into semi-remission. I can tell you that the quiet support – or just the presence – of someone you love can mean more than anything else, though people vary in what sort of attention they need or can tolerate.

Years ago, I became friendly with quite a few fellow patients at a pain and physical therapy center. Most of them were believers of some sort or other, Roman Catholic, Hindu, Islam, Buddhist, Baptist, New Age, Pagan. Only one or two were obnoxious about it, and they irritated the other believers as much or more than they irritated me. One person who was never obnoxious or pushy about religion turned out to be a local Protestant minister.

Which is my longwinded way of saying good work, Richard, and good luck

Hopefully you won’t mind a follow-up question though: What would you have liked the chaplain to do? (Or perhaps you’d prefer she wasn’t there at all? I could totally see that since you normally don’t want a total stranger who knows nothing about you or your family to be there offering false hope during a hard time.)

I really don’t know. Now that I’m not as intensely at the effect of fatigue and anguish, I can think more rationally and be more fair to the chaplain, but at that moment I just wished she had walked on by the room and left us to enjoy “I Love Lucy.” It had been a quite a while since Mom had smiled and longer since she had laughed. I know there was no way the chaplain could have read our minds or known what we needed, so the only reasonable thing she could do was to make her rounds and ask Mom if she could offer what she offers. As I indicated, even though neither Mom nor I have any interest, I can’t begrudge others who have less practical help their comforting or hopeful moments of prayer. For many millions, lying in their shacks and tents and yurts that comfort or hope is all they have, false or real. To her credit, the chaplain kept it pretty light and brief, and she seemed to be trying to be sensitive to the feeling in the room. My point of view was colored by the exhaustion of the previous four weeks, and it must have showed.

If she had offered any non-spiritual help I might have asked her to sit there seeing to Mom’s simple needs for water or cool compresses for three or four hours so I could go home and get some sleep. But it’s a big hospital and that would probably not be workable. There must have been dozens of folks there who would have appreciated the chaplain’s visit that day.

I should acknowledge this: As you can see in the story my feelings shifted from undiluted resentment at the beginning of the prayer to the mixed bag that included more positive, more forgiving and more inclusive thoughts and feelings by the end of the prayer. If some people want to credit the content of the prayer with that change, I can’t offer any more argument against that idea than they could offer in favor of it. From my rational viewpoint I’d probably say that a moment of any kind of directed quietude that encourages introspective thought can possibly help soothe painful resentment and can open up more healing thoughts and feelings.

Whatever. Things are a little better inside and outside. Some think the cause is an unfathomable entity at work and some think it’s the determination of an old woman who refuses to give up. We take our inspirations wherever we can find them.

Thank you Jake for your attitude of being sensitive to the feelings of others who don’t share your beliefs, and thank you everyone for your well wishes and supportive comments. As always what I really hope is that things I write start dialogues that improve understanding between people of disparate viewpoints.

We’ll all be there in one way or another, eventually. Life can be tough.