In a few days, the February holidays are a time of new beginnings. Chinese New Year, Groundhog Day, Candlemas, Imbolc and St. Brigid’s Day are celebrated almost together, as are initiations in some Pagan traditions. We celebrate the cycles, honoring the phases of the moon, the turning of the seasons. We watch the snow outside our windows and think of the green leaves to come.
Here in my head, I’m in the middle of a yearlong process.
Just now I’m not quite halfway through a chaplain residency at a major hospital. Like the more familiar medical residency, this year is intended to teach me to become what I might already claim I am.
As it does for the resident physicians, each week includes some classes, some learning by doing, a bit of trying some procedures under close supervision and doing a few others alone – and then receiving detailed feedback on all of it. We share our successes, failures, learnings, goals, and growing edges with peers and supervisors. Inevitably we make mistakes that we, or other people, must repair.
Fortunately no one dies from the chaplain’s mistakes, but that doesn’t seem to make them less important.
This week I’ve been identifying my goals for the next three months. I swing between overconfidence and terror. What if I set goals that seem too small? Will my supervisor think I’m shirking? What if I set goals that seem too big? Will my peers think I’m egotistical? After all this time, I keep expecting to find this stuff easy. But it isn’t.
The Witch asks what part of this is so uncomfortable?
Is it the personal self-critique that is such a necessary part of this learning?
Is it the shame I feel when I can’t meet my own high standards?
Is it, perhaps, the need to risk being vulnerable in order to learn empathy?
The Witch asks, but I fear to answer. It’s Yes, to all of that, and more.
A lot has happened since we began in September. I’m loving the work, appreciating the skills I’m developing, enjoying the relationships that are growing among us, resting in the warm and loving support we receive from our supervisor and mentors.
This week has been unexpectedly rough, and I’m reeling – even though I know that next week will be better, and that next week I’ll do better.
This week it’s been hard to remember life outside the hospital. But there, too, new beginnings are afoot.
In my home congregation we’re doing the best anti-racism work I’ve ever seen up close; some of it is hard, but deeply satisfying when we get it right. Slowly I’m learning to see my own race privilege, class privilege, education privilege, and a few other things. Together we’re learning to reach across barriers, decode and release assumptions, recognize each other’s gifts, work together equably. The work is rich and full, and I’m so proud of the congregants (of all different races) who are leading the rest of us through it.
In my home coven, we’re preparing to hive – half of us staying in a coven that began over twenty years ago, and half of us stepping away to form a new coven that will be officially born a few months hence. It’s exciting to be starting something new; it’s a little scary to be leaving something so familiar. I’ll have some new responsibilities in the new coven, and just now I’m hoping I will be up to them.
In the hospital we continue to work to provide the same support to everyone, breaking down assumptions and barriers where we can, and exposing them to the light of close observation when they seem unyielding. As a chaplain I continue to learn to listen with more openness, to give my attention more fully, to honor what is not being said as much as what is easy to say.
Everywhere I look: we begin again in love.
The Witch looks over my shoulder and nods. This matches her experience, too.
Blessed Be.
–Maggie Beaumont, Imbolc 2016
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