Turning it Off

 More than fourteen years ago, I faced what felt like my first real emotional test as a pastor in training. The summer after my first year of divinity school, I embarked on a summer-long course of clinical pastoral education, or CPE. While most of my classmates were assigned parts of the hospital in which patients were discharged after just a few days, I happened to draw the leukemia-oncology ward. Patients came in for prolonged stays, or they came back again and again while undergoing chemotherapy.

What was more, although I was a green as they come, I nonetheless wore a badge identifying me as a chaplain, and that's how people treated me. I felt woefully unprepared; nonetheless, people still looked to me for spiritual advice and had no hesitation in asking the hard questions about dying and heaven.

Though I confessed it to no one, I had a secret fear of becoming too attached. I was concerned that if I poured out my whole heart in caring for these patients, I would become emotionally dependent on them and would have a hard time walking away at the end of the summer. How would I deal with this challenge, I wondered: Would I hold back, remaining aloof as a hedge of self-protection?

Part of the structure of CPE included weekly meetings in our small groups. The supervisor astutely observed that I tended to subconsciously create a wall around myself, as though I feared vulnerability. What would happen, she asked, if I allowed myself to be more open - in a safe space, among friends and colleagues? Through her gentle guidance, I began to let my guard down.

On the floor, though, I had no such barriers. Whether I wanted to or not, I simply could not be who I was and remain aloof and detached. I simply poured out my whole heart to all of the patients, finding myself weeping in an elevator when one who had been making great progress unexpectedly died. 

But the summer lasted only so long. On a Friday morning, we were told to turn in our keys and name tag. We were no longer functioning as chaplains in that hospital. After the graduation ceremony, I phoned to the leukemia-oncology floor, wanting to know the fate of one patient in particular. He was young and afflicted with multiple myeloma. There was no hope. I had ministered to this young man and his family for several months. I had to know. 

He had died, just a few minutes ago, I was told. I thanked the nurse and hung up the phone - and headed out the door. The family needed pastoral care, no doubt. But someone else would be providing it. 

Over the course of that summer, I learned a fundamental lesson in the life of pastors: Love them and leave them. Whether it's a matter of months or years, pastors will invariably part from their flocks. And once that happens, it's not only proper pastoral care but a matter of ethical standards that we then refrain from staying in touch with the people who were once under our care. Someone else will be meeting their spiritual needs.

In another couple of days, I will wind up my time in my current call. For seven years, I have walked with these residents and their families. As of December 31, I will be walking with them no more. Someone else will be meeting their spiritual needs, praying for them and providing their counsel. Oddly enough, the detachment is the least of my concerns. 

Or maybe it's not so odd. In the course of their careers, pastors will depart from their flocks several times. We get good at it out of necessity. In my next call, I know that I will pour out my whole heart in serving the people I am called to serve, for however long it will be. 

Finding The Way

 Poor Tricky.

Our family includes two miniature dachshunds. The elder statesdog is Tricky, short (naturally) for Dietrich Bonhoeffer. We adopted him from the Watauga Humane Society in the fall of 2011. The shelter employees told us that they estimated that he was eight years old, which means that he is now seventeen. That is pretty old in dog years.

Tricky's eyes are both clouded over, and his hearing isn't what it once was. He is functionally blind. When we moved house thirteen months ago, it took him a little while to learn his way around the new home. He was delighted to discover that, like the old house, the new house has a pathway loop, which means he could travel in circles. The center comprises a utility closet and bathroom. From the front entrance, he can go right into the living room, then left into the kitchen, and straight back into the master bedroom or left and left again to go through the hall and back into the foyer.

We naively hoped that we would not have to move house ever again. Fortunately, the hubs is of a more practical bent, and he saved the boxes. COVID ate my job. I've been serving as a chaplain for a senior-living community, a campus that includes independent living, assisted living and skilled care. But since March, safety concerns have limited me to one building. At the same time, the organization is bleeding money, spending unholy amounts on personal protective equipment and on state-mandated weekly COVID tests. My job was being cut back to two days a week, no benefits.

I was not looking forward to finding a job in the current climate, but actually secured one in approximately eight weeks.

Beginning January 11, I will be serving as a hospice chaplain - in Newport News, Virginia.

Yep. We're moving again.

Which is confusing the heck out of Tricky. As he wanders the familiar rooms, navigating by muscle memory and scent, he keeps coming up against barriers. Stacks of boxes form a wall everywhere he tries to turn. He is uncomplaining, but I have a feeling that if he could talk, he would be voicing his concerns.

In less than a week, we will be packing the U Haul. We are much too old to pull that move-ourselves stunt, but until the house sells, we will be carrying the mortgage on the house as well as rent. We've taken a six-month lease, optimistic that the house will sell and we will be able to find a new place.

Poor Tricky. It's bad enough now - but in a week he will have to accustom himself to a completely new place. New layout, new sounds, new smells. But he will adapt, because the new place will also have all his favorite humans. 

And it will mean a lot to have the dogs with us, the anchor of familiarity as we navigate a whole new city, new job, new church, new everything. 

Wouldn't it be nice if, as everything changed around us, we could hold to the anchor of those we love? Hang in there, Tricky.

Can't Please Everybody

 It was time to play the pastor card.

For the nearly three years that I have served this little church, I don't think I've played the pastor card once. I've encouraged. I've strongly suggested. I might have cajoled. But until now, I have not once rolled out an edict and said, "That's it."

Until now.

Predictably, not everyone was happy about it. 

Fair enough. I had not been at all happy about resuming in-person worship in June. True, we seldom had enough worshipers for distancing to be an issue. And no one minded that I insisted on wearing a face mask and staying on the chancel, well removed from others, the whole time. And I had been irritated with myself for giving in to emotional blackmail. 

But I wasn't giving in this time. 

For two months in a row (maybe three), I had posted in my monthly report that I intended to make mask-wearing mandatory for the Christmas Eve service. Fully half our faithful and loyal members were staying away because the other half refused to wear masks while meeting for worship. The council chairman had polled the usual attenders, and all had said that they would still attend if masks were required -- but the church administrator, who is dismissive of the virus, continued to communicate that masks were not mandatory.

And reiterated the point in an email exchange with the council president. For some reason, that was the last straw. I typed out what I thought was a restrained email.

"I cannot in good conscience," I wrote, "preach the coming of the Christ into the world, the one who taught us to love our neighbor, and deny the joy of fellowship and worship to half of our most devoted members because not everyone is willing to wear a mask for an hour." No one likes wearing a mask, I said, but it is a simple and practical way for us to show our love of neighbor.

A day or two later, the church treasurer called to sound me out on the issue. I explained my reasoning. The administrator was furious, I heard. I waited to see if she would communicate directly with me. Nothing. On Sunday morning, I waited with some trepidation for her to enter the church. She came in, and we exchanged greetings as though nothing had happened.

There would be, apparently, no real fallout from my playing of the pastor card. 

In truth, they need my pastoral care more than I need them, if it comes to that. I could have been more insistent a long time ago. But I'm usually flexible. Flexibility is a powerful tool. 

Sometimes, though, it's time to take a stand.

I wish I could say I thought it would change behaviors, soften hearts. I wish I believed that those who pooh-pooh the virus would decide that wearing a mask is a simple way to love their neighbors. It won't. And that is a grievous thing.