Fragrance of the season
For me, one of the most notable things about this time of year is the fragrance. It starts in October with the smell of crushed leaves in the air. Then comes, cinnamon, pumpkin pies, candles. It continues with evergreens, cranberries and turkey. For over two months, I find for me - the fragrance of comfort. Now there are other times of the year when the smells in the air are remarkable. When the entire yard is blooming in May and your senses are engaged with lilacs, and fruit trees – well, there is not much that seems to get better than that – at the time. For me, those are adult aromas – ones I have learned to appreciate as an adult. But the fragrance of November and December, well those are childhood aromas. There are deep memories attached to the fragrance. It is amazing how a certain scent can bring you back to another time of your life.
I invite you to close your eyes - Take a moment – consider a fragrance, an aroma, a smell that takes you back to a place – to another decade of your life. What feeling arises as you think about that aroma? What is the story that is attached to that smell? What is the memory? Let’s hold that story for a moment.
Breathe
From John O’Donohue’s Anam Cara: “Traditionally, the breath was understood as the pathway through which the soul entered the body. Breaths come in pairs except the first breath and the last breath. At the deepest level, breath is sister of spirit. One of the most ancient words for spirit is the Hebrew word Ruah, this is also the word for air or wind. Ruah also denotes pathos, passion and emotion – a state of the soul. The word suggests that God was like breath and wind because of the incredible passion and pathos of divinity. This ancient recognition links the wild creativity of the Spirit with the breath of the soul in the human person. Breath is also deeply appropriate as a metaphor because divinity, like breath, is invisible.”
So today, let’s wonder together for a moment. If God is like the breath and the wind – how, when we breath in…when we breath out….do we experience the holy? The sacred?
Let’s go back to the fragrance we considered a moment ago. Close your eyes, go back to that memory. Smell the fragrance, breath in, breath out. How in that memory is God present to you? How can you be present to God in that memory? In that story of your life? Breathing through the stories of our life, we can begin to see that God has been present. In times of great difficulty and times of great joy.
So, today – whether you are in times of great difficulty, or times of great joy, I invite you to stop, breath in God’s presence. Stop. Look around, stay aware of the presence of the divine in your story – as it is playing out today. And breath in God’s presence.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Friday, November 5, 2010
Building Bridges through Spiritual Care
Building Bridges through Spiritual Care
by Andrea Wichhart-Tatley and Janet Stark
Some of the most difficult words we can ever express are: I’m hurt, I’m sorry, please forgive me, I love you. If these words are difficult to say at home, imagine what it’s like to say them in a hospital when confronting a medical emergency. When difficult medical decisions must be made, the language of the heart is an important part of the healing journey. We see this often as Methodist Hospital chaplains.
Difficult choices, family dynamics
Doing rounds one evening, one of our chaplains noticed a woman crying as she sat next to a sleeping patient. This woman was the oldest of four sisters who became estranged from each other following the deaths of their parents. Now they were going to be reunited in a time of crisis to try to comfort their terminally ill sister. None of them had spoken with her for 10 years.
As the crying woman sat next to her dying sister, she was overwhelmed with many feelings including personal regret and unspoken love. Wanting to communicate her deepest self to her sister, and to the other sisters who would arrive shortly, she asked if a chaplain could assist her in this uncomfortable reunion.
Often in the hospital people are forced to revisit relationships that have been painful. Sometimes they need healing as well as the patient. A chaplain’s expertise is the language of the heart. We seek to be artful at building bridges where there have been walls, creating space and time for the expression of one’s deepest thoughts and providing an opportunity for love to be given and received.
Adjusting, building bridges
Spiritual Care is part of the health care team at Park Nicollet Methodist Hospital. As part of the care team, chaplains from the Spiritual Care department work with patients and families to adapt to the new elements in life brought about by illness. As patients adjust to a hospital stay and to treatments or surgery, there are opportunities for patients, family and friends to build bridges that may lead to a reduction in stress, allowing the body to heal. Or there may be reconciliation with family and friends that helps them provide care and support for each other. These are significant steps in the process of healing.
Spiritual care chaplains are also available for staff that care for patients. Sometimes a difficult diagnosis, stressful family dynamics or a medical emergency can impact staff as well as families. Spiritual care providers assist in building bridges to stress reduction and adaptation for the well-being of care providers as well as patients.
New lives emerge from grief
Spiritual care helps identify barriers and build bridges so people can make changes to improve their lives, even when death is near. As patients and families begin to walk this new bridge, re-centering may occur that includes reconciliation of relationships and moving into the future with trust and hope. In this centered place we can experience ourselves, others and our faith more fully.
Fortunately, that is what happened to the four sisters. Reunited to care for their youngest sister, they shared their love with her in her last month of life. In that time, they also rekindled their relationships with each other. The surviving sisters left the hospital grieving their loss, but also grateful that they discovered new ways of being a family.
by Andrea Wichhart-Tatley and Janet Stark
Some of the most difficult words we can ever express are: I’m hurt, I’m sorry, please forgive me, I love you. If these words are difficult to say at home, imagine what it’s like to say them in a hospital when confronting a medical emergency. When difficult medical decisions must be made, the language of the heart is an important part of the healing journey. We see this often as Methodist Hospital chaplains.
Difficult choices, family dynamics
Doing rounds one evening, one of our chaplains noticed a woman crying as she sat next to a sleeping patient. This woman was the oldest of four sisters who became estranged from each other following the deaths of their parents. Now they were going to be reunited in a time of crisis to try to comfort their terminally ill sister. None of them had spoken with her for 10 years.
As the crying woman sat next to her dying sister, she was overwhelmed with many feelings including personal regret and unspoken love. Wanting to communicate her deepest self to her sister, and to the other sisters who would arrive shortly, she asked if a chaplain could assist her in this uncomfortable reunion.
Often in the hospital people are forced to revisit relationships that have been painful. Sometimes they need healing as well as the patient. A chaplain’s expertise is the language of the heart. We seek to be artful at building bridges where there have been walls, creating space and time for the expression of one’s deepest thoughts and providing an opportunity for love to be given and received.
Adjusting, building bridges
Spiritual Care is part of the health care team at Park Nicollet Methodist Hospital. As part of the care team, chaplains from the Spiritual Care department work with patients and families to adapt to the new elements in life brought about by illness. As patients adjust to a hospital stay and to treatments or surgery, there are opportunities for patients, family and friends to build bridges that may lead to a reduction in stress, allowing the body to heal. Or there may be reconciliation with family and friends that helps them provide care and support for each other. These are significant steps in the process of healing.
Spiritual care chaplains are also available for staff that care for patients. Sometimes a difficult diagnosis, stressful family dynamics or a medical emergency can impact staff as well as families. Spiritual care providers assist in building bridges to stress reduction and adaptation for the well-being of care providers as well as patients.
New lives emerge from grief
Spiritual care helps identify barriers and build bridges so people can make changes to improve their lives, even when death is near. As patients and families begin to walk this new bridge, re-centering may occur that includes reconciliation of relationships and moving into the future with trust and hope. In this centered place we can experience ourselves, others and our faith more fully.
Fortunately, that is what happened to the four sisters. Reunited to care for their youngest sister, they shared their love with her in her last month of life. In that time, they also rekindled their relationships with each other. The surviving sisters left the hospital grieving their loss, but also grateful that they discovered new ways of being a family.
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