The Rev. Lindsey Halpern-Givens on walking in a new way

The Road Ahead

Each day I take my greyhound and my Chihuahua on long walks through the country roads. A small woman, with two extremes at her side, we catch the eyes of many commuters. Our definitions of walking are somewhat different. My idea of walking is to get exercise and watch the natural world as I pass by. The dogs believe a walk is for scratching the dirt, sniffing under the leaves, checking things out. While they are checking I watch for my everyday connection with strangers. There are those I wave to, who without a word between us have become important to the start of my day. This is the way that chaplaincy entered my life. Clinical pastoral education was a seminary requirement, not a career option. All of a sudden it became an important start to my day. I thought seminary was my way of becoming the best religious educator I could be. Once I experienced hospital ministry I came to understand the real reason I went to seminary. Four CPE units, one ordination, one board certification, and ten years of hospital ministry later I find myself on an unfamiliar path.

I have chosen to leave a stressful hospital position. By the time I became the first ever board certified chaplain in my healthcare system, no seminary, no college, no ecclesiastical endorsement, and only one unit of CPE or some church experience was required to become a chaplain in our system. My departmental manager’s credentials had become departmental standards. I had worked to become an asset, in a system where negative consequences were now the rule for positive achievement. Trusted friends responded with sadness, compassion and understanding when I told them it was time to go.

Now I spend my days in relief and in grief. Relief from the stress of departmental policies, grief in this seemingly unfathomable outcome. It is as if someone is throwing a switch I seem to have no control over. Relief at not having to wonder whether I’ll trigger an office land mine. Grief over the loss of work friends. Relief at being able to express myself without fear of reprisal. Grief over the loss of working with a staff chaplain who could finish my sentences. Relief that I have time to tend to the stuff piling up at home. Grief over reluctantly giving up work that I love.

It is easier to surround oneself with the burdens of others. This is particularly true in hospital ministry where a loss of a limb or an impending death is right in front of you. There is less time to think of one’s own concerns when caregiving to another. There was comfort in being too busy and wishing for time to do what I want. Now I have time; Where did all those things I want to do go? I am on a new path and I don’t know the way. My steps are uncertain.

Who am I if not a chaplain? Where will I work? How will I help my four children attend college without this income? How does it happen that a life changes so quickly? How can I not know the answer to that question after spending countless hours in the ER with families devastated by losses more costly than mine? I must learn to be my own chaplain.

I watch my dogs and find that my understanding of walking needs their understanding, too. It is time for me to walk in a new way. Perhaps I will write or go back to school and enhance my chaplaincy skills with a counseling degree. Maybe a new avenue in which to use my chaplaincy will appear. Perhaps I’ll learn to make time for those things that are mine and not stay too busy with the lives of others, putting them too much in place of my own. I will never stop walking with a purpose. But my choice now lies in the knowledge that I must learn to walk with purpose and yet make time to find the purposes hidden from me. There is much to explore under the leaves and in the dirt. My job right now is to learn this new path and to befriend it. I’m grateful to have my animal guides to remind me of the way. As one of my nameless acquaintances drives by, I notice my little dog in his dance of scratching and sniffing. He moves with grace as both acts merge into his little routine. I pray that one day I may do the same.