Chaplain V. Ruth Schulenberg on just trying to get close

The Sounds in My Ear

I taste what you taste. I know the kind of lyrics
Your Soul most likes. I know which sounds will become
Resplendent in your mind and bring such pleasure
Your feet will jump and whirl.

When anything touches or enters your body
Never say it is not God, for He is
Just trying to get close. [1]

On a recent flight, a young soldier seated near me asked the inevitable question, “What do you do?” I have prepared several different responses to that question – all of them honest, but each tailored to the context and how much conversation I want to have in that moment. I kept it simple: “I’m a hospital chaplain,” (knowing that clinical pastoral educator, manager in healthcare, adult educator, etc., might lead in other directions, but would not mean as much to this soldier). As always, the response was both unexpected, but not surprising:

“Oh, my chaplains are always driving me crazy!”
“Really? What is it that drives you crazy about them?”

His answer was lengthy, but the gist of his complaint was, “They’re always trying to get me to talk. ‘So, how are you doing, soldier? Do you want to talk about what it was like to get hit by that IED?’ When I tell them I’m fine, they always say, ‘Well, just remember I’m here.’ How could I forget? They won’t leave me alone.”

For someone who doesn’t like to talk, however, this soldier engaged me in a fairly extended conversation. He told me in great detail and in an animated way what he thinks makes for a good chaplain (“someone who is a little rough around the edges…who isn’t always so nice and polite like the chaplains in my unit”), what he wants to do when he gets out of the Army, how he can’t handle the noise of crying children (of whom there were a few on that Christmas Eve flight), and what exactly he believes to be wrong with this country.

Naturally, his words started me thinking about the work I do, both as a chaplain and as an ACPE Supervisor. It reminded me of another inevitable question, posed by would-be caregivers: “What should I say?” Whether chaplain, social worker, nurse, concerned friend, or some other caring person, professional or otherwise, it does seem that the caregiver’s focus usually is on words. What am I going to say? What will this person say? How will I respond?

Quite a lot of research has been done on the power of creative self-expression, whether through poetry, film, dance, music, painting, performance art, or any number of other media (see below for some resources). Now, I can’t imagine inviting this soldier to join me in coloring a mandala, although that has been very helpful to other grieving people. Like many of us, though, he seemed to have an idea that the topics of conversation that interest a chaplain are different from the topics of conversation that stir up his energy. When he mimicked the chaplains he knows, his tone was serious, even dire, but also disengaged. When he was talking about his politics, nephews, or even the in-flight movie that ended our conversation, his tone, volume, and inflection suggested that his mind and soul were engaged with his words.

Like the 14th Century Sufi mystic poet Hafiz, I believe God knows and is deeply interested in “which sounds will become Resplendent in your mind and bring such pleasure Your feet will jump and whirl.” I did not say that to this soldier. I did not tell him that God cares about the sounds he cannot hear and the jumping he won’t do because of his injuries. I am not as “rough around the edges” as he thinks a good chaplain ought to be. It was clear to both of us though, that I was very interested in the roughness around the edges of his life and the sounds that both disturb and delight him.

Resources:

UCSF—Art for Recovery http://cancer.ucsf.edu/afr/

Society for the Arts in Healthcare http://www.thesah.org/template/index.cfm

Dartmouth Healing & the Arts http://dms.dartmouth.edu/koop/programs/healing/

University of Florida Center for the Arts in Healthcare Research and Education http://www.arts.ufl.edu/CAHRE/

University of Florida Center for Spirituality and Health http://www.spiritualityandhealth.ufl.edu/directorsadvisors/graham-pole.asp

Ofri, Danielle, “Take two sonnets and call me in the morning” (Book Review of The Healing Art: A Doctor's
Black Bag of Poetry) The Lancet 362.9381 (August 2, 2003): 411.

Footnotes:

[1] Excerpted from “Never Say It Is Not God” in The Subject Tonight is Love: 60 Wild and Sweet Poems of Hafiz, Daniel Ladinsky, Pumpkin House Press, North Myrtle Beach, 1999.

Do you have thoughts about education & research you’d like to share with your colleagues? Send an e-mail to info@PlainViews.org.