Do you just pray?

or: what does a chaplain do?

• So, do you just pray with people?

• What’s a chaplain?

• I could never do your job.

• Are you here to tell me I’m dying?

• You have the best job in the world!

• How are you holding it together?

I hear these statements and questions frequently, and the first one I hear most often. The knee-jerk reaction to “just praying” is one I’m still working on (because 1. the word “just” steals the power we understand prayer to have, 2. “just” again assumes there is no action proceeding from the prayer, 3. the work of showing up as a chaplain is much more meaningful than checking off a box that I have prayed with someone whether it was wanted or not, and 4. there is another presupposition that there is no relationship in “just praying” and steals the intimacy of prayer born out of hearing the beautiful story of another or that the story itself is a kind of prayer…but, I digress…)

I still haven’t figured out how to succinctly to describe my job when someone asks what I do. I’m a hospital chaplain, and I really love what I do. Thankfully, I’m not alone in pinning down a good definition - none of my text books and very few journal articles can agree on how to describe this profession.

My presence in a room brings out a lot of assumptions, and I have to be careful to tread lightly on these tender understandings while families and patients are experiencing some of the worst moments of their lives. I have learned to enter the room last when the doctor informs the family that their loved one has died. Unless I have previously met the mother, I do not show up in a post-partum room if the baby is in the NICU - it always creates an anxious space. I take off my earrings and anything I’m holding before entering the psychiatric unit and become very aware of my surroundings trying not to stand near the graffiti. This misstep will engage me in a long lecture on what the markings mean to each patient present. It is rarely a good idea to present myself as interpreter or even affirmer of these visions.

Humility and humor have helped me shake of rebuffs and open the weary up to healing conversation. I’m learning when to leave a room, and I have the unique ability to linger, addressing less tangible hurts while the medical team keeps the patient alive another day.

A good chaplain is a bridge connecting: people, teams, details, theology, personal narratives, resilience, resources…I look for gaps and overlooked patterns to piece together someone more whole with more direction and more hope.

And, often, this is heavy work. For many hurts there are no answers, and it’s not my job to tie everything with a Bible verse and bow. I’ve seen so much death in two years, peaceful and violent, untimely and drawn out, too young, too old, too much trauma in the end, and never enough time. I’ve worked in a hospital where a chaplain was required to be present after each death. It was beautifully difficult work - but dignity in all walks of life, and after, is worth the discomfort. The loveliness of our humanity is always worth bearing for one another, and I hope someone will do it for me one day, too.

So, yes, I pray often and in many forms by showing up as the hands and feet of Jesus in an acutely anxious space in a broken world. It is a wonderful and depleting calling. I grieved the loss of parish ministry, but the hospital is my congregation now. My work is in building relationships, in remembering, and in running into the crises around me.

My work is also in finding a way to come back everyday - not just back to the hospital but back to my family each day, back to my tired body and weary soul. I think I’ve said it before, as this space comes and goes, but this corner of creative space is for me to build the bridges for myself that I extend to so many others. You are welcome here whether it is out of fascination, through knowing me, or because you want to be reminded that showing up is the best thing we can do in this life. That’s how I would define a chaplain and its how I want to be known, as the person who shows up.