Being in new career fields, one that requires me to protect patient privacy and the other that requires me to keep operational information secure, makes it hard sometimes to figure out what I can write and share.
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| I borrowed this from Savage Paramedics on Facebook |
Anyway, the upshot is that I started a new ministry at church recently: I'm now helping out the group that takes communion to the hospital. I haven't been doing this long, but already I'm realizing that there's something meme-worthy about bringing a spiritual thing into a place of modern healing.
Before I get too far into this (because I feel like some of you might balk and clutch your pearls at what I'm about to share), I offer a disclaimer: I believe in the value of taking things that have spiritual realities to people who could not otherwise access them. And in true fashion, I will share a little of that insight later on... after I share the clutch-your-pearls happenings.
So the first piece that I want to remark/complain about is that I get called Father a lot. Yes. I am male. I walk in and I've got a whole spiel worked out:
Me: "Hi! I'm Tom. I'm from St. Stephen's. I've got communion today, if you're interested."
Them: "Oh, no thank you, Father. Not today."
Me: <don't correct them don't correct them you don't need to correct them> "Okay, that's fine! I hope you feel better and get to go home soon! Bu-bye!"
I guess I get kinda Minnesota passive-aggressive when people call me Father. But the biggest reason it bugs me is that I wear a volunteer uniform that involves a vest that says right on it 'hospital volunteer.' And I guess that maybe they think I'm a priest who has to wear the volunteer uniform... but it still happens and it still bugs me.
Maybe part of why it bugs me is that staff as well as patients start acting funny around me. I mean, I work EMS for this same hospital system. I'm in and out of this hospital all the time wearing a different uniform, with a different ID tag. I talk the lingo and I know the paperwork and I work with the system. But nevertheless, wearing this volunteer uniform and offering a churchy thing means that I sometimes get my chain yanked. Let me illustrate: I knocked on a patient's open door and saw that they were in the middle of lunch. I introduced myself, told her what I had to offer, and just asked whether she wanted me to circle back around, see if I could catch her after lunch. She said that would be great. So I did. I circled back maybe a half hour later. We got started with the prayers, and when it came time for me to offer a consecrated host, the nurse's assistant jumped in and said that the patient couldn't consume anything by mouth. She couldn't have anything by mouth, even though I had seen this patient chowing down on a burger not a thirty minutes previous. The nurse's assistant said she had just found out, it was linked to the patient's condition, but it still left me wondering whether it was in the best interest of the patient, or whether the nurse, or the nurse's assistant, or the doctor, or maybe all of them had talked about something that they didn't "think that religious fellow would need to be troubled with." I know that I'm mischaracterizing the staff, and I'm definitely not trying to make myself seem the martyr (because Christians are not being persecuted in America) but it made me wonder whether some of them had told me other patients couldn't consume by mouth, when really they just didn't want visitors in the patient's room.
(It's fine if a patient can't have visitors. Just because I'm a volunteer from a church doesn't mean that I require access to every patient. Just tell me what you can tell me without breaking patient privacy. I'm a big boy. Just don't lie to me).
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| Where did that come from? |
There are also people who cry as we're praying. I should explain that among the brief prayers we say before I take out the consecrated host is the Lord's Prayer. And it's this one that seems to get folks most often. We'll be reciting the prayer and they'll stop halfway through, and as I'm finishing it on my own, I notice that they can't speak because they've got these big tears running down their cheeks. And I don't mind the tears. I think that it just speaks to the importance of what I'm offering. But people will apologize for crying. And I still don't know quite how to express to them that they don't need to worry about their tears. So far all I've really been able to respond with when they say sorry is something like "You're alright. No need to apologize."
Then there are the odd interactions: I knocked on a guy's door once, and as I walked in and introduced myself, I caught the faint scent of what I could have sworn was weed. I guess he preferred his own home-grown brand of analgesia. I knocked on a different person's door, and as I walked in, he was still adjusting his hospital gown. I tried to ask somewhat idiomatically whether I had caught him in the middle of something as I happened to glance up at the TV. There was a quite steamy romance scene going on and I suddenly realized what I might have walked in on him doing. That guy turned down communion with a certain amount of embarrassment.
Another thing I've run into is people who feel like there are requirements for them taking communion. One woman insisted that she could not receive the Eucharist until she had made a confession. And asked me if I could hear her confession (I mean, yeah, I can hear it and I can pray with you for forgiveness, and I can then report that to a priest and see about absolution for you... but again, I'm not a priest, I can't offer absolution to you now, and I don't think you want that whole process). And that's like another guy who I asked if he wanted to receive the Eucharist and he said yes, and he asked his wife there if she wanted it. I said, yeah, if you've been here and you haven't made it to church, I have enough to go around. She got all red and said she'd been to church and started talking about not really doing the Eucharist thing... turns out that she and her husband were in a "mixed marriage," like Amanda and I; a Catholic who had married a non-Catholic.
I know some of you, dear readers, might disagree with me. I know that you want me to check someone's suitability to receive the Eucharist, but frankly that's not my purpose in this ministry. I don't really care about much before I step into that hospital room with the patient. That person has been in the hospital for a while, and has not been able to take themselves to church to receive the Eucharist, so therefor the church comes to them with the Eucharist. I think that's beautiful. I think it's an example of how the church can seek out the least, the last, and the lost.
I think there is to say about offering the Eucharist itself. When I was with that mixed-marriage couple, as she was stammering on about taking communion, I told her that usually I'm inclined to give it to anyone who wants it because I do believe that Jesus is the reality of the Eucharist. I believe in the importance of bringing these little wafers to people because it's not about the bland taste or how they're usually stale. It's about the way that in this thing, I can offer Christ himself to you.
(If any of you, dear readers, would like further reading on this, I have written on it before. As I went back and forth about linking that old post, I fought the urge to edit it as well. I decided not to, so take it for what it is. Email/message me for questions, comments, concerns...)
I think it's important that the Church Universal (read: the people) should be going outside the walls of their buildings and seeking out the least, the last and the lost. It's not sufficient to sit inside Sunday after Sunday and give thanks that the Spirit has called in ones and twos occasionally to be enrolled on the parish register. There are certain rituals that we can take advantage of to get outside: I used to participate in the Rogation Day tradition of beating the bounds, when I was at a church that dd it. Amanda is helping to plan a Corpus Christi procession. I think that Ashes To Go on Ash Wednesday is very important. Palm Sunday processions can (should) start outside, as should the lighting of the Easter fire (the Fire Marshall always prefer that be outside). My parents have told me that, before I was born, they were a part of church near Lake Harriet in Minneapolis, and they would do Stations of the Cross around the lake every Good Friday.
There are all these traditions, or at least there are rituals informed by tradition, that get the Church out of its box. But all of these are occasional instances. And if I wanted to be really cynical, I would say that a group decides to do these rituals on particular days for their own edification. So compare that with the fact that you will always find people who crave some part of Christ when you go looking for them, whether it's at the hospital or a homeless shelter, or on the sidewalk or on public transit...
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