I’ll tell you exactly how I feel about making hospital calls.
Weary.
I might even call it “weary in well-doing” if it weren’t for my sneaky suspicion that I am not doing well at it.
The patients, actually, are the easy part. They seem happy to see me. We pray while I touch whatever part of their body is hurting, with some exceptions, of course, in which case I hold their hand. They seem to like the prayer, “Bless O Lord this child of thine, Bring him (or her) safely home, Heal him body, soul, and mind, And bring him back to us rejoicing.” They like when I ask them what they think the prayer meant. Most people want to know about the rejoicing part. As do I.
Mortal assault
Hospital calling is an assault on my mortality. Before age 40, I was a whiz at the hospital. I could cheer up entire floors of the dying. Their fate had nothing to do with mine.
But then I had a bout with a virus for a couple of years. I learned to mistrust doctors, to fear tests, to despise the hurry-up-and-wait of diagnostic procedures and the matter-of-factness with which people stuck needles in my arms and drained my blood. Now a human being makes hospital calls. The whiz pastor died.
My new attitude prompted me to develop a new hospital-calling policy, which has a sort of rhythm. If the person is critically ill, I visit daily; if chronically ill, every other day; if improving, every three days. If I’m there for a chronically ill person, I visit all the rest. I clearly hope for wellness in my congregation; I’m invested in it.
The hardest part is when the hospital is at a distance. Then I end up using the telephone more and making weekly drives. I don’t feel good about this. The telephone is not much good for caring for the ill.
The best definition of health I’ve heard is that health is “the maintenance of our identity under awkward circumstances.” Bags, tubes, interrupting nurses, the decor and food and protocol of hospitals-all are awkward circumstances that, combined with our sickness, weaken our identity. One objective as pastors, I suppose, should be to strengthen identity.
Unweary presence
What I do at bedsides is listen for stories. Daughters will call about their 70-year-old mothers: Do they really have to use the restraints? People will report trying to buzz a nurse for hours. Some are stranded while sitting on the commode. These kinds of circumstances take a good bit of my hospital time.
My care in the hospital is a finger in the dike: I never know what is going to happen; I never know if what I do is enough; and I can always see there is room for more. Especially when people cling to my hand as I try to leave.
Hospital calls remind me about my mortality, my inadequacy, my helplessness. In the hospital, never am I so aware of God’s presence with me. I may be weary, but God isn’t.
Donna Schaper is Western Area Minister for the Massachusetts Conference, United Church of Christ.
1997 by Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.
