Hospital hermeneutics
How working as a hospital chaplain shapes the way one writer approaches the Biblical text. (Hermeneutics)
Tag: chaplain
Hospital prayer
As a pastor then, as a chaplain now, I often navigate in a space bounded by positional obligations and patient (and family) expectations, and God’s invitation. So in that space, when it occurs in hospitals (or other places of pastoral care), what does it look like to talk to God on behalf of and in the presence of other people? And, perhaps, to talk to people on behalf of, and in the presence, of God.
Talking about talking about death: notes on recent reading.
Because I see a lot of death as a hospital chaplain, it makes sense for me to look for ways to help people think about how to make decisions about medical and other interventions near the end of life. How to understand what is going on in the hospital and in the body. How to work within a framework to make decisions.
This is a review of books I’ve been reading.
Practical daily research
How can I get better at pastoral care? I can pay attention to my own practice, my own interactions with husbands and wives, parents and children, moments of excruciating difficulty. In each of those moments (or immediately after) I can ask myself, “What am I learning that will help me with the next one of those moments. What questions can I ask myself and others? What can I learn about attending to bits of information and infusing them back into the care all of us provide?”
Honest funeral messages.
A funeral message is a place for respect and for integrity. It’s a place to acknowledge a person’s actual humanness and God’s actual grace. With a heart toward the healing of the family and friends, we can gently describe what we know.
Elliot’s daughter found a little peace in the honest description of the dad who abandoned her and the Father who didn’t.
A conversation with kids about death.
I think they were nine and twelve. But I’m terrible with figuring out the ages of kids, and I’ve decided
How to start a funeral service
Here are the words I use every time I begin a funeral service. We don’t want to be here. Just
When visiting people in the ER, look them in the eyes.
Some of us are squeamish about blood, especially in the hospital. So when we need to visit a friend, family
Can my loved one hear me?
In the last hours and minutes of people’s lives, laying in hospital and hospice beds, we often hear the question,
Remember the best conversation, not necessarily the last one.
People often say, “I wish I had told them I loved them” the last time they spoke with their loved
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