Making space sacred...
  • home & writings
    • The Sustainable Chaplain
    • ceremony
  • about
  • Book Resources & Reviews
    • My book(s)
    • Interfaith Prayer Books
    • Sustainable sustenance books
  • events & offerings
    • Sunday San Francisco Sound Meditations
    • YouTube Sound Meditations

The Sustainable Chaplain...

How long will this take?

12/8/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
The first rule in herding cats is to figure out where they want to go... (This is Brother Wesson)
Patient for my patients and...
I am suppose to be patient with all my patients...& I am. But if I forget ME care, the stressed-out 'they' become 'me' and we're all clueless. True for you, too?
We must hurry!’ said Mr. Wonka. ‘We have so much time and so little to do! No! Wait! Strike that! Reverse it!
If I miss taking care of me, in here, sometimes the family 'out there, becomes just so...stressed-out, they are clueless. They may actually BE clueless but I can't see clearly because I am in the hole with them.  
The Grief World is where Non-sequiturs Rule
A time ago, the sister of a new patient answered my general question seeking to get some background information on her because he was (alas) non-verbal. She answered my question by first telling me what profession she was in, how much money she made doing real estate, then she went on to her husbands career and how well he was doing too. At that point I gently interrupted her, asking again about the patient.  

"Yeah, I'm getting to that..." Then she looked at me like I was the one doing a stand up routine. She then mentioned the profession of the patient, which was completely unrelated to her (or her husband's) income stream.

My irritability and impatience was not a good start...because the truth is that the family is an organism, which moves as fast as it's slowest part and this woman was the tail.  She was so discombobulated by her brothers illness / decline that she was in the particular dream world where non-sequiturs rule. She was down Alice's rabbit hole.

I joined her there instead of helping her out of her hole...because I was completely out of line with my attitude.  I get stressed out, too.  I /we/ our hospice team had lost a very dear patient the day before who I had been supporting for many months. I did not recognize my own stress level.
Picture
The second rule of herding cats is to allow them to go where they want...and then follow them there to see what's so interesting.
Rx: Practice a Mindful Moment Eight-times a Day
I miss things when I try to overly-control. I know better because I have a daily practice - actually an eight times a day practice where I pause for 1 to 2 minutes (because my phone's buzzer is going off) to do a short prayer or mindful breath. (See The Resiliency Workshop for more on this super useful-practice.)

But, I am generally better at herding cats; that is managing, diversion and distraction at least into the general direction of where I want/need the conversation to go...but I also must listen for interesting and important side streets to the highway that I think I should be on or I will miss something important.

Are you with me?  

Serving Wholeness with Wholeness
My impatience should have been my first spiritual clue that (my own) health and wholeness was no longer in evidence. Here is a link to a mini-talk I did before a sound meditation where I quote some interesting things David Whyte, the poet, has to say about witnessing each other and in doing so serving deeply each other's wholeness.  

​Thank you for listening.  Please comment.
0 Comments

Reigniting Ourselves in Community...a rededication of this blog...

12/6/2021

1 Comment

 
Picture
My own Minorah in my kitchen reminds me, to be the light...and how much I need my others to re-ignite my light on the inevitable human dark nights...of normal (not that a pandemic is that..but it could be worse...right?)

I am not Jewish, I am Interfaith.
I support people of any faith or no faith...and all those rivers between the two as a hospice and bereavement chaplain...and in my writings and sound meditations.

It can be a rough ride.  A good day of being a hospice chaplain is being able to:
​
     • to stay open: my own daily meditation & prayer practice 
     • to stay curious: regular research & study about this world 
     • to stay on the side of love:  improvisation with Spirit by listening deeply 

I have been supporting several (very secular) Jewish folks at bedside in the last two weeks. They don't know or to date have refused me to reach out to a local Rabbi, so I am enjoying the research. It has deepened my own prayer practice, which is ever evolving.

Here is an adapted prayer from the Jewish Morning Prayer. Try it (with your name as host* of God) now, see if you don't get clarity & guidance. 

"Good Morning God!
I know all this being-ness is just you in disguise.Thank you for wanting to be Eleesabeth (your name here) one more day. I will make it a good ride...

May it be a noble day.


​ - Adapted from Jewish with Feeling by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi & Joel Segel

* Host - Another Jewish prayer in the book references the name of god as "Lord of Hosts" and asks if you might surrender to be the host of God today.  It is a thoughtful idea.
1 Comment
    RSS feed for automatic posts of The Sustainable Chaplain

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    January 2022
    December 2021
    April 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    January 2018
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    June 2016
    March 2016
    January 2016
    October 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014



Be resilient.  It's free to sign up.


Taking Care Resilience News
Be renewable. It's free. It's monthly. (GET more FREE AUDIO & VIDEO fun stuff when you do.)


Taking care resilience News signup
  • home & writings
    • The Sustainable Chaplain
    • ceremony
  • about
  • Book Resources & Reviews
    • My book(s)
    • Interfaith Prayer Books
    • Sustainable sustenance books
  • events & offerings
    • Sunday San Francisco Sound Meditations
    • YouTube Sound Meditations