water power

For our last Pastoral Image class we had to submit an image we portrayed in a hospital experience.  Here is one I shared.

Water comes in so many forms.  From the tiniest raindrop to glaciers of ice to warm ocean waves.  All water has the potential for amazing force and energy which maybe harnessed for incredible movement.

Water can be part of a gravity driven process that moves solids and deposits them elsewhere.  It is a transformer of nature and a reformer of the landscape.  To do this it has to be persistent, constant and creative.

The family that stays in my mind were the James’.  My pastoral care started as a little droplet when a nurse on Neuro paged me and told me the family had just received the bad news that Mrs. James had suffered a brain aneurism and would not wake up.  She asked me to come be with them in the consult room.

When I entered the room and introduced myself I could feel the resistance.  They shared that they were not religious, and I could sense uneasiness with a chaplain present.  I gently persisted, got them talking, answered their questions, helped them make plans.

Later I walked them to the patient’s room, carefully eroding some confusion, fear and a resistance to openly grieve. I asked for stories about Mrs. James and their memories brought laughter that washed over us all.  As the end came we cried together and our tears bonded us. 

In the 5 days between first call and Mrs. James’ funeral, we continued to share waves of emotion and experiences.  Rivulets of trust had displaced unease.  I was no longer a stranger, but a familiar current that carried them securely through the hospital and funeral experience.

The Lord says "See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland."  Isaiah 43:19