The article I read started with the statement:
If I were admitted to hospital today, and if you were my chaplain, it’s likely you would find me difficult to engage. Had you stopped by to visit, I would chat politely with you. I would make small talk about bike riding, the weather, or the interesting necklace you’re wearing. But when you try to engage me, I simply will not go there.
She goes on to talk of her life experience with cancer and the accompanying emotional depletion she felt. Towards the end she says:
The absolute wrong thing for you to do now is to try desperately to have a meaningful conversation with me. Eventually, you will succeed. You will nudge me to express my feelings of fear and grief, and I will go there with you sooner or later. My defenses are weak, and my emotions are all very close to the surface. Yet all you will have accomplished is to further deplete my emotional stores. What you can do is offer normalcy. Companionship. Friendly conversation.
Reading this led me to reflect on my experience as chaplain. At first I really wanted to have those meaningful conversations; if I was lucky, about God, but even getting to where the patient was open about what was on his mind had me feeling grateful that I was doing what the role expected of me.
Perhaps I expect less of myself now. I'm starting to see that enjoying the interaction is a far bigger deal. Being genuinely interested in the person behind the words, feeling a real connection is a two way thing.
This is, I feel sure, is what Holly Gaudette means when she says "Companionship. Friendly conversation." There's a nourishment happening in the soul when we take a real interest in another without trying to 'fix' anything. When I want to help a patient open to his pain there's a temptation to see myself as the benevolent person who has something to give to one who needs my help. When I'm in the role of chaplain I may feel pleased with myself for a little while afterwards but it doesn't satisfy in the way that a real conversation does, where there's no hidden agenda to 'help.'
It's not quite how I was trained as chaplain. I don't want to rubbish that training though, because it directs me to looking for the person within the 'patient' and asks me to create, if I can, a space where the person feels safe to speak about how he feels. However, I'm slowly learning that I need to be open to my own feelings in an interaction in order to truly communicate, and also that the rewards of this kind of interaction are immediate, the mutual pleasure of being real with someone. This doesn't mean that I'm
