I visited a woman who had just given birth. The family was part of the church where I worked. The pastors took turns visiting. It was my day. I had been a pastor, with the title officially in front of my name, for a few months.

I went to the room, I talked with the mom and the dad. I held the baby. I thanked them. I left.

When I got to the lobby I said, “I never prayed for them!” I looked around. No one heard me. I was pretty sure I had failed as a pastor making a hospital visit. I went back to the room.

“I’m sorry. I’m new at this. I forgot to pray for you!”

They laughed.

I took the baby. I asked for God’s blessing on this baby, on this family. I gave the baby back. I walked out.

That baby graduated from high school a few years back. I sometimes work in that same hospital, though those rooms became hospice rooms, full of people at the other end of life, and then became regular hospital room. Though the building has changed, and that baby has changed more than I have, I am changing, learning to overcome my sense of failure that day.

I thought that the measure of a pastoral visit was praying. If I didn’t pray, the visit wouldn’t count, the people wouldn’t think I was spiritual enough to be a pastor, I would lose credibility, maybe my job. As a newly-hired, second career pastor, the fear was real, though the reasons for it were not.

As I review the sense of failure and missed expectations, I’m surprised to discover there is nothing about God. Nothing about why it might matter to have a conversation with God Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, while holding this baby. Nothing about what God might expect of me or invite from me in those moments.

I think in images. The image I have of my re-appearance in that room is of a kid preacher, tie and sport coat dragging on the floor, rushing around, tripping on everything. A kid trying to measure up.

Any of those images is moving us from a routine hospital visit, from a ritual prayer, into an acknowledgement of the holiness of life and family and this moment.

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.

There isn’t a right answer, of course. A friend of a friend is a hospital chaplain. She never prays with patients. A friend is a hospital chaplain. He always prays with patients. I am a hospital chaplain. I sometimes pray with patients.

But I’m just about always in conversation with God.

+++

Yes. That’s Ben. 21 months ago.