(A couple years ago, I did a funeral for a friend with Alzheimer’s. These were part of my comments. I come back to them now, as a chaplain, regularly. Because this text was part of the service that led to my last two posts, I decided to run this today again.) More than I ever […]

Chaplains walk into rooms for lots of different things. Many of them are not exactly spiritual. We offer people help with advance directives, like appointing a health care representative. We are notaries. We show up when people come into the ED for accidents and falls and heart attacks and strokes. I don’t pray out loud […]

Chaplain provided spiritual care. Recently, I charted a visit with a patient with the simple phrase, “Chaplain provided spiritual care.” It took 20 seconds to type. It summarized a 25-minute conversation. The highlight of our conversation for me was when I asked the patient what she would like me to ask God and she said, […]

I’ve been at a conference most of the week. It’s the biennial meeting for the denomination I’m part of. Many people I talk to in the hospital and elsewhere say that they are not much interested in organized religion, the kind that is represented by this conference. In defense, the joke we tell is that […]