300 words a day

Years ago, I remember reading Eugene Peterson: “my primary educational task as a pastor was to teach people to pray.” I think that’s true for chaplains, too. It’s not our only task. But it may be our primary educational task, the thing that we can teach. The challenge in teaching about prayer is that many people […]

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 […]

Rich Dixon is back with another story. +++ Everyone has a story. ~ Dick Foth The first thing we learned in Greenville, Mississippi, was that we didn’t speak the local language. The label on the map looked like “Green-ville.” But the proper pronunciation is more like “Gren-vul” or, even better, “Gren-vul, y’all.” The second thing […]

Some chaplain days have no space. The pager calls you to the Emergency Department three times in fifteen minutes. The pager calls you to three deaths in three hours. The pager calls you to two patient rooms for conversations in the same fifteen minutes and the same three hours. On those days, I’m learning about […]

It was a very challenging day for northern Indiana. Which meant that it was a very challenging day for people working in the hospital. Which meant that it was a very challenging day for chaplains. As each new unrelated event happened, coworkers would look at each other and say, “What is going on?” Some people […]