The back story of this piece, at one time, felt as important as what came from it. But it doesn't feel that way right now. It feels now that the importance is in sharing it to honor, for anyone with access to personal intimate moments in other peoples lives, the importance in knowing what that can bring to your own life.

Briefly, what I'll say is that I experienced something one night at the hospital many years ago when I was there, not as the hospital chaplain, but as a member of the Harmony Chorus. What happened, though, mattered because I am one of the hospital chaplains and people know that. I know that. Even now, when I am there, I am acutely aware of that fact.

We had been asked by one of the nurses to sing to her patient who turned out to be someone known to me. Someone known to me well enough for me to know he wasn't suppose to be there. He was suppose to be up on the mountain he could see from his hospital room window, in camp with his cousins, hunting elk. 

We sang to him holding hands around his bed and he wept. Which often happens, to this day, when the group sings to patients. He raised his arms to me as we were leaving, hugged me and whispered in my ear, “Thank you. Thank you so much.” 

A short while later, leaving the hospital, I experienced a deep and unexpected sense of loneliness. I didn’t feel sad, so much as just deeply alone. I felt as fulfilled as I always did when we had gotten to sing to a patient, something I am no longer a part of and still miss. The loneliness was coming from this being someone I knew, someone I can say was a friend. A community member. A man I knew well enough to know he was suppose to have been hunting elk with his family. A man who, otherwise, lives alone. It was in knowing I could not call his cousins or his son. I could not help rally the troops, circle the wagons or notify the friends. Because I was not asked to do that. And the opportunity had been there for him to ask.

The precious sanctity of the access we have into the lives of those we come alongside, as chaplains is something that absolutely must be kept in sacred trust. As someone invited to cross the threshold of people’s private lives, finding ways to simply hold space for what we hear and see and bear witness to, is of critical importance. If we carry it away with us, we are stealing. If we share it with others, we disgrace the sacred trust of our position. It is not ours. We are there to provide the comfort of a non-judgmental presence, the comfort of a tender touch, a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on. An anchor in a storm. And, when we leave, our own survival depends on our ability to distinguish between what is, and what is not, ours to take along with us. 

The loneliness I felt that night was in me. It was his loneliness and it was my own. It came as an awareness of bearing witness to something private and personal with someone I know. Someone who was not a stranger. Had this patient been a stranger I would have felt something but I’m not sure I would have felt the loneliness. I was not accustomed to experiencing despair. I think it came as a result of holding the knowledge of another’s suffering in privacy and confidentiality. I felt lonely in the intimacy of knowing about a friend’s hospitalization and in knowing it was not my place to call his family. I was learning a valuable lesson. The access, as chaplains, and other kinds of providers, that we have into other’s lives is something we absolutely must hold as sacred. This experience became one of the reasons being part of a Chapter of chaplains became so important in my life. 

It would be unfair and deeply inaccurate to say I chose a lonely way of living my life when I became a chaplain and a grief counselor. The overall feeling I have for my life is one of gratitude and honor but it is also fair to say I did not so much chose it as I was chosen by it. It was not, and is not now, a “lonely way of living life”…it was simply an awareness in that moment on that night. It was a noticing. 

The sense I had in my working years, of my life and my purpose was strong and grounding. It was important for me to learn to recognize and name the feelings that would arise regarding my work as a chaplain. Equally, I believe, it is important to understand that it is all part of the work. It may well be what is in a particular moment ~ but it does not define what is beyond that. When we run into difficulties in our work, it can be helpful to remember that the gift is right there, in the difficulty. Running from the sharp points or avoiding them robs us of the wisdom that can come as a result. There is something hidden, some treasure of wisdom, some personal movement of growth, some deeper understanding of the human spirit, some deeper understanding of the self. Believing in something Divine and unseen, believing in Angels and Spirits and the connectedness of us as humans, allowed me, that night, to sit in that loneliness and know the only words to be uttered were “yes” and “thank you”.

Just as the only words to be uttered right now, are thank you. Thank you again for giving this your time. I have said it often and will continue to say it. Time is our most precious gift. When someone chooses to spend theirs with me, I feel the honor of that.

And I hope you will choose to do it again.

Thank you.