Why Hospice? Part 2: Spirit Healer

Why Hospice? Part 2: Spirit Healer. I am a hospice chaplain because I feel called to help heal and transform the spirits of those who are seeking.

The church and I have a love-hate relationship. The church is like a 2000 year-old older brother and I'm the rebellious younger sister. We both love the same parents. We both love Jesus. And we fight. All the time.

Sometimes I think my older brother has some sort of dissociative disorder (split personality). There are the fundies and the liberals and the brimstone throwers and the social gospelers and the charismatics and the reformed and the orthodox and the bible thumpers and the guilt mongerers and somehow they are all connected by a book and a historical figure named Jesus. I always found church history to be fascinating and utterly disturbing at the same time. I think that the churches who avoid theological training and claim to teach only the bible are trying deny their roots. As if by not studying the interconnected history and doctrine, they can pretend they don't have part of the same theological DNA as Catholics or Jehovah's Witnesses. It's kinda funny.

After a childhood in an ultra fundamentalist church, I became a nomad of faith... one of the many seekers who call themselves "spiritual but not religious". I had a desire to heal the world and make a difference through science. It didn't work out so well. I've got a knack for science, but my esoteric questions about the meaning and purpose of the universe made my professors a little twitchy. My college chaplain was the first to name my call to ministry, even when I was hesitant to call myself Christian. And he was right.

The AHA! moment I had in college is that I could come up with a solution to the worst pollution problem Earth has and I'd still only be putting a band-aid on a gushing wound. The real problem is a dissociation with the universe (aka God, aka spiritual...) which creates a sense of apathy towards what is happening to the world today. So, to get at the source of the world's suffering, we must first heal its spirit. Does it really matter if we rescue one tree if we allow the forest to die? What if we could heal the apathy and spiritual numbness inside us... perhaps we then could encourage permanent change in the masses, not one minute piece at a time.

So, I knew I wanted to be a spiritual healer, but not how that would look. Once I found a church community I fit in well, I began realizing more and more my call was to be with people who had no church home. Those IN the church, for better or worse, have spiritual direction available to them. The people not in church, and let's face it, that is the majority of the U.S. population, often have nothing. I took a traditional route to become educated and trained. It wasn't easy, and even after accomplishing all the tasks to be ordained, I questioned it. To be blessed and authorized to do ministry by my big brother, whom I love AND who drives me crazy, was an important step for me. I commited myself not only to a vow to represent God and the Gospel, but also to be loyal to my church. I have many strong feelings about the church- not all bad, but not all good, either.

This helps me as a chaplain, because I identify not only with the religiously faithful church-goers, but also those who reject the church out of a sense of betrayal, shame, rage. I recognize the presence of God in all traditions and faiths and I respect the people who doubt God even exists. I feel as if I've experienced almost all of that in my own life.


When I talk of this to others I often hear, "Well, people in a church need pastoral care too."  This is true. But there are a couple things to consider: 1. All pastors whose titles don't specifically say "Associate for Pastoral Care" will admit that finding time to provide such care is hard. There is SO much more to being a pastor of a church. 2. If I were a pastor in a church, I would be providing spiritual care to those who feel comfortable and safe in the church, which means they may be more open to receiving care from the pastor or congregation than many of those I'm with in chaplaincy. There are so many for whom the church walls are oppressive. With my help, they can seek spiritual care without ever entering the church.

The other thing I hear is "Why don't you become a counselor or a medical doctor? You'd be helping people that way." The problem with that is I truly believe that spiritual suffering is the root of our discontent. I don't believe that psychology or medicine has all the answers for how to help a person. Chaplains often call what we do "psychospiritual" and that term acknowledges we incorporate both the learnings from science AND the spiritual in our practice.


When we experience loss and anticipate death, it is a potent time to explore our metaphysical  or theological foundation. What is the meaning of life, death, suffering? Where do we find hope and how can we anticipate the future despite suffering? Who am I and where is God? What happens after we die? What is point of the passage of time if all we do is die? How has my perspective changed due to my experience? What is my relationship to others and why do I have all these different reactions and emotions? Can I find peace?

The list goes on. The point is, I chose to be trained in the art of asking these questions as well as sitting with people while they answer them (or ignore them). To be honest, there is not really a right or wrong way to approach these issues, only many perspectives on how to make it easier or smoother. And with experience and continued training, comes understanding to make it so.

Not every person I visit with needs or wants spiritual healing. Not every person likes my personality or how I ask questions. But with each seed planted towards spiritual transformation, I am making the world a better place. Some days, like today in fact, i don't talk with one single patient or family member because I work on Medicare required paperwork. It gets boring or tedious to do all that paperwork and drive for 10-20 hours a week, but it's worth it. I get those special moments where I know I eased someone's suffering for just a little while and it fuels my spirit and eases my burden as well.