Here's this week's video chapel message, with transcript below for those of you without speakers on your computer.
Opening Prayer:
God of the still, small voice, quiet us within.
Help us to understand your guidance.
Let the words of the scripture inform us:
“Be still and know that I am God.”
In weakness, help us know our strength.
In depression, help us know our joy.
In apathy, help us know our love.
We pray all his with grateful hearts and in your name, Amen.
It has been quite a week, hasn’t it? In the last week we have seen civil unrest nationally. That is enough to shake anyone up, but also here at the hospital we have an ER with nonstop activity from what I can tell, and this past weekend was uncommonly busy in the ICU and in the medical/surgical area. It is enough to make anyone’s head spin.
Everyone has more to do than ever and is stretched in a time when that has already been true for the past year. Anyone working with COVID 19 patients has extra roles to play as surrogate family members and supporting patients spiritually on top of giving care they would normally give.
What you do serves humanity well. I love and appreciate you and I am not alone in that. It is my prayer that you never, ever lose sight of the value and importance of your work as you work so very diligently.
On top of all these events, Sunday I read in the Washington Post that the Pope will take the COVID 19 vaccination. The Vatican has taken a strong stance on vaccination:
“From the ethical point of view,” the Vatican said, “the morality of vaccination depends not only on the duty to protect one’s own health, but also on the duty to pursue the common good.”
It is a lot to take in. It is a lot to process and unpack. I know that some of us, knowing the nature of when a new medication comes out, that sometimes unintended outcomes do occur as time passes, we are on the fence about taking it.
These are unprecedented and frightening times, where strange and frightening things are happening, such as the events in the nation’s capital last week. Life seems unpredictable, and a large workload on top of such frightening events can spiral us into states of depression and anger.
This last week as I helped give vaccines, some of the most basic spiritual teachings I have gleaned over my lifetime have been helpful to me have come to the surface in my practices. For example, numerous scriptures point to our bodies as being holy places. We keep everything in our church building running well and looking nice, why would we do any less with our own bodies?
The 12 Step program acronym HALT has come to me more than once. It is short for the phrase, “Never get too Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired.”
I have also thought of a Biblical character who was something of a driven worker, Elijah. He was a prophet dedicated to a total commitment to God when idolatry was widespread. And at times, he made waves where he went because of that. Including waves with Queen Jezebel who ordered Elijah’s execution.
Elijah, fleeing for his life into the wilderness, sinks into a depression and falls into an exhausted sleep. He is awakened by an angel, who feeds him and then lets him continue to rest and eat, before Elijah finally gains enough strength to continue into the safety of the mountains.
What he needed to carry on his work, which was not unlike ours as healthcare providers in a pandemic where we are sometimes unpopular and misunderstood……. was simply a snack and a nap.
It happens to everyone and as we can see from our Biblical story has happened for a long time. Sometimes we are caught off guard because things are going OK, we are holding our own…. but we ignored some basic needs. And then things just come out sideways, we raise our voice, put a wacky post on social media, we cannot think clearly, we are suspicious, have trouble making decisions, or just take everything way too personally.
Sometimes it is frustrating, it seems like all we do other than work is eat or sleep. I know I have wondered myself many times if there is more to life than eating, sleeping, and serving in this mess of a pandemic!
That is a great time to remember the end of the story about Elijah I have been speaking of, after Elijah rests, and eats, then makes it into the mountains, he literally meets God.
So as my dear friend Joe Fortenberry used to tell me when I grew cranky and tired, “Eat the cookie, drink the milk, and take the nap.”
Because when we do so, it sets us up to hear the still small voice of our best inner guidance, our highest and most true selves, the Divine, all the many ways to describe what is ultimately True and wise above all the other noises the world presents us with in this complicated day and age.
Take care of yourselves, friends. Take some of that love and compassion for others I know you have and turn it towards yourself. You are more than worthy and so very deserving.
I thank you for listening, be blessed this day.
Just because we are not meeting in person does not mean we cannot make prayer requests. You can do so in the chapel on the first floor of the hospital, or by email to jshawker@connallymmc.org Your requests are kept confidential and prayed over for a total of sixty days.
The Prayer for Protection (Rev. James Dillet Freemen)
The light of God surrounds us.
The love of God enfolds us.
The power of God protects us.
The presence of God watches over us.
Wherever we are, God is.
Amen.
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