The more time I spend in the world of chaplains, the more I hear that the chaplain’s job is to “show up…(dead stop).” That’s it.
I continue to hear, “Our job is to just be there with them and be present to them." I lean forward expecting to hear more, but the punch-line has already been delivered. Needless to say, this phenomenon has seemed quite strange to me.
What I am more surprised of is that we expect to get paid for this. What other profession presumes that all they have to do is show up and they should be paid a decent middle-class wage?
Even more, when we hear the woes of chaplains who do not feel as though they are given enough authority and responsibility as part of the Inter-Disciplinary Team, there seems to be a cognitive dissonance of the highest order.
Picture this--perhaps the physician says, “Ok, chaplain. We understand that your feel that your work is very important. What will your role be on the team? What is it that you do with the patient?”
“Oh,” says the chaplain, “I plan to show up.”
Can you feel the expectant stares from the rest of the IDT? “What else, chaplain?” They all seem to wonder. (End scene.)
And if we were to show up and have all this responsibility and authority on the IDT, what would we use it for? If a world would be better if chaplains had more of a spot at the table, more responsibility and authority regarding the patient’s plan of care, how would we exercise that authority? Such a role would require an intervention and leadership, not just presence.
You likely are wondering, “who is this jerk writing this?” Well, maybe I am. Or maybe it is that our patients need more than presence. Maybe what they need is healing. But for us to bring them that, we have to risk something by going beyond mere presence.
I write this piece with only part of my tongue in my cheek because most of us chaplains have a 3-year masters degree. Many of us have done 4 units of Clinical Pastoral Training, perhaps completed a residency. Then, there is all the experience that many have beyond that formal training.
I have to imagine that it didn’t take 3 years of masters degree coursework (not to mention the 10’s of thousands of dollars), a year-long residency, and Lord knows what else you have laid at the altar in order to become a chaplain—you didn’t have to do all of that just to learn how to show up.
I propose that we put a moratorium on saying that all we do is “just show up.” That is absolutely something that we do, and we do that much better than other professions precisely because we have been forced to deal with our own “stuff.” But what I am really curious about, where I want the dialogue to go, is “what do we do after we show up?” “How do we bring healing to people in deep pain?” “How are their (and our) lives transformed?”
I think we would be surprised to uncover that a lot of us are already doing it; we just aren't talking about it.
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Matt Rhodesis a chaplain resident at Capital Health in New Jersey. He is a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary and was recently ordained to the Ministry of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Currently he is enrolled in Doctorate of Psychology in Clinical Pastoral Supervision with The Institute for Psychodynamic Pastoral Supervision.