Recommended Reading: Suffering and Chaplaincy

My friend Rachel, ace marathon runner, culinary wizard, sometime-professor of Old Testament, and Hebraicist, introduced me to this excellent blog post by Kerry Eagan.  If you’ve ever felt sick to your stomach when people spiritualize your suffering, check this out.

Money Quote That Pays The Bill And Elevates The Post Above Ordinary Intertwaddle:

And if you were to ask me the same question - What do people who are sick and dying talk about with the chaplain?  – I, without hesitation or uncertainty, would give you the same answer. Mostly, they talk about their families: about their mothers and fathers, their sons and daughters.

They talk about the love they felt, and the love they gave.  Often they talk about love they did not receive, or the love they did not know how to offer, the love they withheld, or maybe never felt for the ones they should have loved unconditionally.

They talk about how they learned what love is, and what it is not.    And sometimes, when they are actively dying, fluid gurgling in their throats, they reach their hands out to things I cannot see and they call out to their parents:  Mama, Daddy, Mother…

This crucible of love is where we start to ask those big spiritual questions, and ultimately where they end.