The point at which I changed from interested person trying to discover what was going wrong to “sick person” was when I went into the hospital and they put a hospital gown on me. It was then I identified as “sick person.” I fell into a category with a variety of statistics piling up to affirm that identity.
He stopped me because he saw my clerical collar: “You’re the chaplain here, aren’t you?” I nodded and introduced myself. “Do you get to help a lot of people?” Once again I nodded; but I knew that wasn’t where this was going to end. “But, do you get to lead a lot of people to Christ?”
The Kansas City Star reports : “While the supply of physicians roughly meets demand now, by 2025 the nation could be short from 124,000 to 159,000 physicians, according to different scenarios.” The expected shortage of nurses is even more marked, and arguably more critical.
As a religion major at Drew University, I had the chance to study theology in Oxford. There was a catch, I had to act as if I were studying for ministry. That meant mandatory chapel and it meant field work. Rather than send some college kids to a parish where they might break things, they sent us to place where we could do no real harm. You guessed it: they sent us to a hospital!
By Luiz Coelho Celebrant: The Lord be with you. People: And also with you. Celebrant: Lift up your hearts. People: We lift them up to