By Ann Fontaine
Making my rounds as Chaplain Ann in the Veterans’ Administration nursing home I came to the door of a man whose first words were – “I don’t need a chaplain unless you brought me a gun!” – a startling introduction to my summer of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE).
I did not really want to be in the nursing home, I wanted to be in some sexier rotation like Emergency or Liver Transplants. I drew the short straw and ended up with 120 men and 6 women – a somewhat different population mix than your average parish. All were veterans of wars from WWI to Vietnam. Many were estranged from their families due to the life of a career military person or alcohol or drug abuse. I was newly graduated from seminary and fulfilling the requirement in our Diocese that all clergy take CPE before becoming a priest. The real chaplain at the nursing home was an Assemblies of God career military chaplain. So, great, I thought, me—Episcopal, woman, liberal, anti-war, Harvard Divinity School graduate, and him – Assemblies of God, doesn’t believe women can be pastors, career army. He delighted in calling on me to provide ex tempore prayers and putting me on the line to witness my faith.
As I came to the man’s room that day – anger was all around – in me and in him. One thing I had learned a year before when I was very sick and in the hospital, wondering if I would see my next birthday, is the powerlessness of a patient. I was at the mercy of anyone who wanted to come in and poke or prod me. Invasion of space is the norm for a patient, so I decided I would not go into the patient’s space without invitation. I drew an imaginary line beyond which I would not go. Since these were usually double rooms, it meant the area that the so-called privacy curtain surrounded. If the patient showed signs of me being too close, I would back off even more.
Standing at the edge of that space, I am sure my jaw dropped open, but I tried to remain a non-anxious presence and said, “No, I did not bring a gun.” He said that he did not want to see me if I would not bring him what he wanted. I told him okay but I would be around all summer and if he wanted a visit – I would be there. This interchange continued everyday for a couple of weeks. When he discovered that I was not going to push my chaplain shtick on him, he began to talk, I think so I would stay a little longer.
It turned out that he had had surgery and a nerve had been accidentally cut leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. He went into surgery physically able to spend hours fishing on his boat and enjoying life. Now he was looking at a future confined to a wheelchair. He talked about how he was estranged from his family and told me other things about his life. He had no hope and wanted to end his life. During every visit he would ask for a gun. Every visit I told him I could not do that. Often we would sit out in the courtyard in the sun for our visits, with him still full of anger about the life ahead.
I thought about his situation a lot and one day as I was driving to work crossing the river, I saw some people loading a boat with a hoist. I thought – maybe this could be a solution for the man. I could not wait to share the idea with him. He was out in the courtyard when I got to his part of my rounds, I told him what I had seen. I explained about the hoist and how one could be rigged up to place him in his boat so he could go fishing again. He was strong enough above the waist to do most anything. I said, “What do you think?” He said, “What if the boat tips over?” And in a moment of idiocy or grace I said, “Well, I guess that would solve your problem about the gun!” There was silence and I thought, yikes, I can’t believe I said that. Then he started laughing – deep laughter, so hard I thought he would fall out of his wheel chair. It was one of those things that worked and changed the whole dynamic but I still can’t believe I said it.
One of the things I learned that summer is men, especially, use anger to express grief. I often forget that when I first encounter the anger but usually the learning comes back to me and I can engage with them in a different way. I can sometimes find a way that will remove the roadblocks to our communication. I recoil from anger and don’t deal well with another’s anger, although I know that grief is often the core of my anger too.
I wonder if this is part of the anger that often emerges in the church. It can be good if the church is seen as safe enough to express actual anger at communal injustice and abuse. But when it is grief masquerading as anger – how can we help one another to mourn instead of striking out at one another?
Anger is not a bad thing but it can eat one up if it lingers on with no resolution. Do we need an internal checklist for ourselves when we react with anger or others react with anger?
Is the anger empowering me to take on injustice and abuse?
Or is it a morass of my own making?
Is this anger becoming a habit?
What is really going on?
Why do I care?
Do I feel powerless in this situation?
Am I angry that things are changing?
Am I afraid that all I trusted in is now worthless to others and by extension I am worthless?
What other questions might we ask next time we react with anger?
How might we approach those with whom we work and live who are angry?