What are Hospice Patients asking of Chaplains?

Over the years, I have reflected on the needs of the dying and their family members. From working in a Cancer Center for two years to working with Hospice over fifteen years now, I have changed my approach to care a great deal. While doing the work of Hospice Care, it has somehow worked on me as well. I realize that service to others has developed my character and my soul.

I remember leaving Seminary thinking that I was going to “do” ministry. After practicing what I knew for a brief time, I realized that what I knew was not going to get me very far with the patients and families that I serve in the field of palliative care. What I knew from Seminary didn’t matter to those who are dying. This was a big ego loss for myself that I did not anticipate. I soon learned that my ministry would be one of listening to the sacred moments of a person’s life. Sometimes these sacred events meant family, church, hobbies, and much more.

There is a lived theology in each of us. A lived theology is the journey one takes into their inner most selves and brings forth a creative life from these depths of one’s soul. It is path into one’s most authentic expression of living he or she believes brings joy to themselves and the lives of others. It may be cooking, artwork, care giving, or the writing of a simple article. It is the place inside us whereby one knows such creativity comes through them and not from them. In essence, it is a person’s relationship to what is the most sacred in their lives.

As I have listened to the needs of the dying and their families, I have heard their cries of desperation to hold onto a sense of belonging and the hope that their loved one will somehow watch over them when they die. You hear many people in bereavement care say that they feel their loved one is near them after he or she has passed on into spirit. This kind of belonging enters into what I call an eternal relationship that will never die. I have often pondered on this level of understanding if a person really dies. It seems as though the deceased loved one travels to a place not far from those who have loved them. They travel into the hearts of those who have been left to face an existence apart from their loved one’s physical body. The relationship one enters simply takes on a emotional expression known as grief in our hearts. This grief pulls at our hearts and creates a longing to be with those who have died. It is as though we are drawn into a deeper aspect of ourselves. When the intensity of our grief subsides, we allow ourselves to be at peace with our grief. This movement allows us to imagine and feel what it is like to connect to those who have gone before us in a hope filled way. As such, the ministry to the dying and their families is a creative expression where one’s heart and imagination leads us into the path of introspection.

Introspection serves a purpose in our lives when the world around us no longer makes sense. It is a safe place for us to enter when loss becomes an uninvited friend. In so doing, we become what our imagination and heart desires in order to find wholeness and peace again. It is the realm of eternal relationships I am speaking of at this point. Here is where psychology, theology, philosophy, and metaphysical understanding of the dying experience have their limitations.

I remember the first couple of weeks in my Hospice Care that I became friends with a woman who told me that what she wanted from me was for us to sit in silence together and end in prayer. For weeks, I had an interesting conversation with myself while sitting next to the woman who was teaching me how to care for the dying. I entertained thoughts of wondering why I went to Seminary if all I was going to do was nothing for this woman.

Little did I know that I was being taught lessons in soul care that have inspired me to this day. She reminded me that what I knew meant nothing to a dying person, but my willingness to learn what is sacred to the dying meant a great deal. She reminded me that even my service to her meant nothing, but my willingness to serve her needs was everything. She reminded me that even my Holy Rituals and prayers could not come close to what she needed the most – a friend to sit with her and listen to the depths of our souls calling us home.

 

Rev. Sam Oliver, author of, “Angel of Promise”

Amedisys Hospice Services Chaplain and Bereavement Coordinator, Londonderry, NH

For more on this author: www.pathintohealing.com

 

The Ways We Grieve

Have you ever noticed the way people grieve? There seems to be those who grieve from an ego perspective, and those who grieve from an integrative perspective. To some degree, you will notice a little of ego and integrative responses in the process of letting go. We live in a society where being able to become independent is necessary to exist in the world. From the moment we are born, we are observed by the medical society and our parents. We are watched to see how we are developing. It is important that we learn to crawl, to walk, to be potty trained, to learn to speak, and you know the rest.Each of these developmental stages of growth enables us to live independently in this world. Our ego finds new confidence each step of the way. We begin forget we are brought into this world by a power greater than and selves. And thus, self-centeredness takes such a stronghold within our psyche we are convinced that what we are in more real than anything else. Then, it happens. We experience loss. Something beyond our control reminds us there is a world in us that doesn’t match the one outside us. There is more to living in this world than our own needs, wants, and desires. This new identity allows our self-centered ego to relate to a much grandeur world. The movement from the world lives inside us. It is an integrative process.

1. Grieving through the Ego.

This kind of grief is found in these words: “life begins and ends here,” “life will never be the same,” “my life is over.” Although there are elements of truth to these statements, there is a limited worldview attached to them. They are statements people use to express their ego needs no longer being met due to the loss that takes away from them a part of their world.

When I hear the voice of ego grief in a profound way, I realize I am dealing with someone attached to the world of form. The ability to become abstract enough to find hope beyond this world in their relationships is challenged by the death of a loved one. In doing so, the deceased loved one becomes a pathway into the soul of those in ego grief.

2. Grieving through the Integrative process.

You may hear these words in this path to grief: “life is different,” “my loved one is in a better place,” “I will be O.K.” Do you hear how these statements reflect a sense of knowing their loved one’s body is gone, but their spirit will remain in their heart? This type of grieving allows a person to have a sense of knowing. It is a knowing that only the body is dead. The relationship with a deceased loved one remains in place. It may even be such a connection in soul that some feel closer to their loved one than when they were alive in physical form.

To be known as we are truly known is not an afterlife experience. To be fully human and fully divine is one of the best kept secrets we all pretend we are not aware of until the afterlife. There is no afterlife. We came from eternity and to eternity we return. When we let go of the notion that eternity begins at death, we are free to utilize eternal resources to help us live in the here and now.

The instant we realize we live in the world AND the world lives inside of us reveals a sense of awe. The world and our part in it have neither beginning nor an end. This integration from individual awareness to collective awareness carries within it hopes. It is the hope in knowing that all belong to an unending stream of consciousness. As humans, we have predictable stages of development indicating where we are in human maturity.

As we age, our psyche or our soul integrates its being from individual awareness to universal awareness. The journey into eternal awareness allows a sense of hope beyond the sense to withstand grief. Eternal Awareness integrates the self into the Universal knowing that the power which leads us into the world knows how to take us home.

Sam Oliver, author of the new journal, “God a Logs on Living and Dying”

The Power of Prayer to Heal

On one occasion, I was asked to go into a room and be with a daughter whose Mom was dying. Mom was expected to die not long after I was to enter the room. When I went into the room, the daughter was at her Mom’s bedside. She did die not long after I had entered the room. Her husband was on his way to be with his wife and daughter of this patient. He did not make it in time.

The daughter did not want to be alone when Mom took her last breath. I was called to step in for her husband who could not make it in time to be with his Mother in Law and wife. When he arrived, his wife was so grateful that I had been with her that she shared this with her husband. During this time, I wondered if some guilt on his part may set in with his own personal grief. Just in case, I offered a prayer of release and blessing for their three lives having known one another in this life to include the Son in Law.

Prayer is a wonderful way to invoke the sacred into our lives. Prayer invites a comprehensive understanding that God/Higher Power is in charge of life and of death. It is a reminder how the presence of God’s Spirit supersedes everything and everyone’s ultimate ability to care for us beyond our own ability to do so. In this case, prayer was able to invite Unity in a situation whereby possible individual grief could have been encountered at a later time. Prayer enabled all to participate in Mom’s dying and death from a level of awareness that includes a life’s presence beyond the body itself.

As I write these words, I am reminded how vital prayer is to the Hospice patients and families we serve. Prayer encompasses an eternal awareness and brings forth healing when temporal circumstances could emerge individual flaws in our own psyche. Prayer invites unconditional grace and healing.

For this family, prayer became a way to include all participating in grief to join one another in the path of healing together. It invited what is most sacred in us to seek God for help during a difficult time. Also, prayer gave everyone in the room the ability to seek, and even find, the healing power of prayer by focusing our attention outside our ego enough to know exactly where our strength will come from.

Prayer is a participatory union between those evoking God’s presence through faith in a loving being who knows best how to care for us more than ourselves. It is a relationship based on trust. It is a trust reminding us who we really are as God’s children. And, it is a trust in God’s ultimate Will for our lives beyond our own understanding. It is as though we trust our lives into a Creative order of existence not made with human hands. It is a reminder to each of us just how sacred every moment is and a way of reminding each other who we really are.

Prayer invites us to close our eyes to the world around us and open them up into insight. Here, we see through our eyes what cannot be seen with them. It is here we envision and participate in unconditional love. Innocence is born in this sacred space healing a separation that was never meant to be.

Sam Oliver, author of the new journal, “God a Logs on Living and Dying”

For More on this Author: http://www.soulandspirit.org

The Landscape of the Soul

Through the years, we accumulate a series of experiences. Our tendency is to evaluate and simply reflect on what we have been through and what we have learned. This inward site into what we can no longer see with our eyes allows us to see through them, and into, our soul.
The landscape of the soul creates a movement and a synchronistic pattern between our heart and our mind through the inner visions of our soul. When the heart and imagination join forces to look back or look forward, we are deepening our awareness of who we really are. This deepening of who we really are is our soul.
It has been said that “our hearts will not rest until we rest in thee.” This is our journey in life. It is our journey home. It is the journey into the spacial quality of existence that brought us into this world. It is the journey of what is leading us through this life. And, it is the journey back to where it all began.
One could say that the infant and the elderly are more soul than body. As you and I develop our personality and ego, we begin to think we are somebody. Ram Dass calls this “somebody training.” We begin to think we are real and act on this appearance of being as we move into adulthood. When we mature, we go back into what Ram Dass has called “nobody training.”
We spend a great deal of time learning to develop independence from infancy only to lose it again as we die. It is the journey from innocence to grace. The human expression is a journey with many ups and downs. What keeps us on tract and often sane in an insane world is the “landscape of the soul.” The landscape of the soul gives us strength to do the impossible and give us hope when there is none.
Even though all parts of the self needs to be embraced with scrutiny and unconditional love, there is something inside us perfecting our true nature. Our authentic self knows we are growing through life and simply going through life at the same time. This delicate balance between these two forces of nature enables us to stay on our path. In so doing, we learn to trust in our soul and find direction there when direction in life is not present.
When darkness turns to day, the sun moves over the horizon and touches everything in sight. This movement across the landscape brightens everything. Such an illumination awakens us all. We rise with energy moving in and through us allowing us to create a new day. It is a day unique from all the rest and creatively woven into our soul.
This is the landscape of our soul. As you can see, nature has a way of showing us just how powerful we are. The same power that created the moon and the stars and the movement of all space and time lies within the human heart.
Human beings are fortunate to be able to be aware of our awareness. This awareness gives us an opportunity to reflect on our soul and find blessing in being alive. Our consciousness of a creative force inside us guiding us into this world, through it, and eventually to our eternal home allows us to fulfill a purpose on this earth.
Such a purpose is beyond our own ability to really know. Yet, we can open our heart enough to allow our purpose to find us. This is done by recognizing that the things in life that really matter ARE the things in life that isn’t matter.
Yes, it is our soul’s longing to fulfill the purpose for which we came to earth for. No one really knows how a baby is conceived totally. Science and human understanding still hasn’t been able to fully comprehend such a force of nature. We can only embrace what is beyond us and find a way to bring into being forces of nature such as a tiny child.
When a child is born, we are in awe. The miracle of birth creates something inside us all. It is the remembrance that life does not come from us. Instead, life comes through us. As such, we are living in a dream come true. All of us are probably living our soul’s purpose more than we know, and even, can know. It is the mystery of all mysteries.
This does not explain why some of us find peace and other’s find pain. But, such a philosophy will enable us all to find grace in knowing our lives create what we all are a part of. An understanding of such grace gives every one of us a chance to find mercy and grace and the same unconditional love we came into the world with when we were born.Samuel Oliver, author of, “What the Dying Teach Us: Lessons on Living” “God a Logs on Living and Dying” “A Fish Named Ed”

Sam Oliver worked with the dying for over 17 years. During that time, he wrote 4 books on grief. Website URL; http://www.soulandspirit.org

Sam Oliver – Hospice Resources!

Dying people have much to teach us about living in soul.  I have witnessed people of all races, ages, genders, and sexual orientation let go of the life they have come to know.  One thing becomes clear “everyone learns to love the life they have been given.”

When a dying person enjoys or is saddened by the past constitution of their life, he/she reaches deep within themselves to find meaning, hope, and unconditional love.  Despite our humanness, we have an inherent need to bless what has given us experience within the expressions of our lives.  This is the level of soul care “not made with human hands.”  It is the heart of creation, and perhaps, the heart of God.