As recently as 15 years ago, our Community Hospital could still not afford a department of chaplaincy, even though thousands of patients every year were facing critical life situations without any spiritual services. Over the course of a few years, a small staff of religious professionals put together a largely volunteer core of local pastors who agreed to serve the public when facing emotionally trying and life threatening medical issues. About thirty women and men from a wide variety of faiths now make up chaplaincy services at CHOMP.

 

Pastors and Priests, Rabbis and Imams, and those with previous religious training are sought out and taught an open, non-dogmatic way to minister to people in need of spiritual counsel. As a Unitarian Universalist with several years experience working in hospitals, I felt it was important for me to serve the public. UUCMP is the closest church to the hospital and many of our members have memories of time spent in the hospital when a caring hand and empathic voice made a world of difference. 

 

It is a blessing to open my own heart and mind to learn how to help and serve and comfort those with unfamiliar religious traditions. Some of the most sacred and solemn moments I have had the pleasure of experience came when I have been called to sit with those who faced the unthinkable and needed someone to help them be present. 

 

It is an incredible service that this church provides the local community by generously giving me some time to join interfaith colleagues and serve the local community who face medical services. It helps people have a way to open their heart – even when they feel frightened. It helps me open my heart. And, I believe, it is a practice that opens the church’s heart as well.