M is for Morgue

On April 16, 2015April 16, 2015 By Stacy N. SergentIn ABCs of Hospital Chaplaincy, Chaplaincy, Grief1 Comment

(This post is part of my ongoing series ABCs of Hospital Chaplaincy.)

The sign by the door reads “Decedent Affairs.” It’s a euphemism. Nobody whose loved one is being treated in the hospital, or who is actually a patient there, wants to see the word “Morgue” as they walk down the hallway. That’s the rationale, as I understand it. But the morgue is there. We all die sometime, whether or not we want to admit it, and a lot of us die in hospitals. When that happens, the morgue is where a body stays until it is picked up by the funeral home. Continue reading “M is for Morgue” →

L is for . . .

On March 12, 2015March 12, 2015 By Stacy N. SergentIn ABCs of Hospital Chaplaincy, Chaplaincy, Love for Neighbor and Self1 Comment

(This post is part of my continuing series ABCs of Hospital Chaplaincy.)

I’ve gone back and forth about which L word fits best with my experience as a chaplain. Most of the other letters were pretty straightforward; one word jumped quickly to mind. But with L, there were two. Part of me thought, it has to be Loss. That’s something I certainly see plenty of in the hospital. In one shift, I may see people lose a spouse, a child, a limb, the ability to walk or talk, the hopes and dreams they had for the future they were certain was theirs, the will to continue living. It isn’t easy to witness those things, and they do come. Continue reading “L is for . . .” →

K is for Kids

On January 21, 2015 By Stacy N. SergentIn ABCs of Hospital Chaplaincy, Chaplaincy, Grief, Women in MinistryLeave a comment

(This post is part of my ongoing series ABCs of Hospital Chaplaincy.)

Working closely with children is one of the best and worst parts of my job. Sometimes it means I get to hold a new baby and speak a blessing over her, as I did with my friends’ daughter, Elli, in the above photo. It means playing Legos with the kid whose mom is working one of her three jobs and who just wants some company while he recovers from another round of chemotherapy. It means talking to the very tall 12-year-old boy in the emergency room in a way that lets him know I understand he’s still a kid, and that it’s okay to be scared or to cry. I love being with kids in those moments. Continue reading “K is for Kids” →

An Author at Last

On January 14, 2015 By Stacy N. SergentIn Chaplaincy, Writing8 Comments

My very first book, Being Called Chaplain: How I Lost My Name and (Eventually) Found My Faith is now available on Amazon for Kindle! This is a red-letter day for me. I can’t even describe how excited I am. You can read the first two chapters for free by clicking Look Inside. I hope that you will then want to read the whole book and post reviews, and spread the word to your friends if you enjoy it! For those waiting for the print version, pre-order will be available soon, and it should be printed in just a few weeks. If you need me, I’ll be over here doing my happy dance!

Being Called Author

On January 10, 2015January 14, 2015 By Stacy N. SergentIn Chaplaincy, Grief, Writing2 Comments

We are just four days away from the ebook publication of Being Called Chaplain: How I Lost My Name and (Eventually) Found My Faith, my very first book! This is a dream come true for me, and a process six years in the making. I still remember the day, just a few months after moving to the Charleston area, that I was walking the Ravenel Bridge with my friend Anita and I told her, “I’ve always wanted to write a book, but I just don’t know what I’d write about!” The next year or so was a case of “be careful what you wish for,” as I got enough material for two books, at least. Continue reading “Being Called Author” →

J is for Journaling

On January 1, 2015January 13, 2015 By Stacy N. SergentIn ABCs of Hospital Chaplaincy, Chaplaincy, Love for Neighbor and Self, Writing6 Comments

(This post is part of my ongoing series ABCs of Hospital Chaplaincy.)

I have stacks and stacks of old journals at home. The earliest one goes back to when I was eight years old. I was never one of those people who writes every day, unless something really special was happening – a trip overseas I wanted to remember in detail, a new medication the doctor asked me to monitor my response to over the first few weeks. Most of the time, I wrote when I needed to write, no more, no less. There were times when it was a fire in the bones, when I could agree with the quote from Charlotte Brontë on the cover of my journal above: “I’m just going to write; I cannot help it.” Continue reading “J is for Journaling” →

I is for Invisible

On December 5, 2014December 5, 2014 By Stacy N. SergentIn ABCs of Hospital Chaplaincy, Chaplaincy4 Comments

(This post is part of my ongoing series ABCs of Hospital Chaplaincy.)

I took my dog, Hurley, for a walk along the Mount Pleasant waterfront, as I often do, but things didn’t look the same at all. Where I can usually look across the water to see the port of Charleston and the many church steeples of the Holy City, today there was a wall of gray nothing. A few times every minute, we would hear the low call of a foghorn, but couldn’t see the source of the sound. Then suddenly, the top of a massive cargo ship became visible, just a few phantom smoke stacks and containers that seemed to be floating on a cloud. It sounded a nearly constant alert to its presence as it made its way through the fog. If there were other ships in its path, I sure couldn’t see them. Continue reading “I is for Invisible” →

G is for God

On October 27, 2014December 1, 2014 By Stacy N. SergentIn ABCs of Hospital Chaplaincy, Chaplaincy8 Comments

(This post is part of the continuing series ABCs of Hospital Chaplaincy.)

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had the following exchange with a patient or family member in the hospital:

“Hi, my name is Stacy. I’m the hospital chaplain.”

“Oh, thank you for coming, but I don’t believe in God.”

My response varies. In my early days as a chaplain intern, I would have allowed this to be the end of the visit. But now, with a few years’ experience under my belt, I don’t walk away so quickly. Sometimes I’ll ask them what it means to them not to believe in God. Sometimes I’ll be honest enough to say, “That’s okay; sometimes I don’t really believe either.” But usually, I just breathe a silent prayer to the God I (usually) believe in and offer whatever support I can to the person across from me. We may never mention God again, but God is there. Continue reading “G is for God” →

F is for Forgiveness

On October 6, 2014December 1, 2014 By Stacy N. SergentIn ABCs of Hospital Chaplaincy, Chaplaincy, Love for Neighbor and Self8 Comments

(This is the sixth in the series ABCs of Hospital Chaplaincy.)

Plenty of times in movies and on TV, I had seen someone go into a dark confession booth and say to the priest on the other side of the screen, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been [length of time] since my last confession . . .” followed by a litany of sins. The priest would then assign a number of Hail Marys or Our Fathers, maybe some act of penance. That was pretty much all I knew about asking forgiveness. I’m a Baptist, after all; we don’t do confession — at least not to another person. We confess our sins directly to God (if at all). So you can imagine my surprise when I found myself, as a hospital chaplain, on the receiving end of a whole lot of confessions. Continue reading “F is for Forgiveness” →

E is for Emergency Room

On September 30, 2014December 1, 2014 By Stacy N. SergentIn ABCs of Hospital Chaplaincy, ChaplaincyLeave a comment

(This is the fifth in the series ABCs of Hospital Chaplaincy.)

It is the beating heart of the hospital. It’s also the only place I’ve ever seen a human heart beating (or struggling to beat) inside someone’s chest, up close and personal. I never know quite what I’m walking into when I get a call to the ER. Chaplains are part of the trauma team, automatically paged in the event of a trauma call. (More on that when we get to the letter T.) But there are many other reasons we get requests to come to the emergency room. It’s one of the units where I spend the most time. My closest friends on staff at the hospital are those who work the ER. (Incidentally, it is more appropriately called the emergency department, since it comprises many rooms. But thanks to those pharmaceutical commercials, when I hear ED I can only think of erectile dysfunction, so it remains the ER for me.)

Here, it’s all about crisis. Almost nobody wakes up in the morning planning on being in the ER later that day. The things that bring people here are sudden and surprising. Continue reading “E is for Emergency Room” →