A hospital chaplain, wife, and stepmom learning (and unlearning) about life, death, God, myself, and other things along the way
It was a beautiful day for a bike ride on Seabrook Island. Our church women’s retreat, which I’ve attended for several years now, always includes several optional activities on Saturday afternoon. One of them is usually a group bike ride along the trails of Seabrook and Kiawah Islands. We were a small group this year, just four of us, and almost as soon as we started the ride, I could tell something was wrong. Continue reading “How We Brake Ourselves”
(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”
It’s hard to believe, but we’re coming to the end of Advent already. And that brings us to the hardest part of Advent Conspiracy. Man, I thought Spend Less was tough. But here we are at the final theme, Love All. Really, all?? “Love some” I can handle. Even “love most” would probably be doable. But “all,” everybody – surely that’s going too far! Some people just make it so hard to love them. I met one of them a few weeks ago in the parking lot of a Lowe’s home improvement store. Continue reading “Advent Conspiracy Week 4: Love All”
It sounds like a trick. Last week’s theme in Advent Conspiracy was Spend Less. Now we’re supposed to Give More? Wouldn’t that involve spending more?? True, the way we usually do it, with fancy things wrapped up in pretty boxes, it would mean shelling out more money, spending more time in the store or online. But the idea here is not to give more stuff; it’s to give more of ourselves. Where is your passion? What do you care most about? Continue reading “Advent Conspiracy Week 3: Give More”
Oh, I’ve been dreading this one. Ever since I saw the posters for Advent Conspiracy going up at church a few weeks ago, and I saw that the second week’s theme was about money, I knew that would be the hardest one for me. I’ve never been good with money. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t go on crazy shopping sprees for Jimmy Choo shoes or plasma screen TVs bigger than me or beluga caviar or anything like that. But I do find myself often paraphrasing Captain Jack Sparrow and wondering, “Why is the money always gone?” Continue reading “Advent Conspiracy Week 2: Spend Less”
Last year was my first Advent on this blog, and I wrote about the four weekly themes of Advent (well, three of them anyway – I got too busy one week). This year, since I already wrote about hope very recently in my ABCs of Hospital Chaplaincy series, I decided to do something different. Our church is one of many this year participating in Advent Conspiracy, a countercultural movement to focus on the real meaning of this season and not get so caught up in all the “stuff” that goes along with the holidays. I don’t mean writing out Christmas instead of Xmas (which doesn’t bother me since the Greek letter X was an early abbreviation for Christ), or wishing people Merry Christmas instead of Happy Holidays (which also doesn’t bother me since people of other faiths have holidays at this time of year and I want them to be just as happy). It’s about much more than what we write or what we say. Continue reading “Advent Conspiracy Week 1: Worship Fully”
This week, I began a new business venture. I’ve been crocheting for a few years now, mostly making fun things for myself or gifts for friends and family. Over and over, I heard some of them say, “You should open an Etsy shop!” And so I finally have. I’m starting with just a few items, but I’ll be adding more in the days ahead, and I’m excited! If you’re looking for some lovely and slightly quirky handmade gifts, I invite you to check it out at this link: StacyCrochetcy on Etsy
Crocheting is more than just a hobby for me; it’s a spiritual discipline. Sometimes, through the gift of holy imagination, I have conversations with God while we crochet together. Continue reading “Stacy Crochetcy (It Rhymes!)”
This is Mental Illness Awareness Week, and I’m proud to be participating in this synchroblog to celebrate the launch of Sarah Lund’s new book, Blessed Are the Crazy: Breaking the Silence About Mental Illness, Family, and Church. I come from a family in which mental illness — especially depression and anxiety disorders — and addiction have had a huge impact. As a little girl, I remember the great lengths my family went to in order to protect the secret that my mother had been hospitalized for depression. I felt the shame of it, even before I understood what it meant. I was afraid other kids at school would laugh at us if they knew, and any time a group on the playground was whispering, I was sure it was about me and my family. Continue reading “#BlessedAreTheCrazy: No Longer Protecting Secrets”
(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”
It is rather a strange 21st-century phenomenon. There are people I have never met — and may never meet — in “real life” who know things about me that I haven’t shared even with members of my own family. It all started, for me, with a group on Twitter. I don’t even remember how we all found each other, but somehow a bunch of hospital chaplains from very different religious backgrounds and several different countries started a weekly chat at #SocMedChap, for Social Media Chaplains. We would take turns facilitating the discussion, choosing a topic and throwing out a few different questions for the group to tweet responses. It was eye-opening reading these different perspectives from fellow chaplains, even in 140-character bursts. Continue reading “To My Good Friends, Whom I’ve Never Met”
Stacy N. Sergent 