Recently I shared on Facebook a great piece from BuzzFeed, “What You Say to Someone Who’s Grieving vs. What They Hear.” While I liked what it had to say about how our well-intentioned platitudes can actually be hurtful, some of my friends found it discouraging. Their (very valid) point was that there were no positive alternatives offered, nothing like, “Say this instead.” One friend suggested that, since I work with grieving people every day as a hospital chaplain, I should write a list of better things to say to them. I hesitated, because every situation and every grieving person is different, and I don’t want to give anyone the impression that there are magic words that will make the hurt go away. There just aren’t. But as I thought about it, I did come up with at least a few guidelines and suggestions for words that, in most cases, I believe will help more than they hurt. With a subject as messy as grief, that’s the best I can do. So, here we go. Continue reading “What to Say to Someone Who’s Grieving (If You Have to Say Something)”
All the Deaths Along the Way
It’s happened again. Another celebrity has died, and I find myself feeling very sad over the loss of Alan Rickman, just as I did over David Bowie a few days ago. And I’m not alone, not by a long shot. Search either of their names on Twitter and you’ll see literally millions of tweets about how much their art meant to people who never met them. It’s become the thing now to mourn dead celebrities on social media, but even before that, we still did it. (The above photo shows me that I tried to find a way to do it when I was 8 years old.) We still went to work or school or stood on the curb with our neighbors and said, “Can you believe it? I didn’t even know he was sick. I always loved his movies.” Why do we all do this? Continue reading “All the Deaths Along the Way”
Q is for Quiet
(This post is part of my ongoing series ABCs of Hospital Chaplaincy.)
Working in a hospital is sometimes enough to make you superstitious (though, like Michael Scott, I try to be only a little stitious). Full moons really do seem to bring out more of the crazy stuff. If someone mentions that we haven’t had a gunshot wound all day, ER staff members would bet that one will arrive within the hour. And whatever you do, don’t say anything to the effect of, “It sure is quiet around here.” In my book, I tell the story of how I got on a nurse’s bad side by jinxing her shift with the Q word. Continue reading “Q is for Quiet”
Loosing Hope
This can be a tough time of year for hospital work. As a chaplain, I often see the most tragic situations, and they take on an even sadder air around the holidays. Nobody wants to remember Christmas as “the day Dad died” or “the anniversary of Gramma’s stroke.” But it happens. It’s easy to get pulled under by the seemingly hopeless situations. So I wasn’t surprised when I saw a dear friend and fellow chaplain post her status update on Facebook: “Christmas Eve in a Level One Trauma Center may cause me to loose all hope.” Continue reading “Loosing Hope”
Happiness: It’s Not Just for Skinny People
I have a confession to make. This isn’t easy, but I need to say it. Even with all the wonderful things that have been happening in my life this year — and there are a lot of them — I still struggle with feelings of failure. And I know exactly why. As much as I actively fight against it for other people, as much as I give lip service to body positivity, I am still chained to the lie that being overweight means I am not as good as people who are thin. When I look at the picture of me above, the first things I see are my doughy arms and my double chin, and I feel a deep sense of shame. Continue reading “Happiness: It’s Not Just for Skinny People”
What Chaplains Don’t Do
Because this is Pastoral Care Week, I’ll be part of an event at my hospital which includes a reading from my book, and a question and answer session on the role of healthcare chaplains. The event is co-sponsored by our Pastoral Care department and the hospital’s Humanities Committee (of which I am a member), and has been advertised all over campus. Someone who saw the flyers was concerned that in a hospital committed to diversity and inclusion, we were promoting Christianity. I had to laugh at the irony. Such misconceptions of what chaplains do are exactly why such an event is needed! Continue reading “What Chaplains Don’t Do”
P is for Prayer
(This post is part of the ongoing series ABCs of Hospital Chaplaincy.)
“Why do we look down?” I asked my grandmother one Sunday after prayer time in church. “Isn’t God up in heaven? How come we don’t pray looking up?” My childhood question was a sincere one, but I don’t worry so much now about the right posture for praying. As a hospital chaplain, I have seen and participated in countless forms of prayer. I no longer think that God would be more likely to hear us if we looked in the right direction. Anytime we pray — and I believe we all do, whether or not we call it prayer — we are somehow looking for, reaching out for God. Continue reading “P is for Prayer”
“A Must Read for Those Who Work in the Healthcare Setting”
Some of my favorite reviews of my book are from readers who perhaps stumbled onto it or didn’t expect to enjoy it. The latest one on Amazon (where you can buy the Kindle version only; the paperback version is available here) is one of the best so far. It’s from a nurse with the screen name london68, who headlined it, “A must read for those who work in the healthcare setting.” How’s that for a recommendation?! The reviewer writes: Continue reading ““A Must Read for Those Who Work in the Healthcare Setting””
O is for Operation
(This post is part of my ongoing series ABCs of Hospital Chaplaincy.)
Did you ever play that board game as a kid, the one where you had to use the little tweezers to reach into the tiny, metal-lined spaces of the cartoon man’s body to remove the little bucket of “Water on the Knee” or the very literal “Butterflies in the Stomach”? It made me a nervous wreck, and my hands would shake as I anticipated the inevitable Bzzzzz when the tweezers made contact with the metal. I was terrible at the Operation board game, so I suppose it’s a good thing I never wanted to become a surgeon. But I do spend a lot of time near the operating room at our hospital. Continue reading “O is for Operation”
If It’s Good Enough for Stephen Colbert, It’s Good Enough for Me
I’m excited for the arrival of September. It will bring with it slightly cooler temperatures in Charleston, less crowded days on the beach, Clemson football game weekends with my boyfriend, and the debut of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Ever since the final episode of The Colbert Report, I’ve been eagerly anticipating the host’s return to television. (And this very insightful interview in GQ only made me a bigger fan.) In preparation for his new show, Colbert has been doing a Late Show podcast, and I found the latest episode more interesting and relatable than any other so far. By the end I was thinking, Stephen Colbert is just like me! Continue reading “If It’s Good Enough for Stephen Colbert, It’s Good Enough for Me”
Stacy N. Sergent 