Tomorrow is my last day as a Chaplain. For that matter, it is my last day as a full-time, paid minister serving a particular congregation of people. Tonight, I’m typing up half-page song sheets for a memorial service I will lead at a care facility in Hastings. This is a town I have traveled to at least two times a week for the past year, rain or snow, sunshine or sleet. We have hospice patients in several facilities there and, every so often, I lead a memorial service so that residents can get emotionally caught up on their losses. Residents in nursing homes are continually saying goodbye, being reminded that the day is not far off when their name will be read with a well-chosen photograph projected on a screen. We will offer the attendees flowers (donated by a local florist who has a heart for hospice care) and small hearts crocheted or sewn together by volunteers. People choose their crafted hearts carefully and wheel themselves back to their room with a flower across their laps. A friend will play hymns on the piano and my Elara Caring hospice team will provide cookies and punch. Facility staff members need the time to grieve as well as the residents. We grow to know and love certain patients who often remind us of our grandparents. Maybe they are the grandparents we never had.
Additionally, I’m putting the finishing touches on a graveside service I will lead for one of my patients tomorrow. Her family asked if I might officiate since I knew her. Truthfully, I only know her as one who often cried out for help. She derived strength from the presence of her beloved, whose daily visits brought her some level of peace. I was moved by his devotion even as he stood helplessly by her side, unable to remove her suffering. So I did not know her in the fullness of her life. But I sat with this family, offered them comfort and prayed with the patient who nodded her head when I offered to close our visit in prayer.
Chaplains learn to minister to folks, whatever their spiritual beliefs. This was a dramatic shift for me from parish ministry where folks came into the church I served, seeking out a spiritual home to nurture their Christian faith. In the past four years, in a mental health hospital and on a hospice team, I have lived my faith in Jesus everyday whether I preached His name or not. It has been outstanding practice for how to live faithfully and lovingly in our diverse culture today.
So tonight feels normal—and it doesn’t. As I prepare for memorial services and anticipate meeting with my last hospice patients, I am struck that I am through when I drive home tomorrow. Forty years of being identified as a paid faith leader culminates in a nursing home one hour from home and in a country cemetery that I hope I find before the service begins! Forty years. That’s an apt Biblical number! In contrast to the Israelites who wandered forty years in the wilderness, my career as a minister has felt lush with growth and filled with blessing. I have had the privilege of entering into the intimate moments of folks’ lives when they were celebrating God’s grace or needing to borrow some of my hope. When I had my own challenges, my beloved community offered acts of mercy to help me along. Retiring from parish ministry in 2022 and, in particular, from a cherished congregation I served for 25 years, was heart-breaking. But I knew the time was right. I was actively training for chaplaincy at the time. My energies were focused on new ministry challenges that led to hospice service when my residency concluded.
Tomorrow, I turn in my tablet that has organized my visitation schedule for a year. It has given me GPS suggestions for how to order my visits that often take me 100 miles in a day. I turn in my company phone on which I have offered encouragement to loved ones of my patients. Since some lived too far away to visit regularly or didn’t have the health to get out, the report of my visit helped bridge the distance they felt from the family member on hospice care. My car, which has been my mobile office, will be cleaned out and another set of vocational resources will need to be housed in a file cabinet—or thrown.
Forty years.
In the Spring of 1985, I was planning my wedding to The One I met in seminary. We had a shared Associate Pastor position lined up in Lombard, Illinois where we would begin serving just two weeks after our wedding. We shared an office where Garrett carried a heavier load than I, since I had another year to complete my degree. In 1987 we were ordained together in that congregation. I had discovered by then that being a pastor was the calling I was meant to fulfill (even if I never knew that growing up). Since that time, I have served in three congregations and fallen in love with three church families. My training for chaplaincy was through a residency at Pine Rest Christian Mental Health Hospital. That experience stretched me in more ways than I can name. My Clinical Pastoral Education completed, I was hired as the Bereavement Coordinator to offer grief support to the family and friends of our hospice patients. A year ago, I accepted a position as a Chaplain at another hospice to visit the dying and offer them spiritual support. This has been rewarding work for me. The gifts a hospice team offers to a terminal patient are many. What we receive from our patients is the privilege of being an entrusted traveler in their final journey. Some patients share such deep wisdom that I write their words down or store them in my heart. On a daily basis, I witness deep love expressed between my patients and their families. When there are divisions, I seek to bring peace. Hospice chaplaincy has been a natural extension of my pastoral ministry in churches. Yet, again, I have been stretched.
Garrett and I have known that I would wrap up my vocational years helping at his law firm. It is, after all, our family business. For a number of reasons, it is clear to us that this is the opportune time (“Kairos”) for me to leave my vocation as Minister of the Gospel behind for something new (again!). It’s difficult for me to imagine not being answerable to a congregation or a corporation. I’m relishing the thought of being able to take time off without worrying about PTO or how many remaining Sundays I have free. I look forward to being a helpful and caring presence at Solomon Law Firm and coming full circle, working in the office with Garrett.
So, I’m excited…and I’m sad. I have reminded countless individuals in these four decades, that everyone ministers in their workplace, neighborhood or family circles. I truly believe that. What is different for me is that I have been ordained to preside over the sacramental life of congregations and to meet people’s spiritual needs as a full-time, paid professional minister. I fully anticipate doing occasional pulpit supply or officiating at funerals. I will joyfully continue my work as a spiritual director through my business, Sunflower Spiritual Direction. But I’m letting go of my vocational identity as an active clergyperson. I’m discovering that this cuts more deeply than I would have thought.
Thanks for indulging me as I share my mixed feelings on the eve of my retirement from full-time, active Christian ministry. Somehow forty years seems just right—and I am so thankful.
Preaching Life 