Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 40 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Quote of the day: Sometimes the Time to Weep and the Time to Laugh are the Same Time
As some of you know, I’ve begun a new vocation this year: Hospice Chaplain. This job comes with some new ministry challenges, and I’ll share some of them in days to come.
Today, though, I’ll only talk about one. I often visit people who are asleep or unresponsive.
In the past, people have certainly been sleeping while I preached. It’s a very different thing to be alone in a room with someone who perhaps can hear me, perhaps not. Leaving and coming back later hoping to find the person awake isn’t an option. I need to care for the person in that moment.
I work in nursing facilities. When I come to a room, I knock. I introduce myself in a moderate voice. Sometimes closed eyes will open, and we’ll have a delightful conversation. If the eyes don’t open, that doesn’t mean I leave. I pull up a chair and sit for a while, maybe read some Scripture, sing a hymn, and pray.
And then, due to government requirements, I chart and write up the visit. Many words are written and boxes are checked to say, “The patient was unresponsive.”
Because you never know what people can hear, I’m happy to be there to speak of God’s love and grace. I know that God does hear prayer for the patient.
Nonetheless, such a visit isn’t as satisfying as a visit where a patient can celebrate life or ask difficult questions or even just complain about the facility’s food.
This last week, I had one of those quieter visits. The nurse told me he’d received medication that would make him drowsy, so after I knocked and introduced myself in a moderate voice to the patient, I wasn’t surprised that he remained asleep on his back. Here’s what made this visit different: the patient had a Bible open on his chest.
I was curious what passage the patient had been reading, so I looked at the Bible.
It was opened to Ezra 2 and 3. Ezra isn’t a book most people turn to; generally, people seem to turn to Psalms or one of the Gospels. I pulled up a chair, opened my Bible to the passage, and found a wonderful verse that relates to the work of hospice.
The book of Ezra is about the exiled Jews returning from Babylon and finding the temple in ruins.
This is Ezra 3:13 (our quote of the day): No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away.
In hospice charting, when discussing a patient’s death, there is a place to note whether the family’s mourning is “appropriate.” Loud wailing and rending of clothes, appropriate back in the day, are no longer in style.
What I greatly appreciate about this verse is the mix of sounds of joy and sounds of sorrow. At the time of a person’s death, there really should be both things. I’ve been in rooms where a family is gathered around their dying loved one, telling old stories. And laughing heartily at those stories, then crying. Both the laughter and the tears are “appropriate.”
That is one of the things that was so jarring about the recent mockery of a memorial in Gaza. The coffins of children were paraded about only to the sound of rejoicing. There was no need to distinguish the “shouts of joy” and the “sounds of weeping.” That response to the death of a child is not “appropriate”. It’s evil.
But when we face our own losses, there is room for the idea of a wake, a party of celebration, as long as there is also room for the sorrow and great pain that comes with the loss of a loved one.
Published in General
Hoo, boy.
Thanks for telling us this story. Amen.
Thanks, ECS.
Bless you for the work you do, Eustace. I’m a hospice volunteer and lately haven’t been visiting patients as often. Now I mostly make bereavement calls, to the sons, daughters, spouses and friends left behind. I love to do it. Recently I spoke with a young fellow who deals with his grief through cracking jokes. We both laughed together, and it was lovely. He apologized at first, but I assured him that it worked for him and it worked for me, and I suspected he had to pick his moments. He agreed.
Thanks for the work you do, Susan. Most people don’t know that government regulations require a percentage of Hospice work be done by volunteers. So, your work is important in many ways. (The government regulations being the least of them.)
I add my thanks to both @eustacecscrubb and @susanquinn. You are both doing the Lord’s work.
We lost a very dear friend to cancer Thursday. Marty was 61. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer last summer. Treatment seemed to go very well. However, the cancer came back with a vengeance a few months ago, metastasized in his bones and lymph nodes.
I feel blessed to have witnessed the courage, faith, and peace with which Marty faced his final few days. He called his pending death his “graduation day,” and his only regret was no longer being here to help his loved ones left behind. It was both inspiring and humbling to behold.
I’m sure his widow, sons, daughter and granddaughter would appreciate any and all prayers. I’ll not list their names out of respect for their privacy (especially since this is on the main page), but the Lord will know who you mean, I’m sure.
FYI, for fans of The Chosen TV series, Marty and his wife were extras in the “Feeding of the 5,000” episode (season 3, episode 8). They’re not recognizable on screen, but were part of the multitude of extras dressed up in period costumes, sweltering in the Texas heat for days, hiding umbrellas, sunglasses and water bottles each time another take was about to be filmed. They said they had a blast.
Praying, Terry.
My 91-year-old mom once commented that when she was growing up funerals were a sad affair. Those who attended were called mourners, and they cried. She said that the current fad for a celebration of life was not appropriate. Even though she is confident of her eternal destiny, she says it is right for those who are left behind to mourn the loss of their family member and friend.
I agree – I Thessalonians 4:13 says that we who have hope should not grieve as those do without hope, but it doesn’t say that we should not grieve.
My problem with funerals is that the last one I went to, was for a woman I worked with at a customer site whose ex-husband beat her and her second husband to death with a piece of pipe, as he (the second husband) tried to shield her.
I just can’t any more.