As I write this post on my iPad before going to bed, I hear the words I have been saying to our chaplains on my team at the hospital.
(By the way, my paragraph formatting is a bit off in this blog post at the end regardless how many times I hit the Return key, because paragraphs and new lines do not translate in WordPress when written on an iPad, which is a good metaphor for where I am as well tonight.)
Our Staff Chaplains, Chaplain Residents and Interns are incredible people. They carry the burdens, griefs, and anxieties of dozens of patients and families every day who are going through the hardest times. They also pastor our 8,000+ employees through teaching seminars, grand rounds, pausing for hallway conversations, writing personal notes, and making followup phone calls. They remind persons they are not alone, and that they are loved. And our team is there 24/7 because a level one trauma center with a thousand patients, a dozen ICUs, never closes.
Malcolm, this sounds not only like a still, small voice, but one that is getting louder.
Listen to it.
What can you do for yourself tomorrow? Make an appointment with yourself — off campus — two hours before the end of your work day, and keep it! Fill those two hours with whatever you need. The world will not end and you will be the better for it. And, in the long run, so will those who rely on you.
Blessings~
Malcolm, I just put this on my blog yesterday – something I wrote years ago, probably after not haven’t done what you advise here:
Distant Hope
There are some days
When one is drained.
Curiosity is flat.
Mental strength is strained
And spiritual energy is depleted.
Today
Watching a goldfinch
At the thistle feeder
Outside the kitchen window
Is the only intellectual inquiry I can make
And the only prayer I can offer.
Yet today
It is all I need
To see hope on the wing.
Thank you PC, and Charlie, you are both balm for me at just the right time. I am starting to remember, but I don’t think this will be a quick fix today.