It's a terrifying and guilt-saturated conundrum...being a chaplain for a God who no longer exists, a minister for a ghost, comforting people at end of life with accepted - scratch that - with expected incantations and mythologies as if somehow the magic will change the course of what happens after death - turning nothing into glory. Hypocritical, duplicitous, deceptive - yet necessary because unlike the divine subject of my profession, the salary IS tangible, the recipients of the income corporeal.
I give daily devotions at the nursing home...pep rallies for God. I steal the words of celebrity Christians from the Internet because I cannot write a devotion in good faith. Don't worry, I give them credit. I don't want it. On this particular morning as the congregation of dying, disabled, forgotten, and dementia-ridden gathered, I read pastoral reflections on Psalm 139. The piece waxes eloquently of God the artist, the Creator, who fashions humans as individual masterpieces of his genius. Each one of us just as he designed, and so I read...
For YOU created my inmost being...
And there he sat, well he sat in his mobility, because that is where he had to sit...a cyborg.
YOU knit me together in my mother's womb...
He'd lived in "facilities" for most his life and still younger than 99% of his fellow neighbors and residents.
I praise YOU because I am fearfully and wonderfully made...
Wonderfully made, well at least to the knees because below the knees nothing had been made - no shins, no tibias and fibulas, no Achille's tendons, or heals or toes - nothing. I'm glad my friend had a chance to cast his vote, to say, "Yes, a life with no legs! That sounds wonderful!! I choose that!"
YOUR works are wonderful. I know that full well...
Wonderful according to whom? God? Easy for him to say, "Let's add a shriveled hand as the cherry on top" and label it Wonderful. Easy for the supreme being who lacks nothing. I bet he has two working hands, two working legs. Hell, he may have eight working arms and legs. Does my friend get to cast his vote for "Wonderful?" No, his simple human mind, the one God gave him, can't fathom the mysteries of God's divine work. Just trust him!
YOUR eyes saw my unformed body...
At this moment my gut pleaded with me, "Stop it! Stop reading! Stop stabbing your friend with these words. End his agony!" But I didn't. I couldn't. I was too weak to stop, too afraid, too dependent upon the paycheck to call bullshit! I'm the chaplain after all.
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