How are you doing?
Everyone is tired, I think. Most are frustrated. The unpredictability of it all. Schools open.... schools close. Patios open, patios close. Who knows which stores are open, and for what? When will I get vaccinated, I am on the front lines......
People have been remarkably resilient for all that. But even in Canada we have had violent protests against shut downs - as if the decision makers, not the virus, were the enemy of the people.
However you cut it and whatever your political outlook, this virus chips away at our determination, even at our mental health. Care workers have been magnificent at supporting their sick patients, both CoVid patients and others, all of whom had in common that they could not visit their family members in hospital. But over time the care workers themselves were taking hits. You could hear it in interviews they gave, their pleas for more resources, their alarm bells over burnout.
I dealt with burnout many many times in my practice. It was always frightening for people to feel they had come to the end of their resources - people who hitherto had been great and confident problem-solvers - but who were now feeling helpless, out of gas.
All of this came to mind when I read an article on Easter Monday reprinted in the Toronto Star from the Los Angeles Times. The story was about hospital chaplains who were finding a new role in caring for the caregivers, whose morale was suffering in the face of the unrelenting nature of the pandemic.
What caught my eye was a quote from one of the nurses who had been trying to follow her grandfather’s advice, “Be a caring presence.” She and other staff realized that they themselves needed that kind of attention. The multi-faith chaplaincy staff responded to this need - a new one for their work - and created a space on different wards where clinical staff could come for a cup of tea and quiet. “Two by two, to accommodate physical distancing, hospital staff trickle in, greeted by warm smiles and hot cups of tea. The chaplains may dim the lights or diffuse lavender-scented oils. Sometimes they set up a jar for workers to deposit their stressors, which are written on slips of paper.”
The point in this, I believe, is the word ‘presence.’ Nurse Katz was already trying to be that to her patients. She surely responded when caring presence was given to her. The word resonates with me because I learned a long long time ago that if you are not present to the person in front of you, if you are not conveying that they matter to you, then nothing happens. And it is remarkable how simple the act of presence can be. A tea cart and quiet set the scene in that hospital, but it was the person of the chaplaincy staff that made the interaction so powerful. There was not even any mention of particular words. Nor did it matter which faith or denomination they represented.
I love that. And I mention it because I think that is what many of us right now are doing even when we think we are not doing very much. Yes you are! It is what many of you reading this are doing. A phone call, an email, FaceTime, grocery delivery, cookie drop off! Your faith may be strong or it may be weak or non-existent. You have a sense that the person you are talking to needs your presence. That’s enough. And somewhere in your consciousness you may register this as the work of God. Keep it up. Especially never ever underestimate how important it is and how it spreads healing ripples through the landscape of the pandemic.
I think it is no accident that this article was published the day after Easter Sunday. It speaks to what the Resurrection was and is all about.
But to help make a very gentle connection to the source of this kind of power, here is another reflection contained in one of the daily emails I get, The Plough. This is neat:
God’s love tears down walls. No longer religion against religion, Christians against non-Christians, but justice against sin, life against death. Therefore, every person you encounter should be your concern. Do not settle for less. Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt
