Author: Episcopal Cafe

Then I wrote a Family Mission Statement and placed a copy on the refrigerator for a daily reminder of my priorities. The tenets include mentoring her spiritual growth and showing her the importance of helping others. “Remember to add joy and humor to daily life!” I also wrote. When my younger daughter was born, I had a perfect lullaby and thoughtful plan to share.

If I could talk to that frantic new mother in the nursery, I’d say, “Hang in there. The spiritual journey, with its opportunity to grow into a better human being, one who can raise good people, will thrill you.”

Throughout the pandemic, I have turned to the website MEDPAGETODAY: Honoring U.S. Healthcare Workers Who Died from the Coronavirus. The webpage is updated as needed. When I go to the site, I reflect upon the acts of courage, professionalism and kindness given by healthcare workers throughout the world and in the United States.                       

As an Emergency Department chaplain who also covers COVID+ intensive care units (thirty-two beds). I am called to serve in crisis ministry situations several times a day. In this way, I am frequently present in times of pain, confusion, loss and death. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and her stages of grief theory continues to provide a valid starting point when understanding and being with those experiencing loss and grief. Today it is commonly understood that for most, the grief journey is not linear (simply one stage to the next) but rather more accurately describes the emotions felt in the “pool of grief”, and these emotions are then experienced in a more haphazard manner. Kubler-Ross identified the emotions of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance within the grief journey.       

As the days advance to the arrival of any baby, there is both joy and trepidation, a new blessed being, emerging from labor, and love. So with Advent, awaiting the Birth that marks another beginning for the world.

It is mortal pain that brings forth the Christ child from Mary’s body. His mortal life begun as any babe’s, wrenched away from the warm ocean of the womb to the cold air of earthly life. The Child lifted from the Mother, a sign that this most precious Life will end in being lifted on the Cross, and lifting us up, with Him, to the hope of heaven.