Wild

It took Cheryl Strayed 94 days to walk 1,100 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail. This morning I finished a 70 day hike as a children’s hospital chaplain.

In major travel or in the minor decision to enter a hospital room, moving outward causes one to look inward. The film Wild portraying Strayed’s life is constantly weaving in and out of flashbacks. Every new present sensory experience links to an image or scent or song of the past. It is evidence of how much memory we carry crisply with us, never as far away from our current cognitive processing as we think.

As a chaplain, my goal this summer in many ways was to look another human in the eye and find a way to ask the following question: in the midst of this place, how is your soul doing?

It’s not always the easiest question to ask.

But in those quiet evening hours, or after a summer in relationship with a dialysis patient, when I could find a way to do this, I grew to be amazed at the responses. I learned this summer that real listening is waiting to be surprised by what the other had to say. Instead of playing a game of assumptions and inference guessing and expectation matching inside my own head, I tried to pause and give room for another to articulate. I tried to give honor to that sacred space.

What I was “surprised” by more than anything else this summer was seeing the incredible relation between a parent and a child. It is clear to me that this love is the strongest force in the world.

In these outward visits to hospital rooms, I looked inward. I looked in and remembered the night after my cardiac arrest, where every time I woke up in the hospital bed, my dad was awake and standing next to me. All night. I remembered how the only thing my dad ever wants on Father’s Day is a letter from each of his kids. I remembered how my dad use to send us into giggle fits with his whisker rubs at bedtime.

I looked in and remembered how my mom would call me months after the cardiac event whenever she heard a helicopter to make sure I was okay. I remembered how through all financial hardship, she never stopped giving abundantly to us. I remembered her singing to us on summer evenings…”Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.”

Every day I was awakened by this force in the hospital. So many parents give up comfortable beds night after night to sleep on thin couches or recliners. So many parents actively learn all medical knowledge to be the advocate for their child. So many parents cling to a son or daughter’s hand when an IV is placed, or a crowd of medical staff gather around a bed, and they coach their child through it: “You’re so strong, honey. So strong. You are not alone.”  So many parents sacrifice all things to be present.

There is a predictable nature to this work. A parent hears the word chaplain; some fear this means death, others pour out their entire life to me without hesitation. Sometimes there are the difficult questions—“why did God let this happen?” Yet what is also predictable is that in moments of crisis, humans instinctively look for love. They must call their parents and siblings and partners. They seek human contact. They wail and shake and collapse to the ground and cling to your legs for connection.

Love can look like many things in the hospital. But as I have tried to answer the question this summer of where God is amidst trauma, I have found that I look now for these expressions of love. Parents risk much in having children, because of the potential to feel such pain when that loved one is hurt or gone. There is a real secondary victim effect in many cases. But as I finish this summer, I must say that my favorite thing about the human race is that we continue to make the choice to love, to procreate, to become vulnerable by caring for others more than ourselves in a world where not all can be controlled.

How daring our souls can be, to feel so much for a living neighbor in this world.

How wild they are.