New Column From Norris Burkes

Subject:
Last column in Feb 2017


Column:

THE FINAL ANSWER AND THE ONE AFTER THAT

I once had a conversation with a patient that reminded me of that moment in "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" when the host asks the guest, "Is that your final answer?"

The man was nearly 60 with a fixable heart problem. He hadn't made many friends in life, and no one was visiting him. He'd worked odd jobs, but said he'd derived little purpose from work. The man's only surviving brother invited him to live in another state with him, but the patient didn't believe the invitation was sincere.

Eventually, I broached the subject of an Advance Healthcare Directive. Commonly known as a living will, the document tells the doctors what you want done if you become incapacitated. Without the directive, doctors are obligated to do everything possible to save your life, even if those life-saving measures only delay your death.

"No," he said, "but I guess I should get one. I don't want to live on a machine."

With this assurance that he had given his "final answer," I prayerfully concluded our visit and requested that a social worker bring him a directive.

Twenty minutes later, I was visiting another patient when I heard it.

"Code Blue, 4 East. Code Blue, 4 East." The code means someone's heart as stopped.

What were the odds it was him? I asked myself. Surely not. He wasn't anywhere near death. It had to be a coincidence.

Nevertheless, I quickly finished my visit and rushed to his wing, where I found the nursing supervisor standing in the patient's doorway.

She and I stood watching staff perform CPR, a procedure that often involves a respiratory therapist straddling the patient with palms flat on the patient's chest, compressing the chest cavity until a rhythmic pulse shows up. Ribs can crack.
The body often expels waste.

From the doorway, I heard questions that hint at ending CPR.

"How long?" a doctor asked.

"We've been at it twenty minutes," came her reply.

"Does he have a directive?" called another.

"No," said the nursing supervisor.

As they slowed their fervent pace, I told the nursing supervisor of my earlier conversation with the man.

"I don't think he wanted all of this," I said, voicing my final answer.

The supervisor shot back to the staff, "The chaplain says the man wouldn't want this."

I shuddered at the sound of my assessment being repeated with such finality. I didn't know the patient very well — I'd only had one conversation with him — yet I was the person in the room with the best information. There definitely was something wrong with this picture.

The attending staff gave a few understanding nods, and the doctor seemed ready to end CPR when a respiratory therapist shouted, "We have a rhythm."

With that, the man rejoined the living.

The incident gave me pause. Had our staff given him back a life he didn't want?

In hopes of getting some answers, I returned the next day and discovered the incident had given him a new perspective. It is a perspective few of us get.

He had peered over the edge of life and decided he didn't like the alternative. More importantly, perhaps, he'd decided that he was the best one to make his future life (and death) decisions, not the chaplain or the hospital staff.

Three days later, he went home with a pacemaker and medication. I don't know if he found a new will to live, but I know he left with a living will that truly gave his final answers.
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To see Norris's latest book, "Thriving Beyond Surviving," or to contact him about speaking, visit www.thechaplain.net. Or write him via P.O. Box 247, Elk Grove, Calif., 95759. Twitter @chaplain or call (843) 608-9715.

 

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New Column From Norris Burkes

Subject:
Third column in Feb 2017


Column:

A REPUTATION AT STAKE

There's a joke that asks, "How do you tell difference between Catholics and Baptists in a liquor store?" The answer is, "The Catholics are the only ones talking to each other."

My father, a good Baptist pastor, didn't like that joke. His strategy toward liquor stores was to avoid them entirely. He was fond of the biblical teaching to "Abstain from all appearance of evil" (1 Thessalonians 5:22). The verse is a catchall for those who condemn what the Bible doesn't specifically oppose.

In my father's case, it was alcohol. No surprise given the fact that our Southern Baptist church covenant encouraged members "to abstain from the sale and use of intoxicating drinks." If any member tried reminding my dad, their pastor, that Jesus turned water into wine, they were told that the wine was likely "the most excellent grape juice."

My dad made his stance clear to all who knew us by banning his family from shopping at the local liquor store for even so much as a carton of milk. After all, he reasoned, a brown bag filled with milk and bread might be mistaken by the town gossip as restocking our secret liquor cabinet.

Prohibiting our car from the liquor store would not be enough to protect his reputation. Unfortunately, a local Catholic family owned a van identical to our two-toned Dodge. They often parked that van at the local tavern on Saturday night and at the Catholic church on Sunday morning. I don't know which was worse for my Baptist father – being mistaken for a drinker or a Catholic.

While my dad was always sober, his driving made some think otherwise. One afternoon he was backing out of a parking space when he hit another car. He saw this accident as an opportunity to repaint his van in three new tones — a true reversal of colors. No more mistaken identity.

My father's battle took a new venue when he brought us to the grand opening of the new Safeway in our small town. Overwhelmed by variety, each of us packed the cart with our choice of cereals, meat, chocolate milk and scopped three pounds of candy from the bins.

After we pushed our groceries through the checkout line, my dad wrote a check for the whopping $100 total. The clerk told him he'd need to get manager approval for the check and directed my dad to go to the man standing at the liquor counter.

My father said no. He engaged the clerk in a contest of the wills telling him that he'd not risk his reputation being seen at the liquor counter. No one blinked. The manager kept his post and the clerk kept his. In the end, the loser was the poor clerk who had to restock our groceries while my father marched his empty-handed family from the store.

Honestly, I have few complaints that my father steered his children away from any desire to drink alcohol. However, I do find some sadness around religious teaching that is too focused on what we are supposed to abstain from, rather than what we are supposed to be drawn toward.

Over the years I've found more value in verses that teach positive action, like Psalm 34:14: "… do good; seek peace and pursue it." I suppose that means, if you spend your time looking for good, you won't have time for evil.

Some years later, I joined the Air Force where I was fortunate enough to meet some Catholic priests who taught me to appreciate a good wine. These days, I still don't consider myself a drinker, but I will say I can enjoy a nice glass of wine — but usually only in a darkened tavern with priests or poets.

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To see Norris's latest book, "Thriving Beyond Surviving," or to contact him about speaking, visit www.thechaplain.net. Or write him via P.O. Box 247, Elk Grove, Calif., 95759. Twitter @chaplain or call (843) 608-9715.

 

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New Column From Norris Burkes

Subject:
column for second week of Feb 2017


Column:

Called to Be Servants Not Judges

Recently I got an email from Jim Meacham, retired Air Force Master Sergeant who served 41 years.

Now at 81 years old, he's well into his second wind volunteering for the River Region Chaplain Service in Montgomery, Alabama. He and 14 other volunteer chaplains serve nearly 500 police officers and about 250 sheriff deputies, along with about 450 officers in fire and rescue.

Initially, Jim ran into the same difficulty most new chaplains have – serving people of different religions. As a public-safety chaplain, he must follow the same rules I do as a hospice chaplain. We cannot proselytize.

As chaplains, we are tasked to serve all persons while respecting their different beliefs. That includes everyone: Christians, atheists, Islamists, Jews or any other ideology.

"Why would that be a problem?" you ask. Because we both came from Baptist traditions where proselytizing was part of our beliefs. However, in Jim's role as a chaplain, it means that he doesn't pray for an officer, and I as a chaplain don't pray for a patient, unless our prayers are specifically requested.

We follow this rule because, as Jim likes to say, "Chaplains are servants, not judges." Nevertheless, well-meaning evangelical folks will still push us to use our position to tell dying people, "Jesus is your only hope."

We resist their well-meaning advice and hold fast to the rule of no proselytizing for two reasons. First, we'd be fired for violating the rule. But more importantly: a chaplain's job is spiritual, not religious .

"What's the difference?" you ask.

Spirituality is that sense of awe and wonder we all have about the creation that surrounds us. It's about who we are, how we hope, how we pray and how we love. Spirituality is that piece of ourselves that attracts us to something outside ourselves. It is that basic appetite or search engine we have that seeks our creator.

Religion is one of the destinations to which spirituality often can take us. Destinations can be different for all of us. Spirituality may bring a person to Christianity, but it might also bring a person to Buddhism or Judaism.

Personally, I'm not ashamed to say it here, loud and clear, that my spiritual search leads me to the god [God] that Jesus came to reveal. My faith is something I recommend to everyone who asks me about the hope I carry within me.

Since Christianity is our chosen religion, Jim and I worship with those who believe as we do. But as chaplains, we seek a more ambitious dialogue with those we serve. We seek a discourse that includes all those people who are made in the image of God.

It is the same kind of cross-cultural dialogue I hope you will explore.

I urge you not to limit yourself to those who only worship a god that's only created in your image. If you do, you're going to miss God in a lot of places. Besides, if you really believe your religion to be relevant, then you'll want to test it out among people who believe differently.

Years ago Jim had a mentor who taught that "if we carry ourselves as God would have us, and let him guide us, we'll be OK." Jim says he still finds that advice to be true.

Recently, a small stroke reduced Jim's duty calls, but in the end, he remains, as do I, a chaplain that serves people. We see ourselves not as some kind of apostle or Elmer Gantry evangelist, but someone who is gently nudging, not judging, people toward a relationship with their benevolent creator.
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To see Norris's latest book, "Thriving Beyond Surviving," or to contact him about speaking, visit www.thechaplain.net. Or write him via P.O. Box 247, Elk Grove, Calif., 95759. Twitter @chaplain or call (843) 608-9715.

 

Attachment:

New Column From Norris Burkes

Subject:
column for first weekend in Feb 2017


Column:

Are you a People-person or Task-oriented?

I've met a lot of folks who assume it'd be easy to work for the clergy. But I know of one person who would beg to differ. She was the chapel office manager when I was stationed at a small California Air Force base in the mid-1990s.

As the Non-commissioned Officer in Charge (NCOIC), she ran our chapel business at a mile-a-minute, coordinating chaplain appointments, keeping our books and arranging our chapel for worship. She was a law-and-order manager, good with regulations and policies.

However, in the high-touch world of ministry, the chaplains found her too surly. She lacked the compassionate qualities required of someone dealing with tearful airmen who often wandered about our chaplain offices.

While we tried hard to keep our conflicts private, regrettably, our commander got wind of the stormy atmosphere and ordered something called a "climate assessment survey."

Yes, that's a bad thing.

The survey began with a visit from the base psychologist who interviewed each staff member involved.

He asked each of us to make a choice.

"Which do you think most important," he asked. "To get the job done right? Or to get along with the people you are working with?"

You can guess which one Sgt. By-the-Book chose. She saw her job as top priority. And if you've been reading my heart-so-tender columns, you'll know the get-along choice I made.

I won't say who gave the best answer, but I do believe our staff squall gives insight into the strife threatening to tear this country asunder.

There are those of us who believe that getting along is the best way to make a peaceful world.

Opposite that, there are folks who believe peace is achieved through regulations and boundaries. They subscribe to the saying, "Good fences make good neighbors."

OK, let's talk fences. Imagine you have a storm-damaged fence that needs to be rebuilt. As you plan your repairs, a chatty new neighbor interrupts you for a visit.

People like me will welcome the gregarious neighbor in for coffee. We're hoping the neighbor has a better way to design the fence and will help rebuild it. Maybe we even hope that we won't have to deal with the fence today.

Like some of you, I think this is the best approach to fence building. That's because I believe our task must always be people. Folks like me believe our job is best accomplished through the good relationships we maintain with our colleagues, neighbors and coworkers.

There are others, like my staff sergeant, who can't find time for people until their job is thoroughly finished. They won't have time for the sociable neighbor until their fence is stained and the brushes cleaned.

After all, if they don't get their fence fixed, their dog will run off, burglars will have a nonstop path to their back door and the homeowners association will cite them. They will, one day, welcome the neighbor, but only by invitation.

So, back at the base, who was right? Me, the people-person? Or the task-oriented sergeant?

In the end our base commander discovered, as will our country's leadership, that both sides can share the truth. Both can have ways in which they are right.

Our country had a leader who was a people-person. Now we have a president who is definitely task-oriented. If our new leadership can channel both qualities, then we will accomplish the tasks ahead.

The only thing I know for sure is that the job has to get done and we are the ones who must do it – together.
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To see Norris's latest book, "Thriving Beyond Surviving," or to contact him about speaking, visit www.thechaplain.net. Or write him via P.O. Box 247, Elk Grove, Calif., 95759. Twitter @chaplain or call (843) 608-9715.

 

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