New Column From Norris Burkes

Subject:
Use this copy ... edits made


Column:

Walking Among the Wounded

Dear Readers:

I have a story I've never written. Not because I lost it or forgot about it, but because it's so graphic I thought it needed a preliminary warning.

In 1990, I left my work as a congregational pastor to begin a one-year internship transitioning into a career as a hospital chaplain.

During my internship at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, I worked four rotations in various parts of the hospital. The one I will never, ever forget was the 13 weeks I spent working in the burn unit.

The burn unit was a highly specialized assignment. While I dropped in a few times a day, nurses limited their care to only one patient during a 12-hour shift.

I will never forget the patient I met there named Mr. Brown.

His nurse explained to me how Brown's condition was the tragic result of love scorned. His girlfriend had doused him with gasoline and set him afire as he lay in a drunken sleep.

Due to his name, I was struck by the irony of Mr. Brown's tragedy. He was African American, but the fire altered his skin pigment, changing his face to an almost albino white.

Honestly, I wanted to be anywhere else but in that burn unit. The patients were hard to look at through my inexperienced eyes. Mr. Brown was one who spoke so softly that I had to bring myself close enough to absorb his pain with all my senses - - smell, sight, and yes, even touch through gloved hands for his protection.

I spoke with him daily, but I had other patients to see, so I can't tell you where I was in the hospital when I overheard the page: "Chaplain Burkes, to the burn unit, stat."

A few minutes later, I stood at the washing station, prepping for my entrance. After donning gloves, mask and a gown, I punched an electric switch with my elbow and hurried through the unit's opening doors.

At the nurses' station desk, I met Brown's nurse who told me he'd passed away.

"Where's the family?" I asked.

"They left an hour ago," she said.

After all my entry prep, I shot her a disappointing look.

"They didn't stay long," she said.

Youthful impatience percolated under my mask. I wanted to scold her for not calling me in time to meet the family.

Instead, I began making feeble excuses to leave. Then, just as I turned to do so, I saw her tears slipping past her mask.

I motioned her toward the nurses' lounge, where we found a place to sit as she unfolded her story. She removed her gloves and dropped her mask. The nursing bravado was gone.

"I spoke with him for hours every day," she sobbed. "Now he's gone."

Our conversation was the first time I really thought about the fact that people who help people will get hurt. There's no way they can walk among the wounded without leaving crumbling pieces of their hearts on the floor.

It's as if they sacrifice parts of their own existence to sustain a few more years of existence for others. That's what nurses do.

Today, in that same burn unit in Northern California, dedicated nurses are working around the clock to help the victims of the infamous Camp Fire. I ask you to pray for these nurses and others, to respect what they do and give to those who bravely stand in the gap between disaster and us.

If you wish to contribute to a special Fire Relief Fund that will help several organizations, go to https://tinyurl.com/firegive

You can also donate to Red Cross by texting "CAWILDFIRES" to 90999

Finally, my pastor, Mike Bivins, heads Disaster Relief Ministry for the California Baptist Convention. One hundred percent of donations received go to fire victims.

Write checks to:
"Disaster Relief Ministry"
California Southern Baptist Convention
678 East Shaw Ave
Fresno, CA 93710

Comment at (843) 608-9715 or comment@thechaplain.net or @chaplain Facebook: chaplainnorris.

 

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New Column From Norris Burkes

Subject:
Last column of November 2018


Column:

Walking Among the Wounded

Dear Readers:

I have a story I've never written. Not because I lost it or forgot about it, but because it's so graphic I thought it needed a preliminary warning.

In 1990, I left my work as a congregational pastor to begin a one-year internship transitioning into a career as a hospital chaplain.

During my internship at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, I worked four rotations in various parts of the hospital. The one I will never, ever forget was the 13 weeks I spent working in the burn unit.

The burn unit was a highly specialized assignment. While I dropped in a few times a day, nurses limited their care to only one patient during a 12-hour shift.

I will never forget the patent I met there named Mr. Brown.

His nurse explained to me how Brown's condition was the tragic result of love scorned. His girlfriend had doused him with gasoline and set him afire as he lay in a drunken sleep.

Due to his name, I was struck by the irony of Mr. Brown's tragedy. He was African American, but the fire altered his skin pigment, changing his face to an almost albino white.

Honestly, I wanted to be anywhere else but in that burn unit. The patients were hard to look at through my inexperienced eyes. Mr. Brown was one who spoke so softly that I had to bring myself close enough to absorb his pain with all my senses - - smell, sight, and yes, even touch through gloved hands for his protection.

I spoke with him daily, but I had other patients to see, so I can't tell you where I was in the hospital when I overheard the page: "Chaplain Burkes, to the burn unit, stat."

A few minutes later, I stood at the washing station, prepping for my entrance. After donning gloves, mask and a gown, I punched an electric switch with my elbow and hurried through the unit's opening doors.

At the nurses' station desk, I met Brown's nurse who told me he'd passed away.

"Where's the family?" I asked.

"They left an hour ago," she said.

After all my entry prep, I shot her a disappointing look.

"They didn't stay long," she said. Youthful impatience percolated under my mask. I wanted to scold her for not calling me in time to meet the family.

Instead, I began making feeble excuses to leave. Then, just as I turned to do so, I saw her tears slipping past her mask.

I motioned her toward the nurses' lounge, where we found a place to sit as she unfolded her story. She removed her gloves and dropped her mask. The nursing bravado was gone.

"I spoke with him for hours every day," she sobbed. "Now he's gone."

Our conversation was the first time I really thought about the fact that people who help people will get hurt. There's no way they can walk among the wounded without leaving crumbling pieces of their hearts on the floor.

It's as if they sacrifice parts of their own existence to sustain a few more years of existence for others. That's what nurses do.

Today, in that same burn unit in Northern California, dedicated nurses are working around the clock to help the victims of the infamous Camp Fire. I ask you to pray for these nurses and others, to respect what they do and give to those who bravely stand in the gap between disaster and us.

If you wish to contribute to a special Fire Relief Fund that will help several organizations, go to https://tinyurl.com/firegive

You can also donate to Red Cross by texting "CAWILDFIRES" to 90999

Finally, my pastor, Mike Bivins, heads Disaster Relief Ministry for the California Baptist Convention. One hundred percent of donations received go to fire victims.

Write checks to:
"Disaster Relief Ministry"
California Southern Baptist Convention
678 East Shaw Ave
Fresno, CA 93710

Comment at (843) 608-9715 or comment@thechaplain.net or @chaplain Facebook: chaplainnorris.

 

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Good News!

This is Giving Tuesday and I have some wonderful news to report!  As you probably know, my daughter, Sara, started a non-profit called Chispa Project which works side-by-side with local communities to create school libraries in Honduras.     This year has been incredibly successful thanks to more than a hundred of column readers who contributed $15,000 this year, helping us reach a total of 14,000 books donated to over 50 schools. AND, a dozen of those readers are coming with me in March 2019 to build more libraries. I am so grateful to you all.   If you've seen the recent news, Honduras has appeared numerous times with caravan immigration and sending unaccompanied minors across the border due to the dire situation in Honduras. Today, more than ever, sustainable change needs to happen within Honduras, and I'm asking for your continued support to build 10 new libraries with our "Next Chapter Campaign."   What's the issue? Books are expensive for the 2 out of 3 Honduran families living in extreme poverty. Most students have no children's books in their schools or homes, contributing to incredibly low reading abilities, and high drop-out rates. Low educational opportunities contribute to high immigration rates, with families desperate to give their children a better life.    How do books help? The most powerful and highest-impact way to improve reading achievement is to increase access to books.  Through school and classroom libraries, Chispa provides a holistic program that trains teachers, parents and students to integrate literacy techniques in daily classes and home life.   What can you do? Your generous contribution goes directly to purchasing brand new Spanish children's books and inaugurating a school library equipped with 500+ unique titles and comfortable reading spaces, and put a smile on students' faces when they open their first library book!    Please help us start 2019 on the right page by donating $100 and help 4 children get their first book at a Chispa library today at www.chispaproject.org/nextchapter. (Consider donating in honor of a loved one as a gift!)  If you prefer to mail a check, please make it out to "Chispa Project" and send it to: Norris Burkes PO Box 247  Elk Grove, CA 95759  Thank you so much for your continued support and giving the gift of reading.    With love and gratitude,    Chaplain Norris Copyright © 2018 Norris Burkes, All rights reserved. You signed up to be on Norris' list! Our mailing address is: Norris Burkes PO Box 247 Elk Grove, CA 95759 Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

New Column From Norris Burkes

Subject:
Thanksgiving 2018 weekend column


Column:

A Smokey Perspective

Smoke fills the skies near my Auburn, Calif., home. I tried to escape its choking fog by driving halfway down the California coast last weekend, but the smoke followed me the 200-mile distance.

The apocalyptic size of this disaster has given my neighbors and me quite a unique perspective during this Thanksgiving holiday, and well it should. It's made us ever more grateful for our homes and the wellbeing of our families.

Perspective is an important element of giving thanks, however I must confess that it's one often misused by clergy, or even columnists, who tritely remind us to remember those less fortunate. Their motive is to insist you see how your life is not as bad as it could be.

Their approach comes off sounding a lot like parents trying to get their kids to eat turnips. "At least we have turnips and broccoli on our table," goes the paternal reasoning, "I'll bet the kids in Godawfulstan wish they had turnips." This line of reasoning never did much for me.

The problem with that perspective is that thankfulness cannot be about comparing your good fortune to the misfortunes of others. Thanksgiving shouldn't only be about gratitude that your home didn't burn in the California fires, but about extending a hand to help those who did lose their homes.

Thanksgiving isn't just about being grateful you aren't poor. It is also about being grateful you have resources to give the poor.

It is not only about being grateful you aren't hungry. It must also be about sharing your gratitude with the hungry.

Thanksgiving is not about comparing what you have with what others do not have. It is not about being glad you're not living in a cardboard shanty beneath the freeway overpass. It's about the hand we give the homeless as we humbly acknowledge that most of us live just one paycheck away from building our own shack.

Thanksgiving is not always about giving thanks for what you have, where you work, where you live or even who you are. In fact, Thanksgiving is not about you at all.

Thanksgiving is about keeping perspective between recognizing the blessings we've received and utilizing our capacity to extend those blessings to others.

At the end of the upcoming calorie-laden day, this perspective should be a constant reminder that we are not alone on this planet. It is this perspective that teaches us we've all journeyed from the same dusty place and, as Scripture suggests, "to dust we will return."

That is the perspective from which humility comes, and humility will always be about thankfulness.

____________________________
Note to readers. My home sits in a fragile forest area about 100 miles from Paradise California where ten thousand homes were consumed this month in the Camp Fire. My pastor, Mike Bivins, heads Disaster Relief Ministry for the California Baptist Convention. If you wish to donate, I assure you that 100% of your donations will go to fire victims.

Please visit https://tinyurl.com/fires123 Scroll down to bottom of page to donate.

Or write checks to
"Disaster Relief Ministry"
California Southern Baptist Convention
678 East Shaw Ave
Fresno, CA 93710

Comment at (843) 608-9715 or comment@thechaplain.net or @chaplain Facebook: chaplainnorris.

 

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New Column From Norris Burkes

Subject:
column for 17/18 November 2018


Column:

Trying to Convert the Converted


If you've ever been the victim of someone who was trying to convert you, you can probably relate to this old joke about a man who goes to heaven and is greeted by St. Peter for a tour.

As they pass one open room, the man asks, "Who are all those people in there?"

"They're Methodists," says St. Peter.

Passing another room, the man asks the same question. "They're Anglicans," St. Peter answers.

The man finds the next door closed, but he hears a beautiful choir.

"Who's in there?" he asks.

St. Peter holds a finger to his lips. "Shhhh. That's the Baptist Convention. They think they're the only ones here."

In the early 1980s, I worked with a woman named Jeanette who was convinced she'd be among the lucky ones in a special heavenly room.

Within the first few days on the job, Jeannette began peppering me with daily theological questions like, "Do you believe in the Bible?" Or, "If you die tonight, do you know where you will spend eternity?"

"Oh, don't worry about me. I'm a Baptist seminary student and born-again Christian." I said, making sure to align my religious buzzwords.

When my strategy proved ineffective, I tried to throw her off my scent by directing her toward our supervisor, a four-pack-a-day smoker.

"You should talk to Jerry," I jokingly suggested. "I'm not sure he's going to hell, but he smells like he's been there." (hahahahaha)

She was neither amused by my flippancy nor convinced by my steadfast confessions of faith. She thought that baptism in her church was the only way to enter heaven.

"In fact," she said, "you'd better hurry because Jesus is coming back soon."

Of course, Jeannette wasn't really interested in my answers. Her queries were only probing stabs meant to penetrate my faith space.

So, one afternoon I decided I had enough of Jeannette's Jesus. I pulled her aside to tell her that if my faith didn't pass her saintly litmus test, then I guess I'd be joining Jerry in the smoking section.

However, if I'd been honest with her, I'd have told her that my witticisms concealed a shame from my past.

You see, she was using the same annoying approach I'd used in my undergraduate days at Baylor University. Those were the days I'd spent scouring minority neighborhoods in search of new converts.

The point that stuck in my craw was that I resented having my previous techniques redirected on me. And more than likely, my previous "converts" resented me.

Perhaps Jeanette's problem, and mine, is that we both approached people like we were guests on The Dating Game. We held our political, personal or religious questionnaires in hand while we gently, or in most cases, not so gently, probed folks for matching answers. Or worse, we tried to expose them via their "wrong answers."

Jesus believed in keeping it simple. If you love God, he said, you have to "love your neighbor as yourself." This means accepting your neighbor without all of our qualifiers such as religion, politics, race, favorite rock bands and boxers or briefs.

I never passed Jeannette's litmus test of faith, but I'm still convinced that I will go to heaven some day. And when I'm asked which denominational room I belong in, I'll confess that I'm a "recovering Baptist."

And like all those in recovery, I'll undergo a new litmus test. I'll have to stand at a podium where I'll be prompted to admit that I'm powerless to determine who will be in heaven and who will not.

But most importantly, I will acknowledge that there is Power greater than ourselves – and that power is certainly not the Baptist Convention.
________________________________________
Comment at (843) 608-9715 or comment@thechaplain.net or @chaplain Facebook: chaplainnorris. Norris is also available for public speaking.

 

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New Column From Norris Burkes

Subject:
column for 10/11 November 1018


Column:

Chaplain Hopes to Come to a Town Near You

On Halloween Day, I delivered a speech in the student chapel service at Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, Mo.

My topic was "What Really Scares Me." The speech was an expanded version of an October column I'd written on the same theme. The irony of my chosen subject wasn't lost on me given my weak knees on stage.

I was battling one of the most common of all terrors– glossophobia, the fear of public speaking. The fear strikes every time I take the podium because, like all public speakers, I assume the risk of personal rejection.

The intensity of my vulnerability was staggering. I was presenting myself to strangers, co-eds on the threshold of coolness. These students didn't know who I was or what a chaplain does, but worse, few seemed familiar with a newspapers or columnists.

For weeks I told my wife, Becky that I didn't want to go. Sadder still, I told her she could stay home because I didn't want her to see me flop.

Becky encouraged me to squelch my anxiety by recalling the success of past speeches. She knows that since 2009, I've been crossing the country to deliver speeches to my readers. I once maxed out the auditorium at the Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Florida and then returned to my home state to speak in chapel at California Baptist University.

In between, I've spoken to community crowds at hospital auditoriums in Colorado, Arkansas and New York. I've given talks in churches as diverse as Unitarian and as conservative as Southern Baptist in Ohio, Indiana and even Honduras. I've spoken at fundraisers, Veteran assemblies and marriage retreats, all pretty much successfully.

But none of that mattered as I stood before my college audience in Bolivar. Their number was frighteningly huge, but so was the potential payoff.

If I did well, maybe some students would be inspired to overcome their fears and make their mark on life. From a personal standpoint, the university honorarium was generous and might bring a reference for future engagements.

I suspect you're astonished that a chaplain with scores of sermons and speaking engagements to his credit, could find public oratory so difficult, but I make this self-disclosure for two reasons.

First, I want to encourage you that whatever fear you have is likely pretty normal. It's been said that the dread of public speaking is among the most common of all horrors. However, if you can overcome it, you can possibly influence the direction of your civic or faith community.

Overcoming fear of speaking, or any fear, is an ongoing task. You can become better at it, but the fear may never go away. You can only develop coping strategies or methods to keep it at bay. Toastmasters can help but so can your local church or service organization.

My method is to keep doing it. Keep speaking, keep standing and presenting myself in this vulnerable act of faith called public speaking. I do it because I want to inspire people to believe in themselves, their country and their God.

My second reason for relating this story is that I hope you might give me a chance to speak in your town next year. My column runs in a dozen states, but I've not yet spoken in Tennessee, Alabama or Mississippi. And I'd say I'm overdue for a return to Florida, South Carolina, Arkansas and Virginia.

Judging from the Bolivar student comments, I managed to deliver a few inspiring words in Missouri. If you think I can bring similar encouragement to your town, email me at comment@thechaplain.net or leave voicemail at (843) 608-9715.

 

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