Spiritually column for July 28 2023

 

The Chaplain vs Chaplin

 

I've been addressed by many names during my chaplain careers in both the military and healthcare.

 

While Air Force and hospital colleagues kept to the formal title of "Chaplain," my

Navy acquaintances called me "Chappy." Now that I'm retired, some veterans call me "Sky Pilot" after the 1968 Eric Burdon song.

 

While I'm usually cool with however folks address me, I once suggested that my Georgian waitress not call me "sweetheart." 

 

I guess I was a homesick Yankee who thought that my sweetheart ought to be the only one allowed to use that moniker.

 

But the salutation that always brings me a chuckle is the email addressed, "Dear Chaplin Burke."

 

The greeting tells me they don't spell any better than I do.

 

I know this because they've misspelled "chaplain" as well as my last name. (Both my first and last name end with an "s.") 

 

The extra "a" in my title, C-h-a-p-l-A-i-n, is silent and spells the difference between Charlie Chaplin, the silent actor, and Norris, the opinionated chaplain.

 

The only thing Chaplin had in common with chaplains is that he too honored the value of silence.

 

During my yearlong chaplain residency, my blind, but bespectacled supervisor constantly told his chaplain interns: "Trust the silence. There is much to be heard outside verbal space – in the silence."

 

As a chaplain, I've found that to be true more than a few times.

 

For instance, I once walked into the hospital room of a pastor's wife whose premature twins had both died.

 

"We've been in church work for years," the pastor said. "Why couldn't God help us?"

 

For a moment, I was tempted to leave, but they needed someone to hear the case they'd built against God, so I listened.

 

The mother believed God had shortchanged them. Both swore they'd never return to church.

 

"God wasn't fair. We deserve better," she claimed.

 

"Is God a God of love?" asked the pastor who'd likely preached God's love dozens of times. "Why does he hurt his children?"

 

I wanted to say, "NO. God is love. He has a purpose." But I wasn't entirely sure at that moment, so I remained quiet.

 

On another occasion, I met a pacing pastor in our hospital as he awaited his fiancé's prognosis. The man told me how he was following his fiancé to their new home when her VW van rear-ended a street-sweeping truck.

 

Using the quiet empathy of a mime, I leaned into the story to hear that his fiancé was the clichéd "other woman," the church secretary he'd left his wife for.

I don't suspect he'd have told me much if I'd have responded with a list of Bible verses and theological criticism.

 

In the safety of silence between us, the defrocked pastor paused long enough to ask me his pressing question. "Is God punishing me?"

 

I wanted to say, "Hell yes, He is," but I didn't say anything. Those would have been my words of judgement, not God's.

 

Neither of the pastors were really seeking an answer. They both wanted to know that despite their grief and their anger, I'd stay with them without judgment. 

 

James says in 1:19, "My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry."

 

James is saying what we all instinctively know--Big talkers are hard to teach because they must constantly express their opinions.

 

Charlie Chaplin, like most chaplains, knew that more wisdom can be gained by listening, observing and not rushing to judgment.

 

By the way, my favorite title remains one accidently coined by the director of a local senior-care facility several years ago.

 

I entered the home ten minutes late and rushed to begin a Bible study for the group.

 

But we were all in such a hurry to begin that a slip of the tongue caused a slight variation in the director's last word.

 

With the omission of the last letter, she told the octogenarians, "We are now ready for our "Bible stud."

 

Again, another name only my wife can call me. 

 

She doesn't.

 

But she could.

 

She would never.

 

But she could.

 

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Contact me by email at comment@thechaplain.net or by snail mail 10566 Combie Road, Suite 6643, Auburn, CA 95602 or voicemail 843-608-9715. Visit my website at www.thechaplain.net where you can read past columns or purchase my books.

 

Spiritually column for July 22 2023

Near (Dimwitted) Death Experience

 

As a retired hospital chaplain, I'm often pulled into discussions about near-death experiences.

 

Near-death experiences, or NDEs, are the spiritual stories people tell when they wake in the emergency room from being dead. They often recall meeting dead friends and family members or being guided toward a white light.

 

I have to admit that I'm inexperienced with that experience but a bit more familiar with what often leads to these NDEs. Medical folks call it "Risk-Related Behavior."

 

In layman's terms, risk-related behavior is the stupid things we do that may bring us to knock-knock on heaven's door.  Among the top four behaviors are: excessive drinking, illegal drugs, smoking and driving without a seatbelt.

 

The practice of any of these may well bring you to what I like to call Near (Dimwitted) Death Experience. They constitute the risks I've managed to avoid in my life.

 

In fact, during my early years of ministry, I carried Minister's Life, a now defunct insurance company whose slogan was, "Ministers go to Heaven 23% slower." I signed the Baptist pledge, not to smoke, drink, or chew or date girls who do.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of heaven, but I didn't really want to cut in line with risky behavior.

 

Of course, I have to admit that I'm blessed to have lived past the age of 13.

 

That's the year I found a discarded .22 caliber bullet on my father's disheveled workbench.

 

After a quick examination, I began to wonder how I might separate the bullet from its casing and use the gun powder to make a firecracker.

 

With all the engineering skill of an adolescent, I of course chose a hammer.

 

So I relocated the bullet on the sidewalk just outside our side garage door.  Crouching inside that door, I reached around with the hammer and slammed the bullet several times.

 

After each strike, I recoiled again behind the flimsy door.

 

Somehow, I operated with the harebrained assumption that I could duck quicker than a bullet could fly.  With one final blow, the bullet did what it was designed to do.

 

It exploded from the cartridge. I now presume that it landed safely, not likely achieving its 1.5-mile range.

 

Of course, that was only my first close call with death. Sadly, while .22 bullets are fairly quiet, this one woke my napping pastor dad.

 

My father brought my second NDE a few moments later when he bolted through the garage door asking what had happened.

 

As I stuttered my explanation, I read an expression on him that told me I might be closer to dying than I realized.

 

I expected him to remove his belt the way he'd done when I was a child. 

 

But now in adolescence, I was becoming acquainted with something worse than his belt: his disappointment. I felt like dying. I'd truly surprised him with my dimwittedness and disappointed him in the worst way.

 

Later that day, when my mother returned with groceries, my dad declared me persona non grata when he told my mom: "Let me tell you what YOUR son did today." 

 

My father's disillusionment with me taught me there really are things seemingly worse than death, like disappointing those who love you. 

 

Since that little incident, my prayer has always been, "God, I know I have to die someday, just please don't let it be doing something stupid." 

 

The Christian Scripture adds that "it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." 

 

If that's true, I can only pray that the judgment pronouncement I hear following my death won't be my family and friends mumbling over my grave, "Idiot! What an idiot!"

 

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If you care to share your near dimwitted death experience, drop me an email at comment@thechaplain.net Or send your stories by snail mail 10566 Combie Road, Suite 6643, Auburn, CA 95602 or voicemail 843-608-9715. Visit his website at www.thechaplain.net where you can read past columns or purchase his books.

 

Spiritually column for July 15 2023

Frequently Flying in God's Grace

 

There's absolutely nothing I love to do more than travel. Like the circuit-riding preachers of old, I'll fly anywhere to speak to a crowd.

 

The only way travel gets better for me is when I use frequent-flyer points for free flights.

 

So I was in a pretty good mood recently as I took a free seat on a Southern California flight to see my family.

 

My usual airline doesn't assign seats, so I've developed a strategy for finding the best seat. Unfortunately, the strategy failed me this time and I took the last available spot – a middle seat over the wing.

 

As the plane began its ascent, the sun bounced off the wing directly into my eyes.

 

Squinting with a hand above my eyebrows, I asked my seatmate if she'd mind lowering her window shade."

Without bothering to look away from her tablet, she proclaimed, "I got this seat for the view. Sorry."

 

Really? I wasn't sure how anyone might consider a wing so picturesque. I began to wonder if there might be a spiritual way to convince her that it was in her best interest to close the shade.

 

First, I took the biblical highroad, trying to "pray for those who spitefully use you."

 

True: I wasn't really praying. I had mixed motives. I was hoping that the sight of me praying with face in palms might guilt her into lowering the dang shade.

 

When that failed, I began thinking unchaplain-like things. Buckle your seat belt lady, this just might be a turbulent flight.

 

I remembered how sometimes bright sunlight will force me to sneeze. I plotted a glance toward the glaring wing view in hopes I might squeeze out a sneeze. Surely then she'd close the shade. I'd apologize. Hand her a towel and call it a baptism.

 

Alas, no sneeze. God bless me. I even thought about evoking a sneeze by pulling a nose hair.

 

You needn't say it. I know I was being petty. I prayed harder. "Forgive me, Lord, for thinking such terrible things. Amen."

 

But my prayer failed to restore my spiritual equilibrium – quite the opposite, really. I reached for the airsickness bag and played with it a moment, wondering if I ought to recall the famous Clint Eastwood line, "Hey, Lady, do you feel lucky?"

 

I leaned back and looked at the ceiling. "I'm sorry, God. I guess I can be a real jerk sometimes."

 

Then I thought of another religious "jerk." His birth name was Saul, but God struck him with a blinding light to rebuke him for preaching hate. And even after that blinding revelation in which God changed his name to Paul, he still found himself entangled with less-than-perfect attitudes.

 

In Romans 7:19, the renamed Paul wrote: "For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want."

 

My plane event tells me how easy it is to bring unholy intentions to plain events.

 

However, if we choose to see these irritations as moments to remember God, they can become a reality check on how we walk in this world. And that's called "spiritual progress."

 

In the end, I realized that it is not about my ability to be perfect, but my ability to confess my imperfections to a forgiving God.

 

The late Rev. Ray Stedman may have said it best: "Sometimes God simply folds his arms to wait and lets us go ahead and try it on that basis. And we fail, and fail miserably — until, at last, out of our failures, we cry, O wretched man that I am!"

 

But take heart. That just means that, like me, most of you are frequent flyers in God's Grace.

 

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Send comments to comment@thechaplain.net or snail mail 10566 Combie Road, Suite 6643, Auburn, CA 95602 or voicemail 843-608-9715. Visit his website at www.thechaplain.net where you can read past columns or purchase his books.

 

Spiritually column for July 8 2023

 

 

 

A Cadre of Padres

 

In a universe long ago and far, far away, Chaplain Norris flew to Maxwell AFB in Montgomery, Ala., for six weeks of training at the  Air Force Chaplain Corps College.

 

The course was taught by a cadre of padres, seasoned chaplains with years of active-duty experience. Our syllabus included military customs and courtesy, problem solving, liturgy and the principles of counseling.

 

It was during the counseling block that our teachers introduced a lesson that left a lasting impression.

 

The instructors divided us into five groups with five chaplains per group. We were secluded in separate spaces and given a script proposing a possible counseling scenario.

 

Each group leader read the what-would-you-do exercise aloud.

 

"A couple comes to you saying they've been having problems for years. They fight constantly. Now she wants a divorce. What do you tell them?"

 

After a thirty-minute discussion, our groups returned to the main classroom to voice our learned recommendations.

 

The first group could only protest that they didn't have enough facts. "Why in the world does she want a divorce?"

 

The second bunch readily declared how the Bible forbids divorce.

 

The third group claimed divorce was certainly justified and the wife should consider filing charges against her husband for what he did.

 

Wait. What?

 

How could a gaggle of mostly protestant evangelical, white males, give such conflicting responses for the same scenario?

 

When the fourth group said the woman should seek inpatient psychiatric care, our chappy-sense told us that we'd been had.

 

The instructors, sporting know-it-all grins, brought the exercise to a halt before the fifth group could speak. They revealed how we all began with the same basic situation, but each group processed an extra added detail.

 

For instance, the first team worked with only the basic facts. The second squad was told that the couple came seeking only Biblical feedback.

 

The third group believed that the husband constantly abused his wife. And the fourth cluster heard that the woman was constantly threatening to harm herself.

 

Hence, we all gave different answers for what was seemingly the same problem.

 

The exercise pointed out several pitfalls in how we go about trying to help others with their problems.

 

The exercise was meant to discourage us from making snap judgments. The facts are one thing, but the counselee's feelings may tell a different story.

 

The instructors suggested more potential scenarios that may be much more than what first appears. Perhaps a sergeant who wants to discuss a work problem may want to talk about his affair with a subordinate.

 

An officer complaining about her money problems may be trying to confess a gambling addiction.

 

"You can't deal with folks as if you're doing a multiple-choice test," said one of the instructors. "Don't just pick the first option that sounds good."

 

"Helping people is much more like a fill-in-the-blank test." She added, "Help them fill in the blanks or we all get it wrong."

 

Their message that day put me in mind of Mary Lathrap, a Methodist preacher, temperance reformer.

 

You may not recognize the name, but chances are nearly certain you know a line from her poem Judge Softly published in 1895.

 

Though you likely know it by its more famous revised name, "Walk a Mile in His Moccasins."

 

The last stanza concludes:

 

"Remember to walk a mile in his moccasins

And remember the lessons of humanity taught to you by your elders.

We will be known forever by the tracks we leave

In other people's lives, our kindnesses and generosity.

 

Take the time to walk a mile in his moccasins."

 

And like they taught me in Chaplain school, "Three points and a poem and the sermon is over."

 

Until next week. Chappy out.

 

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Check out the requirements to become an Air Force Chaplain https://www.airforce.com/careers/specialty-careers/chaplain. The first one being, you need to know how to spell it. 

 

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Send comments to comment@thechaplain.net or snail mail 10566 Combie Road, Suite 6643, Auburn, CA 95602 or voicemail 843-608-9715. Visit his website at www.thechaplain.net where you can read past columns or purchase his books.