March 1 column

To Tell the Truth, I Wasn't

 

Ten years ago, I was at a writing seminar hanging around the snack table, when one of the seminar instructors joined me for a Danish.

 

He was a quiet, introspective man, truly a statesman among aspiring student writers. That's why I guided him to the quiet side of the room to tell him I thought he was lying.

 

Not in those exact words. I constructed a more diplomatic approach that went something like this:

 

"You were introduced as a 'Pulitzer Prize nominee,' but a quick Internet search tells me that we share some confusion over the term 'nominee.'"

 

For a moment he glanced at this watch, but unfortunately realized he had time to hear me out.

 

"If you'd met me last year," I explained, "I would have told you that my syndicated column had received a Pulitzer Prize nomination."

 

"And it was not?" he asked.

 

"Sadly, no."

 

I told the aging professor how my "Florida Today" editor had submitted the dozen columns I'd written during my 2009 deployment to a combat field hospital in Iraq.

 

"Yes," said the professor, "My publisher also submitted my work."

 

As he gathered his lecture notes, he dismissively added, "Congratulations, it sounds like we are both Pulitzer nominees."

 

"No, we are not." I said, "but we both made the same assumption. We assumed that our editor's submission of our work equaled a Pulitzer nomination."

 

Sadly, the difference between a Pulitzer submission and a Pulitzer nomination is about as far as "ticket purchaser" is from "lotto winner."

 

I showed him the Pulitzer website on my tablet where he read "More than 2,500 entries are submitted annually for Pulitzer Prize consideration, yet only three in each category are bestowed with the prestigious title of Pulitzer Nominee."

 

"In fact," I said, "anyone of my fellow conferees can submit their work for Pulitzer consideration as long as they send $75. But only the Pulitzer committee can bestow the title of Nominee."

 

The professor seemed embarrassed that a pupil had schooled him in the difference. 

 

Our stories beg the complicated question: "Can one be a lair if one doesn't know he's lying?" Another facet of the question is: "Does one's story default to becoming the truth if one doesn't bother to fact check the story?"

 

In other words, in a quick check of the Pulitzer website you'll note the glaring absence of our names. And that omission, for a time, made us both liars.

 

For the duration of the conference, the professor continued to allow his introductions to claim a Pulitzer connection. Just as it took some time for me to remove the notation from my website.

 

I guess we felt much like the claim made in the movie in "A Few Good Men," by Jack Nicholson's character, Col. Jessup.

 

When Jessup is questioned on the witness stand, a shouting match ensues. Tom Cruise's character Lt. j.g.Kaffee demands the court finally be told the truth behind a hazing incident in the Marine barracks.

 

We all know Col. Jessup's answer, so say it with me.

 

"You can't handle the truth!"

 

Neither the professor nor I handled our truths very well. Sadly, our websites boasted our Pulitzer claim for a few more months.

 

But centuries before that movie, Jesus set the scene for real truth in John 8:32 when he said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

 

The professor, while not religious, had no doubt heard the scripture quoted in his academic circles by those promoting academic freedom and the power of learning.

 

It was a minute before he and I found a way to handle our truth, but the truth eventually set us free from our egos–just as Jesus promised it would.

 

Note: While nowhere near Pulitzer fame, Norris does boast the 2019 Will Rogers Humanitarian Award for his columns about Chispa Project. The charity, started by his daughter Sara, establishes Spanish libraries in Honduran elementary schools. The Honduran school year began this month so your continued support is greatly needed at https://www.chispaproject.org/nextchapter.

 

Send Chispa Project donations to 10556 Combie Rd. Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602. Send comments to comment@thechaplain.net or message at (843) 608-9715. Send book order to same address or order online at www.thechaplain.net.

 

 

Feb 23 column

No Laughing Matter

 

Folks occasionally ask me how they too might become a hospital chaplain.

 

Some seem to hope I'll say they need only attend five Monday nights of training in a local church, and they can start making the big bucks.

 

The five-week program works for many volunteer positions, but for a chaplain career, college and graduate school is required. "But wait, there's more," I tell them.

 

Before they can bring home a chaplain paycheck, they must be accepted into something called Clinical Pastoral Education. CPE is a one-year internship program at a teaching hospital where wanna-be chaplains work forty-hour weeks.

 

I began CPE in the fall of 1990 at the University of California Davis Medical Center in Sacramento. The training involved multiple chaplain requests from the emergency room to visit with the victims of violence, accidents, and illnesses.

 

Many of the calls related to something medical folk called "risk-related behaviors." The most common high-risk behaviors include violence, alcoholism, tobacco use disorder, risky sexual behaviors and eating disorders.

 

While some patients avoided return visits by making lifestyle changes, others made numerous returns. Such patients were often called "Frequent Fliers."

 

One of our "Fliers" arrived one hot summer afternoon strapped to a gurney and screaming "Oh, God, it hurts! You gotta get me something for the pain."

 

Orderlies wheeled the woman into a treatment room where a nurse peppered her with triage questions. Just outside the room, a few staff members erupted into full-blown guffaws and horselaughs.

 

"Hey," I called to a particularly tall, balding nurse, "Why are you guys laughing at that lady? That isn't cool. I think she heard you."

 

The nurse laughed some more, taking my upbraiding in better stride than I'd expected.

"Were you here last week?" he asked.

 

"No. I was on vacation."

 

"Then you wouldn't understand," he said, shaking his head at his "uniformed" chaplain.

"This lady was here last week with such convincing pain that we put her on an intravenous morphine drip," he said.

 

"Still not funny," I said.

 

He continued his account by telling me how the woman had excused herself for a brief smoke and failed to return to the ER.

 

"Campus police found her hitchhiking in her hospital gown on the boulevard out front. She had an IV needle in one arm while holding the morphine bag with the other," he said.

 

"Why would she …?" My puzzled voice faded to barely audible from inside my naive cocoon.

 

"She wanted to sell our morphine, Chaplain," he said, reversing the upbraid.

I studied the mop-streaked floor between his feet as I felt the currents of emotions swirling about us.

 

I had to admit that I saw the humor in the case but laughing at the woman's condition felt like a sellout to the gallows humor emergency-room workers often used to insulate themselves.

 

Jesus once encountered a woman with real pain, unlike our patient. She had an incurable blood disorder that drained her of energy, money and dignity. Her search for a physician's cure only made her situation worse. By the time she came seeking Jesus, she was looking only for a human touch, a caring touch.

 

I learned a lot that year, but this event, more than most, taught me that while not every patient sought healing, Jesus demonstrated that everyone deserves a caring touch.

 

As I approached the hospital gurney and offered our patient a prayer, I did my best to also bring her the human touch she deserved. A few minutes later, a caring doctor referred our patient quality psychiatric care in a rehab facility.

 

Unfortunately, not everyone will accept a caring touch. This time, she laughed at us.

A few moments later, she left our ER against medical advice, without drugs or a hospital gown — only a prayerful touch from her hospital chaplain.

 

---------------------------------------------

 

You can read more about the professional chaplain career in my book, "Tell It To the Chaplain." Buy any of my books online at www.thchaplain.net or send $20 to 10556 Combie Rd. Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602. Comments received at same address or by email: comment@thechaplain.net or at (843) 608-9715.

 

 

Feb 17 column

 

 

Something Stinks? Is it I?

 

It seems that whenever pastors preach to a sparse crowd, they often begin by quoting Matthew 18:20. However, they remove the verse from its context to passively express their disappointment for the low numbers. 

 

"This reminds me of what Jesus said," they'll jest. "'For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.'"

 

During my years as a hospital chaplain, I often paraphrased this verse to convey my frustration for yet another staff meeting.

 

"Wherever there are two or more chaplains gathered in his name, there will be a chaplain staff meeting."

 

Nevertheless, our hospital staff meetings could occasionally be interesting.

 

They were led by our Spiritual Care supervisor, Lisa Nordlander. Lisa was a petite, fiftyish woman who supervised a staff consisting of a secretary, three full-time chaplains and six chaplain interns.

 

One day, she sent out a message: "All hands on deck for a joint meeting of staff and interns."

 

A few hours later, we assembled in a conference room where I'd like to tell you we looked like Jedi Knights perched on chairs waiting for divine wisdom from Obi-Wan Kenobi.

 

But on this particular day, things took a surprise turn when Lisa tossed white plastic bags on the table and asked her chaplains to each claim one. Taking the bags, we spilled their contents onto the table — a toothbrush, toothpaste, mouthwash, tongue brush and dental floss.

 

Ooohh kaaay. The supervisor's husband was a dentist, but given her professional demeanor, product endorsement seemed a little beneath her.

 

"This is a friendly reminder," she managed to say among the giggles, "that good dental hygiene is a part of good spiritual hygiene."

 

Yes, apparently when it comes to spiritual care, oral cleanliness is next to godliness.

 

Lisa continued her teaching moment. "We work in close quarters," she said, struggling to smother her erupting smile.

 

"Chaplains often whisper to nursing staff and lean close in their patient visits. These patients may be sensitive to certain odors, so please make sure you are well acquainted with these products."

 

I can tell you we all searched the faces around the table, wondering which chaplain inspired Lisa to bring the toothbrushes.

 

Was it our Catholic priest who drank too much coffee?

 

Was it I, the one who loved the cafeteria onion rings? 

 

Was it the new intern snacking on tuna crackers?

 

We all had a side-splitting laugh over Lisa's artful presentation of such a personal matter, but I couldn't help but remember a gathering of 12 — the Last Supper when Jesus predicted one of his disciples (Judas) would betray him.

 

Like the disciples who muttered, "Is it I, Lord?" we chaplains blew into our cupped hands, taking a quick whiff and wondering, "Is it me, Lisa? Am I the reason you are saying this?"

 

There are times in our exchanges with people that we become pretty sure something stinks. On those occasions, what is our first reaction? Do we lean close to our friends and examine their smell first? Or do we check our own breath?

 

We're not perfect and we certainly won't always smell perfect, but our imperfection gives us two choices.

 

We can deny it and make others suffer or we can celebrate that we are all in the same boat. We're all human and we all have the potential to, well, there's no other way to say it… stink.

 

The truth is, we are pretty human and the spirit we breathe on people may not always be the freshest one. 

 

It's something we should keep in mind as we enter the Lenten season. Take a hard look at yourself, check your spirit. Examine your intentions. And question your motives.

 

Ask yourself, "Am I the one who has caused the problem?" or "Am I the one who holds the solution?" These must be among the first questions we ask when we smell something not quite right.

 

Which leads me to my final paraphrase of Matthew 18:20 – "Wherever two or more are gathered in his name, there will always be imperfections."  

 

 

----------------

This column is an excerpt from my newest book, "Tell it to the Chaplain."

 

Order all my books at www.thchaplain.net or send $20 to 10556 Combie Rd. Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602. Comments received at same address or by email: comment@thechaplain.net or at (843) 608-9715. 

 

Feb 10 column

A DREAM FOR ALL

 

"How many of you remember the first time you saw a black person?" asked my sociology professor in my freshman class at Baylor University.

 

Several students answered with stories about the first time they saw a black person walking beside the road or working in their backyard.

 

I was shocked. But I really shouldn't have been. It was 1975 and my southern friends had enjoyed school holidays for "confederated heroes," yet not for Abraham Lincoln.

 

As a Californian, I was out of my element, but I counted myself lucky to be free of their racist upbringing.

 

Or was I?

 

With the beginning of Black History Month we might find how confessing our own history can provide insight into understanding racial issues.

 

As a boy growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, my skin was as white as the fog that shrouded my hometown hills. But it was mostly the fog of my family's southern roots that made me "color blind" to other races and cultures.

 

It was from the distant listening post of my Richmond, Calif., home where I began hearing the cries of social change, muffled and off-key.

 

In 1967, I started fifth grade with the announcement that our school, Balboa Elementary, would soon receive our first black students.

 

Few of my classmates said anything, holding our comments for the playground, where we assembled around Keith, our class troublemaker.  

 

Keith seemed to always be fighting someone on the schoolyard. It was even rumored that he was once suspended for hitting a teacher.

 

He persuaded us that we needn't fear these black children – as long as "us white kids stick together."

 

"Don't anyone talk to them," he commanded. We agreed. We'd follow our appointed leader and stick together.

 

"If they cause any trouble," Keith said, slamming his fist into his palm, "we'll show them who really runs this playground." 

 

We weren't just counting on Keith; we were counting on our geography too.

 

For you see, while many U.S. towns were segregated by railroad tracks, Richmond was segregated by a freeway. And with the district out of money they weren't going to bus kids across the formidable freeway barrier. My friends and I would be safe from the integration controversy.

 

And we would have been – except for one thing.

 

Our district took advantage of something our white neighborhood called "The tunnel." It was a darkened pedestrian walkway under the divisive freeway that reeked of urine and was paved with broken soda bottles.

 

Located only a few hundred yards from our playground, the tunnel was no man's land between the black community and the white one.

 

Yet, one September morning in 1967, our school district deployed a dozen 10-year-old black students through the tunnel. They walked like a scraggly group of Pop Warner football players returning to a halftime deficit, overwhelmed both by the size of the field and the stakes of the game.

 

Among those kids were Deborah, Agnes, Geoffrey and Gregory. I still remember their names because that was the first time I truly "saw" a black person as a person that shared this world with me.

 

Usually my columns work toward a dramatic climax, but the most dramatic thing in today's story is that nothing happened. No drama. Nothing.

 

Keith didn't beat anyone up. Nobody rioted or protested. Life just happened amongst us. Deborah stole my heart while Agnes stole my pencils. Gregory outscored me on the history quizzes. And both he and Agnes easily whizzed past me in the 50-yard dash.

 

No drama until that first Thursday in April 1968. Sometime after the evening fog returned to the Richmond hills, a friend came over to tell me he'd just heard that Martin Luther King had been assassinated in Memphis.

 

Now, fifty-six years later, it seems to me that in the end, our little school became part of King's dream as it was "…transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers."

 

The next year, the district would send a black teacher which I still count as my best of two teachers in a lifetime. But she is a story for another day.

 

That's my history. What's yours?

 

------------------------

 

Please email me so I can add you to my weekly column email. My books can be purchased on my website www.thechaplain.net. Comments are received at 10556 Combie Rd Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602 or by email comment@thechaplain.net or at (843) 608-9715.