048 – Remind yourself of how you want to help.

Reflections on a place and on building your own list of reminders

Welcome back (or welcome)!

Nancy and I just got back from a couple days at a state park lodge. We go there most years. It’s not fancy and it’s not roughing it.

We try to go when there’s a deal: stay two nights for the price of one. When the weather is nice, we walk outside. When the weather isn’t, we walk the halls of the building.

The decor has been consistent for most of the time we’ve been going there. The paths are the same, the rooms are the same, the fish in the aquarium may be the same.

Our likely first family visit was more than thirty years ago. (There are a couple pictures that help me be certain about this.) When we are there, we talk about past visits and about now and about the future. These visits and this storytelling provide us one of our lifelines. Remembering what we find helpful, and learning to forget what isn’t helpful, can happen when we aren’t having to constantly deal with novelty. Through different houses, different jobs, different stages, going there has been a consistent familiar place.

A place that we don’t own, that isn’t family, that isn’t full of obligation. A place where the memories can be ours.

We’ve never been good at marriage formulas or having a date night every week or surprise parties or big adventures. We’re getting better at us.

I mention this in a newsletter about finding words in hard times to remind us all that there aren’t formulas. There is listening and learning and respect and love.

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Years ago, when I started working as a hospital chaplain, I wrote myself some notes. On a sheet of paper that I carried with me all the time, I captured phrases and numbers and names that I wanted to remember as I walked the halls and as I got to rooms.

The first page had a column for writing notes, and a column of really small print reminders.

• “Non-invasive intentional presence.”

• “Call until you reach someone”

• “Here. Now.”

• The names of all the deputy coroners.

• “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” (I put the whole 23^rd psalm in case someone asked for it. In the moments when someone is dying and a family member wants to hear it, my memory doesn’t work great and I don’t want to go scrolling through my phone.)

• “For the worst possible times in people’s lives, how can we be the best possible help?”

There are stories for all of these. Stories for me.

For example, I used to think that leaving a message counted as trying to reach someone by phone. Then, one day, while a patient was in cardiac arrest, I learned I needed to call every possible number to get ahold of the family member who could guide the next steps. Call until you reach someone.

For example, I needed the names of the deputy coroners for part of our charting process.

On a second page, I wrote this:

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WHAT DO I WANT TO DO WHEN I GO TO WORK?

That’s the question.

I’m going to work to serve the staff and patients of the hospital in whatever way I can, but mostly around people’s connection with each other and something outside them. I’m not trying to not screw up. I’m trying to bridge them through the difficulties that arise when our health falls apart.

So getting over the fear of failing, the dwelling on what I don’t know and thinking about here, now, and you.

· Learning names and remembering them because they can bring peace.

· NOT trying to make people happy but trying to make people connected to what they need for next steps.

· Removing uncertainty.

· Treasuring the fragile treasures.

· “Let’s sit together and accomplish what needs to be accomplished around grief and joy and fear and relief and all that we are afraid off and uncertain about.”

There IS a cost for the people who watch people die.

Even though I don’t know how God wants to work, I can invite him to work.

And pray as part of my work, not as part of my performance.

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My list isn’t your list.

But as you prepare to help people in hard times, my list might be helpful. Because what I tried to do for myself was explain why learning names is helpful, why clarity is helpful, what tiny step I can help with rather than worrying about the big thing that I can’t help with at all.

In moments of crisis, you aren’t going to think clearly. And trying to remember other people’s formulas may not help.

Giving yourself a written resource can help you.

What would this look like?

1. You keep a copy or two of This is Hard on hand.

2. You could write down answers to questions like this:

• What things do I want to remember to say?

• What do I want to not say?

• Why am I wanting to be helpful?

• What are the ways that I know I can help best?

• How do you find a funeral home?

• What’s the phone number for my favorite funeral home?

• What’s the ER number for the local hospitals?

• What are the cell numbers for my family members?

• What’s the actual text of my favorite Bible passages?

3. Putting the answers in your phone or in a Field Notes notebook that you carry makes them available whenever you need them.

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My new podcast starts January 18, but you can watch, or listen to the trailer now.

Finding Words in Hard Times - the podcast on Youtube

Finding Words in Hard Times - the podcast on Apple

Finding Words in Hard Times - the podcast website home

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I appreciate questions and comments that I can answer in future newsletters. Write me at jon.swanson@socialmediachaplain.com or

See you next week.

Jon