Gone Chaplaining

I'm sorry I've been so remiss lately at blogging. I've started an intensive unit of CPE this summer, and have very little time for much else. CPE stands for Clinical Pastoral Education, but if that doesn't explain it for you, it's basically a hospital chaplaincy internship.

I spend the equivalent of about 6 days/week at a hospital in the western suburbs of Chicago being a chaplain. I have two units that I'm assigned to - the trauma unit of our ICU and a medical/surgical unit in the main hospital. When I'm 'on call' however, which would be in the evenings, overnights or weekends, I may be covering the whole hospital.

I was fairly intimidated by the whole thing initially, and still have numerous moments of humility, however, I'm actually enjoying this experience. I've met a lot of people from lots of places, some more interested in talking with me than others, of course.

Theologically, it's also interesting in that we're forced to be ecumenical. Over half of our patients are Catholic, but so far, I've worked with Lutherans, Methodists, UCCers, 'non-denominationals' and I think a Muslim (though I didn't ask) in addition to lots of Catholics. Completing a unit of CPE is usually a requirement for seminaries around here, including the more conservative ones. It's comforting to me that seminarians who might otherwise be Christian exclusivists, have a chance to meet people for whom other traditions are sacred.

I hope to get posts on here a little more frequently than I have, but I appreciate your patience in the mean time. Keep thinking, keep praying, and keep active!

Whose Moral Values?

American Media to America's Churches: Keep Silent or Watch Out

This weekend, Barack and Michelle Obama resigned their membership at Trinity United Church of Christ. I was initially disappointed in the Obamas, thinking that the media has now made Barack into the kind of politician he had thus far avoided becoming.

I see now that their decision is also related to the way the media treated Trinity, Dr. Wright and their current pastor, Rev. Otis Moss. No church member anywhere would want their church to come under the kind of scrutiny to which Trinity has been subjected by a ruthless media. Members who are dying in hospice care have received phone calls from heartless reporters trying to dig up dirt on TUCC and Obama. This is despicable.

As a letter on the UCC website points out, it is getting increasingly difficult for public figures to be active members of churches. That is, churches that make any statements about the gospel of justice. A church is okay so long as it descriminates against gays and lesbians, promotes sexism and patriarchy, is pro-gun and anti-abortion. This fits into the overly simplified view of what the media expects a 'church' to be. But a pastor better keep their mouth shut on issues about racism, homophobia, systemic oppression of the poor and the sick, sexism, xenophobia and American fascism. The media are being complicit in the anti-intellectual, conservative agenda that church is the place where people's prejudices are justified, not where they are called to love one another.

I realize the media have no religious obligations, and they have proven in their treatment of Obama that they have no moral obligations either. In a world where George W. Bush got a free pass to start an unnecessary war, Barack Obama gets humiliated into resigning his church membership. Something is terribly wrong here.

Remember friends that you have a choice. Every time you click on MSNBC, Fox News or CNN, their advertisers know it, and buy advertising accordingly. The more you choose other media outlets like NPR, or even foreign sources, like the BBC, the less power is given to the American corporate media.