Sufficient Unto the Day Is the Evil Thereof

It ended up taking a week to dry out my apartment. I was left with (and still have at this moment) the various holes in my various walls and removed kitchen ceiling as previously described.

Like, here's my little hallway.

Here’s Hammett with the final dehumidifier.

And Hammett tenderly licking one of the fans.

Early in June, I got an email newsletter from one of the leaders of the street retreat I’ll be going on. He was reflecting on another retreat just concluded, and about how much help the retreatants had gotten from actual homeless people:

Street generosity comes in many forms. A woman in her 70s and who has been sleeping on park benches for decades, like a Bodhisattva walking through the hell realms with joy, quietly lured rats away from our sleeping area with scraps of food she had saved in her handbag.

Rats near the sleeping area?!?

Close on the heels of that alarming transmission, my mentor group met, including a person who had been on that retreat. She joined a few minutes late because she had spent the whole day in the ER dealing with a painful symptom that arose on retreat and lingered afterward. The retreat “did me in,” she confessed.

She also said that she spent too much time preparing, since you don’t need much: the clothes you’re wearing, a plastic bag in case it rains, one dollar. She said she wondered afterward why she had thought there was so much to do beforehand. She also said there was no overlap between what she worried about beforehand and what actually ended up being difficult (i.e., what she should have been worrying about). Encouragingly, she said everyone’s mala was different, so there is no need to fret about making the right kind.

Early in June, I went to the annual palliative care retreat in Marin, a fantastic day of seeing colleagues, meeting new people, eating, making art, singing.

By drawing myself a picture as I walked around my floor of the hospital at my paying job, I finally solved the mystery of why I have to turn 11 corners to go all the way around something that is basically a square.

Several weeks ago there was a half-time job for a palliative care chaplain at the Truly Wonderful Medical Center, where I did my Clinical Pastoral Education. That obviously was my job. I applied for it, and over the next couple of weeks, mulled over the pros and cons of taking that job versus staying where I am. Then I realized I had not been invited for an interview! This was a lesson in acceptance and humility. (I heard soon after that that a CPE peer of mine whose demographics are very different from mine had been invited for an interview. I’m pleased to say that, after about ten seconds, I was able to sincerely wish that he will get the job and that it will be a big success all around.) It was also simplifying: I guess I don’t have to try to decide whether to leave the Very Fantastic Medical Center or not.

And whether or not I have the title of “palliative care chaplain,” I am one. When I walked into the room of one patient, he said, “I was going to call for you! I would like to discuss what happens next, like my burial and so forth, and also what the spiritual meaning of this is.”

I said, “Would you like to discuss those things right now, with your family present, or another time?”

He said, “Right now. Please sit down.”

Once upon a time, I might have been flustered by that. I might not have known what to say or how to approach such a conversation. I might even—worst of all—have tried to install hope in the patient: “Maybe you’re not going to die!”

Another reason that conversation was great, from my point of view, was that the patient’s sister, who is very devout, mentioned a part of the Bible I actually recognized. “Matthew, chapter six,” I said, and we nodded and smiled at each other. That was extremely satisfying. That’s literally the only chapter of the Bible I would be able to recognize. It’s the one that, in the King James version, ends with my favorite line in the entire Bible: “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” I must have heard that in church when I was a small child and never forgotten it, because I have always known it. It means not to worry about yesterday or tomorrow. The Lord’s Prayer can also be found in that chapter, and the thing about the lilies of the field.