I completed my thesis toward the end of 2019 and sent it in. In due time, I got feedback on needed revisions, and sent those in earlier this week. The next day, I got an email from our thesis mentor saying that my paper had been accepted, and so I am done with all of the requirements for my two-year chaplaincy program in Santa Fe except for a 15-minute presentation, which will be the telling of a couple of stories from my thesis, and the graduation ceremony. Flatteringly, our mentor asked if she could share my paper with the palliative care fellow at her hospital; she said it did a “really good job” of explaining the theological foundations of my chaplaincy.
The next task is to put together my actual application for board certification, which, like everything else pertaining to professional chaplaincy, is not a trivial matter. I had the vague idea that it was due in July, which meant that after July, I can sit around on my butt reading when I’m not at work—finally! This whole process began in January of 2016. I checked on that due date yesterday evening and discovered that the due date is July 8, but applicants are strongly encouraged to send everything in as far in advance as possible, to have time to remedy anything that is amiss. I have assigned myself a due date of April 23, which is even better. After April 23, I can sit around on my butt reading when I’m not at work.
Yesterday, I took my thesis and portfolio—a collection of every paper I wrote during the program—to a nearby copy shop and had them spiral bound, and today I mailed them off to school, to be handed back to me at graduation.
At County Hospital, I found there had been a cataclysm in the area of personnel and I was suddenly at loose ends. I went back to the chaplain office to brush my teeth—I had celebrated mailing in my thesis by conducting a croissant taste test while en route to the hospital—and while I was sitting there talking with another chaplain, our priest came in and told me that the person who was the priest at my paying job for six or seven years died unexpectedly yesterday.
He was there when I did my summer unit of Clinical Pastoral Education, and still there when I was hired as a staff chaplain a year later. Several months into 2019, the church leadership called him home to Uganda, where he became the dean of a seminary. Perhaps in the past few weeks, he came here to fill in at a church in South San Francisco; this might also have been a vacation for him. (I’m a little miffed that he didn’t get in touch.) He went to visit the hospital—we have three—where his office was and where he was revered by the staff. Yesterday he was supposed to fly home to Uganda—but he never woke up. He was only 52. He had an emphatic personality. He made me smile.
I left County Hospital this morning after I found this out and went over to the hospital where our priest had spent the most time. I found my co-workers busily putting together a prayer service, which we conducted at noon, giving staff members a chance to start to grieve. I offered the closing prayer, and could hear people crying.
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