Quote of the day

The other day I realized that I had way too many bananas in the freezer and remembered a nurse had once asked me to make banana bread for her, which I did. So having bananas, I thought of her again and made another loaf. It is a newer recipe for me; one that was given as a wedding shower gift. The nurse was thrilled and asked if she was required to share it (with the other nurses). I told her that she could share it or hoard it, it was hers to do with.
The next day she came and told me that it was good and that her son loved it. She is Filipino and said, that her son asked if I was white.
The conversation she told me went like this.
"Mommy, who made this?"
"Oh.. ________ from work."
"Is she white?"
"Yes. She's white."
"That's what I thought. White people bake really good."

I thought it was funny. I have never heard of that concept before. But then we all have our gifts don't we?

Quote of the day

Overheard in rounds:

Head doctor instructing intern/fellow about a consult...

" So if you want this service (X) to come and see the patient about [this issue], then the best way is to go to their office and talk to them. Phoning them doesn't always get results."

"Ok. Where's their office?"

"I don't know. ... Somewhere in the hospital, but I've never known."

" Well that will get us far." (Considering how big the place is... Not.)

Funny place that this is... even the doctors saw the humor of the situation. And the team joked that perhaps the other service deliberately hides the office so that we don't add to their already busy case load.

World Kidney Day

PlainViews Article

This article is from Plainviews.org. A newsletter for chaplains out of the U.S.

Taming the Cell Phone — Benefits and Burdens in the Critical Care Setting

Rev. Peggy Muncie

They buzz, they beep, and they sing our favorite songs. They tell us who is calling and sometimes even why. We need them to stay in instant touch. We live in the age of the cell phone, BlackBerry, mp3 phone and who knows what will come next.

We are a long way from the wild dreams of my pre-teen years when I imagined the best thing in the world would be a phone in our car when I could then pass the time with friends as I was toted on errands and also to inform them of the teen gossip I had witnessed. Back then a car phone was luxury personified.

In 1990, I won a car phone! Granted it was about the size of a shoe box, but I was a proud mobile communicator. The phone enabled me to keep tabs on home and hospital; my family and my co-workers could reach me in times of need. I even indulged in chatting hands-free with my friends on long drives.

In the last twenty years mobile technology has exploded. There is a device in nearly every pocket, spanning the generations from grade school to gerontology.

Recently, I’ve witnessed the impact of cellular communication in the critical care hospital setting. I am troubled by what I see happening. Does it bring people together and help family and friends support each other in time of crisis? Or is it a diversion and distraction from being present to the feelings of the moment?

What has led me to write about this? On a Friday evening at 11:50 PM, a twenty-seven-year-old Hispanic male was brought by friends to the ER. He had been the victim of a street corner shooting in the neighborhood and was bleeding profusely. He was intubated, stabilized and prepared for surgery.

My pager rang at 12:04 AM. “A young male was shot. He is on the way to surgery. It doesn’t look good. The family is gathering, please come and offer support.” When I arrived at the hospital at 12:35 AM, a crowd of 25 people was present.

Seeking out the key family members I inquired, “How may I help?”

“Find out what is going on,” was their response.

As the family held vigil, the progress of surgery was monitored. The crowd grew. Five more people, then three more, then ten more arrived. As the anxious hours passed there was never a time in meeting with, listening to and praying alongside the growing family that there was NOT the buzz of a BlackBerry or jingle of a cell phone.

At 3:15 AM, the surgical resident arrived and asked me to escort the significant persons to the ICU waiting lounge, where the attending surgeon wanted to share the patient’s status. Even in the small square of the elevator the three key women were fielding cellular calls.

In the ICU lounge the surgical team painted a very critical and guarded picture. He was out of surgery. “The bleeding was nearly impossible to control. He required massive units of blood, as the bullet’s path injured a major artery. The next 12 hours are critical. In a few minutes he will be ready for you to see him,” said the surgeon. Prayer and hope-filled tension permeated the room; yet, so did the sound of the cell phone’s omnipresent ring spreading the anxious news.

Soon the family was escorted to be bedside. When we entered, the bleeding was again uncontrolled, blood pressure was dropping, and a code was called. The family spoke words of love and encouragement and prayed to the Almighty for life to be sustained. Still the noise of the cell phones were there among the commands of the code and the unique sounds of the ICU at 3:45 AM.

God and the patient heard the words of encouragement and love; yet, the random violence of the streets prevailed; life left this young man at 4:17 AM. A child of five was now fatherless.

The lead surgeon with compassion and sensitivity shared the message, “Your son and your husband has died. We were not able to save his life. We offered him everything we knew. We are extremely sorry. Please let us know if there is anything we can do.” Tears, shouts, sobs, the physical expressions of painful disbelief and grief overwhelmed this small room. So did the sound of the cell phone.

The family then poured into the room to spend time, to have their personal farewell, to come and see, to touch and feel, to know that in the last few hours a brother, a cousin, a godchild, a stepchild, a buddy, a childhood companion, a friend, had died. The family and friends came in twos and threes, in fives and sixes and as they came, they called and text messaged others. For two hours the mourners came to turn their disbelief into the reality of mourning. By 6:30 AM, there were probably about 100 persons bidding him goodbye.

How did the news travel so fast? What brought so many family, friends and neighbors to the hospital? What was this instrument of connection? What was it that persistently permeated the tears and wails of grief? What was it that drove family from the intensity of the moment to the sound of the familiar? The Cell. The BlackBerry. That was it. How do we tame this beast so it does not to draw those we care for from the intensity of the moment?

On planes, in movie theaters, in spas, in houses of worship, we silence our cellular devices. We stay present to the moment. In this practice of ministry the cell phone and the dilemma it presents is a phenomena that is encroaching on being pervasive.

This is a call I issue to my colleagues: Is it right to tame this technology at times such as these? Where lays the answer between the benefit and the burden of this means of instant communication in the critical care setting? How do we as caregivers help establish policy that keeps loved ones in the present and yet allows those who need to be informed and in touch to do so?
Rev. Peggy Muncie is an ordained Episcopal priest and has been a board certified chaplain since 1984. Her breadth of ministry includes campus, long-term care, aging, acute-care hospital, and outpatient chaplaincy. She is currently a staff chaplain at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center in the New York City area, a HealthCare Chaplaincy partner.

Faith IQ??

Today's edition of the local newspaper had an interesting article about faith. It essentially summarizes James Fowler's book Stages of Faith.





The article is called
Stages of faith: What's your spiritual quotient?
Many thinkers are making the case that humans are capable of evolving spiritually, of progressing to higher rungs

By Douglas Todd, Vancouver Sun
March 7, 2009

We all have IQs. Or Intelligence Quotients. IQ measure human's ability to reason with language, numbers and spatial relations. We also have EQs. Or Emotional Quotients.

Made famous by psychologist Daniel Goleman, they describe humans' skill handling emotions. We also have what could be called MQs, or Moral Quotients. Researcher Lawrence Kohlberg has been among those measuring humans' capacity for empathy and ethical reasoning.

We also, I would suggest, have SQs, or Spiritual Quotients.

Psychologists have done incredible work in the past century measuring the developmental stages of humans as they transform from mother-hugging infants into rebellious teenagers and, with a bit of luck, responsible adults. Some complain that religiosity, or belief in God, should not be similarly categorized. In this politically correct era, they don't want to hear about (gasp) spiritual hierarchies -- in which one spiritual stage is considered higher than another. But why not?

Just as Swiss social scientist Jean Piaget mapped out the four stages in which children learn to take in reality, and psychologist Erik Erikson outlined eight healthy stages we can go through from birth to death, many thinkers are making a good case that humans also spiritually evolve.

People are capable of progressing up a spiritual ladder. It doesn't mean they become smug on the higher spiritual rungs. Au contraire. But they can learn to function at a more complex, subtle and profound spiritual level.

Some of the scholars, psychologists and mystics who have been mapping the stages of spiritual growth include Clare Graves, Robert Kegan, Sri Aurobindo, Don Beck and especially Ken Wilber in his book, Integral Spirituality. In Vancouver, educator Chris Dierkes is among those specializing on the subject.

One of the spiritual development experts I find most intriguing is psychologist James Fowler of Emory University, author of the classic book, Stages of Faith. Fowler believes every baby starts out "undifferentiated." Babies don't make a distinction between a mother's warm, safe breast and God.

Fowler doesn't even call this primal beginning a stage. As a result, he says the first stage of spiritual development, which lasts from ages two to seven, is the one of unconscious religious fantasy.

After this comes the "mythic" stage. It's when people begin holding to literal and absolute truths. They might, for instance, believe the Genesis account of a six-day creation is fact. After this comes the third stage -- of "conventional" faith or spirituality.

It occurs when people move beyond their family of origin and seriously engage schools, peers and the media. They accept the judgment of significant others, like teachers and clergy. This conformist stage is when people develop loyalty to an ideology, group or lifestyle -- whether religious, military, artistic, economic or political. It is also when many religious groups often choose, unwisely, to hold "confirmation" classes, requiring teenagers to commit to a religious doctrine.

Many people, however, move on from this conformist approach -- to stage four, which is where Fowler says spirituality becomes more of an individual struggle. Stage four, to Fowler, marks a more reflective time, where self-actualization becomes the prime concern, and people try to take personal responsibility for their beliefs. In stage four a person starts listening to often-disturbing inner voices that challenge orthodoxy. They begin looking seriously at other religions and belief systems, realizing some of their convictions may be relative. This stage can happen in young adulthood or in one's 30s or 40s.

It often rises up just after religious "confirmation" classes, leading many teens to completely reject the religion of their youth. It is a "demythologizing" stage, Fowler says. It includes some atheists.

"It's dangers are inherent in its strengths; stage four comes with an excessive confidence in . . . critical thought and a kind of second narcissism."

The fifth stage of spiritual development leads to integration. In this stage, which is unusual before mid-life, Fowler says we recognize our own weaknesses and can see truth in paradox. The religion scholar Paul Ricouer would see stage five as one of "second naivete," Fowler says.

It's a helpful phrase. "Second naivete" occurs when people no longer take literally the stories of any spiritual or cultural tradition, either western or eastern. Instead, they deeply explore in themselves the "symbolic power" of stories about Moses, Jesus, Krishna, Buddha and others. They treat the stories "as if" they were true, mining them for transcendent meaning.

Finally, there is the highest stage of spiritual growth -- six: The universal. Fowler says it is "exceedingly rare" to achieve stage six, which some might call enlightenment. People in this stage "have become incarnators and actualizers of the spirit of an inclusive and fulfilled human community."

"Universalizers are often experienced as subversive of the structures (including religious) by which we sustain our individual and corporate survival and significance. Many persons in this stage die at the hands of those whom they hope to change," Fowler says.

No doubt thinking of people such as Jesus, Gandhi, Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddha, Aung San Suu Kyi and other courageous luminaries, Fowler says universalizers don't necessarily have to believe in God. But they do "have a special grace that makes them seem more lucid, more simple and yet somehow more fully human than the rest of us." They are not necessarily perfect. But people who have reached this enlightened sixth stage of spiritual development think globally, while still cherishing the particular.

That includes their specific communities, which at their best can be "vessels of the universal." Life, for those at stage six, is "both loved and held to loosely," Fowler says. "Such persons are ready for fellowship with persons at any of the other stages and from any other faith tradition."

To me, Fowler and his ilk make a convincing and eloquent case: Not all spiritualities are created equal.