a time for everything...
In my community, several area pastors take a week at a time rotation at our local hospital to serve as chaplains. We are called in whenever there is a "code blue", a death, or a baby born in distress. The hospital is fairly small, and has bigger hospitals on to the East and West where bigger emergencies get sent, so usually a week of being on call results in 2 or 3 trips to the hospital.
I was called in once this week, in the early morning. I live quite close to the hospital, so I arrived before any family did, and while the nursing staff was still working on the code blue patient. I watched as they performed CPR on him, and watched as he eventually died, and watched as they declared his time of death. It was all very non-"ER" - the health care workers did what they needed to do, then moved on to the next things. The wife of the 90 year-old man came in and was a little teary, but talked about life, and how this is just what happens, and how she was expecting to soon join her husband due to her own health concerns. I said a prayer for her husband, and she went back home.
I was just struck by the persistence of life, of the world, to keep going, keep happening, even in the midst of the end of one life, one season of grief. This same week, I celebrated graduation with many of our high-school students - as they stand poised at that new juncture of life, so much just around the corner for them...
"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die;"
In my community, several area pastors take a week at a time rotation at our local hospital to serve as chaplains. We are called in whenever there is a "code blue", a death, or a baby born in distress. The hospital is fairly small, and has bigger hospitals on to the East and West where bigger emergencies get sent, so usually a week of being on call results in 2 or 3 trips to the hospital.
I was called in once this week, in the early morning. I live quite close to the hospital, so I arrived before any family did, and while the nursing staff was still working on the code blue patient. I watched as they performed CPR on him, and watched as he eventually died, and watched as they declared his time of death. It was all very non-"ER" - the health care workers did what they needed to do, then moved on to the next things. The wife of the 90 year-old man came in and was a little teary, but talked about life, and how this is just what happens, and how she was expecting to soon join her husband due to her own health concerns. I said a prayer for her husband, and she went back home.
I was just struck by the persistence of life, of the world, to keep going, keep happening, even in the midst of the end of one life, one season of grief. This same week, I celebrated graduation with many of our high-school students - as they stand poised at that new juncture of life, so much just around the corner for them...
"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die;"
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