Chaplain's Corner

This past summer I spent a bit of time doing a self evaluation of my work.  I made a few humbling discoveries, one in particular was that there were people who came into the hospital, requested a visit from the chaplain, that I never got to see.  I could look for causes and make excuses but the fact of the matter is I didn’t get to see these folks because I simply failed to get to them.  To these people the reason is irrelevant.  I failed.

As unsatisfactory as it may be, if you are one of those folks, please forgive me.  I had every intention to get to you, to honor your request and I failed.  As Peter Drucker once wrote, “Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.”
 
This self-evaluation got me thinking about limitations, human limitation.  We live with our limitations every minute of every day.  We compensate for them, we excuse them, we hate them, we fight against them, but at the end of the day, we simply lived with them.  When it comes to our limitations, there are some that we are very aware of, some that we have a sneaking suspicion are there and others that we are completely blind to; this is true of every one of us.

In July I spent some time caring for a woman with dementia who was at that very awkward stage in the disease process where she kind of knew things weren’t right and it scared her.  Each time I stopped by to see her, I saw the fear in her eyes and the focus of our conversation revolved around the fear.  She would say to me, “I am lost, desperately lost.”  In reality I knew where she was, her family knew where she was, the Dr. and staff at the hospital knew where she was.  Precautions had been taken to insure that she would not get lost, but her own internal reality was one of lostness.
 
This limitation had slowly moved into her mind, the limitation we call dementia and as that limitation encroached on her mind, the very thoughts and memories that for so long had kept her grounded and aware of her life and history had begun to disappear.  She didn’t know where she was, where her family was, where her belongings had disappeared to and all of this “not knowing” drove her into a state of panic and fear.  As I cared for her I also come face to face with my limitations.  I could not move her towards any kind of grounding or awareness, no matter how many times I explained to her where she was, no matter how many times I responded to her pitiful cry, “I’m lost, desperately lost.”  No matter how I prayed, no matter I how worked at orienting her, her limitations continued to reveal my own limitations.

In these situations, what are we to do?  Embrace our limitations.  This is easier said than done.  For the dear woman I was caring for this past summer, the intellectual capacity to make this choice to embrace and accept the limitations was also gone, she was truly a victim of these limitations that had slowly crept into her life.  But for those of us who, at least for the moment, have our mental capacities, we can embrace the limitation as an expression of who we are. 

After all, we are, our identity as individuals is, the sum total of our strengths and limitations.   I am as clearly defined by my strengths as I am by my limitations.  If I chose to focus only on my limitations, I become self-effacing, and if I persist I can develop a real problem with my sense of self-worth.  On the other hand, if I focus only on my strengths, I can become self-elevating and develop a real problem with arrogance.

The Apostle Paul wrote in one of his letters, “Don’t think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment.”  What Paul is encouraging is that we live with ourselves recognizing both our strengths and our limitations, keeping both in focus so that we neither become self-effacing or self-elevating.
  
So, one of my weaknesses, one of the limitations I have to embrace if I am going to be obedient to this passage in the Word of God is that I will always have more ambition, more good intention than I have time or energy to accomplish.  I really struggle with this.  I want to see everyone who comes into the hospital requesting my services.  I start each day intending to see everyone who has requested my services but the reality is, I never seem to get to everyone and then, the person is discharged and the opportunity has slipped away.   I often feel bad about this, but I have had to learn to let it go, to accept the limitation and to seek the forgiveness of those who were hurt by my failure.

Speaking about weaknesses and limitations, I want to encourage you not only to embrace your own, but to accept those of the others in your life: family members, friends, people at work, if you go to church your pastor and the others who attend that congregation.  Our expectations of others rarely are satisfied by the performance of others.  This reality often causes us to feel justified in being critical of others, but at the same time resentful of those who are critical of our failure to live up to their expectations.
 
Back to July and the woman I was serving who was struggling with dementia.  Part of the reason she was hospitalized was because she was no longer able to monitor her response to the disappointment she experienced over her limitations and the limitations of her family.  The desperation in her mind that grew over her family’s inability to provide the external structure that she needed led to uncharacteristic angry outbursts and even physical assault.  These behaviors were understandable but steps needed to be taken to protect family members who found themselves on the wrong side of her desperation.

We too, even with minds unaffected by the irreversabilities of dementia often find it difficult to manage our disappointment related to the limitations of those we liver in relationship with; yet doing so is an essential skill that needs to be developed if we want to live in harmony with those who are most important to us.

I am limited in many ways: by my age, by my stamina, by the fact that I have but 7.75 hours a day to work, by the fact that the needs that are present at any one time are generally greater than the capacity I have to meet them.  I am limited by my personal development, by my skills in connecting with people, by my prejudices and preconceptions and by my self-concept.  We come into the world with limitations, we live our entire lives with limitations and we will come to the end of our lives experiencing limitations.  Being limited is part of the human experience.  Isn’t it about time we accept our own, then turn and be gracious to others and accept theirs as well?