The chaplains at Norton Healthcare often write inpiring and uplifting devotionals. We welcome you to read some of them below:
When Darkness Comes
Jeanne Tessier Barone, MTS
Chaplain, Kosair Children's Hospital
Sometimes, in a sudden rush, life drags us down into darkness. A car crash, an ATV accident, an unexpected and terrible illness: something happens to ourselves or someone we love, the ground beneath our feet becomes a storm-fed river and we’re swept away. If this hasn’t happened to you yet, or to one you love, it will.
For those who are swept away, what casts a beam of light into the darkness? What leads us back to solid ground? From my experience as a hospital chaplain, I offer these ideas, in the hope you’ll remember them when you’re suddenly torn from the life you had before, or when someone you care about is swept away and you want to help.
Stand in the darkness. Be willing to be with your own or another’s pain. Even without words or gestures, your presence helps. Be a witness to your own or another’s experience. Stand there; see and feel what is happening.
Know that you or your beloved is not alone. The Source of Love is in the darkness. Though you or the other feels abandoned, the Source of Love is there and will not abandon you or anyone.
Wait for the light to reappear. Wait for your feet to once again touch solid ground. It will come. It will feel like forever, but it will come.
The cry that inevitably issues from dark times like these is, “Why?”
Here, paraphrased, is Viktor Frankl’s answer in the book Man’s Search for Meaning and Ram Dass’s answer in the powerful documentary Fierce Grace:
Life is not what we expect it to be; it has its own expectations. Life is the teacher. We are life’s students and some of her lessons are terrible and hard. The question is not, “Why?” though that’s the one we ask. The question is, “What?” What’s the lesson here? What are we called to be? What will become of us if we open ourselves to this deepening?
When darkness comes, hard as it is, open your arms.
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The Light Shines On
The Rev. Brian Miles, M.Div., BCC
Chaplain, Kosair Children’s Hospital
Have you ever noticed just how much light is created by a single candle flame? It is amazing. A room, covered in absolute darkness, immediately comes to light as the glow of a candle illuminates it. The room almost comes to life, as images of objects dance upon the walls. It is as if one tiny flame gives life to the entire space. Now think of the darkness that remains in the room. Though the room glows with light, some darkness remains. What’s more, the darkness seems to resist being washed away by the light. As I watch the glow of the walls wax and wane, I cannot help but imagine a battle between the glowing flame and the darkness inherently present in the room. Yet no matter how much the darkness of the room presses in upon the candle, the flame is not extinguished; the light remains.
In much the same way, I imagine Christ’s light and love shining within us, no matter how great our inner turmoil—or darkness—may be. Whether it is sickness, interpersonal conflicts, inner struggles or even sin, the darkness we experience in our daily lives cannot withstand the healing light of Christ’s love. As we continue to remember the sacrifice of love Christ made for us all during this Lenten season, may we give thanks that the “Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (John 1:5). May it be so, dear Lord, may it be so.
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Feeling Fat, Then Fasting
The Rev. Whit Soards, M. Div., BCC
Norton Hospital Episcopal Chaplain
The season of Lent begins this week with a raucous end to Epiphany on Shrove Tuesday, followed by the solemn fast day of Ash Wednesday. Talk about going from one extreme to the other! On Shrove Tuesday, we prepare for our Lenten fast by cleaning our cupboards of all things fat and sweet and tasty. The tradition of pancake suppers in churches evolved as a way to give the old sweet tooth one last blast of goodie before the Lenten fast is undertaken.
Here’s what the British Broadcasting Company’s website on Shrove Tuesday tells us about the day:
Shrove Tuesday is a day of celebration as well as penitence, because it's the last day before Lent. Lent is a time of abstinence, of giving things up. So Shrove Tuesday is the last chance to indulge your self, and to use up the foods that aren't allowed in Lent. In the old days there were many foods that observant Christians would not eat during Lent: foods such as meat and fish, fats, eggs, and milky foods. So that no food was wasted, families would have a feast on the shriving Tuesday, and eat up all the foods that wouldn't last the forty days of Lent without going off. The need to eat up the fats gave rise to the French name Mardi Gras; meaning fat tuesday. Pancakes became associated with Shrove Tuesday as they were a dish that could use up all the eggs, fats and milk in the house with just the addition of flour.
After of Shrove Tuesday’s last feast we enter the leaner days of Lent, marking that beginning with the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday. We receive a smudge of ash on the forehead as a mark of our penitence and to remind us of our mortality and utter dependence on God, and we hear the words, “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” The ashes are the burned remains of the palms we carried in procession on Palm Sunday before last Easter. We remember Christ’s passion and death, and prepare again to receive the gift of new life at Easter by undertaking some sort of Lenten fast. We “give up” something, in order to make more room for God in our lives.
As we begin this season of Lent may we shrive together before God, confessing our sins and receiving absolution for them. This week be fat; and then begin your fast as a way to strengthen your focus on God and God’s goodness during the forty days of Lent.
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