In the Telling – and the Listening – There Is Healing

CNN Health recently published an article on the work I’m honored to do every weekday (and then some!). Written by Faith Karimi, this article focuses on the work of hospital chaplains and, in particular, the experiences of Joon "J.S." Park, a chaplain at Tampa General Hospital.

“[Park] has counseled thousands of patients and their families," writes Karimi, adding that “sometimes, [Park is] the last – and only – person his patients see before they die. His key role in that moment, he says, is to make them feel like they mattered and are being heard.” “It’s such a terrible thing when a voice goes unheard. I have seen so many voices die,” Park says. “I have learned, in all my time with all my patients, each of us hold a story and must be given a voice. In the telling there is healing.”

There is much of what Park shares to which I can relate in my work as the Palliative Care Chaplain at Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids, Minnesota. That being said, unlike Park, I would not describe myself as a “therapriest.” I mean, I get why he uses this term but it’s just not one that I would ever use. Instead, when asked to describe my role, I tend to use the term “spiritual health provider” or “spiritual health facilitator”

Also, I wouldn’t say that I’m “just there for [my patients’] comfort.” I definitely see myself, like Park, as a “non-anxious, non-judgmental” presence – and also a listening presence. Indeed, I would say that my listening is just as important as my patients’ “telling” for any kind of healing experience. And I’m sure Park would agree.

As an embodiment of this non-anxious, non-judgmental and listening presence, I seek to invite and facilitate within the lives of my patients a process (or journey) by which they experience and cultivate both inner peace and meaning-making. Wheather or not this meaning-making is religious or spiritual in nature is up to my patients, not me. (For more of my understanding of my work as a hospital chaplain, see this previous Wild Reed post.)

I close with an excerpt from Faith Karimi’s September 20, 2023 CNN Health article on chaplaincy.

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Movies and TV shows often portray hospital chaplains as pious Bible-toters trying to get patients right with God before they die. [Chaplain] Joon Park says his role is more encompassing.

He describes himself as a “therapriest” – a cross between a priest and a therapist who can talk with patients about anything.

“We’re a non-anxious, non-judgmental, comforting presence. I’m not there to convert them. I’m not there to convince them, I’m just there for comfort,” he says.

“We can definitely have religious conversations if they want to. But a lot of our conversations can go from mental health to crisis to grief. We fit in that space between faith and . . . mortality. And we’re there for them in any capacity that they want to talk.”

. . . Howard Tuch, director of Palliative Care at the 1,040-bed [Tampa General Hospital in South Florida], says Park and other chaplains are part of a larger interdisciplinary team that supports not just patients and families, but staff members as well. Taking care of people at the end of their lives can take a toll on hospital staffers who’ve grown close to them, he says.

Chaplains provide comfort to patients and their loved ones, Tuch says, but they also focus on who the patient is and what’s most important in their lives.

“I can’t tell you the number of times when I’ve had discussions with families from a medical perspective,” Tuch says, “but what was really needed was attendance to who this person was or what their spiritual needs were – even in determining the overall direction of their medical care.”

– Faith Karimi
Excerpted from "This Hospital Chaplain Has Counseled
Thousands of Dying Patients. Here’s What He’s Learned”
CNN Health
September 20, 2023

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Chaplaincy: A Ministry of Welcome
• Interfaith Chaplaincy: Meeting People Where They're At
• Spirituality and the Healthcare Setting
• World Hospice and Palliative Care Day
• Arthur Kleinman on the “Soul of Care”
• From the Palliative/Spiritual Care Bookshelf – Part I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII | IX
• George Yancy on the “Unspoken Reality of Death”
• Out and About – Autumn 2017
• Out and About – Winter 2017-2018
• Out and About – Spring 2018
• Out and About – Summer 2018
• Yahia Lababidi: “Poetry Is How We Pray Now”
• The Calm Before the Storm
• Out and About – Spring 2020
• A Pandemic Year
• Out and About – Autumn 2021
• Difficult Choices
• On the 2nd Anniversary of the Coronavirus Pandemic, Words of Gratitude and Hope