Reading: 3-2 A Hospital Chaplaincy Mission Statement

5. MISSION OF HOSPITAL CHAPLAINS Hospital chaplains - both ordained and non-ordained - are employees of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Their duty is to serve patients, their families and the health care staff as experts in questions concerning the values and view of life stirred by illness. Hospital chaplains promote holistic care by supporting the whole care community, and serve as a link between the religious communities and the health care system. If necessary, hospital chaplains participate in the deliberation of ethical questions in health care. The duties of hospital chaplains also involve the non-institutional care setting, as well as supervision and training for both parish and health care staff. Voluntary work, as well as pastoral care after crises and disasters, brings additional duties to hospital chaplains. Religious and spiritual support in palliative care, support for grieving families and co-operation with the police and rescue services require the expertise of a hospital chaplain. Discussions between hospital chaplains and patients do not always occur on religious terms, but there is a presence of a deeper dimension, a sense of the sacred. A hospital chaplain is an expert in spiritual issues, and an interpreter of the religious language. A hospital chaplain's duty is to bring the sacred to the everyday bustle of a hospital.

Retrieved from http://sakasti.evl.fi/sakasti.nsf/0/605D62C01FDFE05DC225792500387F4B/$FILE/Periaatteet%20UK.pdf

In this module, I am going to be reflecting on the mission statement (reproduced above) for hospital chaplains which I found online at the website of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland.  I chose this particular mission statement because I thought it reflected succinctly what a hospital chaplain would be doing in the health care setting.  We will be looking at each sentence as we make our way through this statement.

Sentence 1.  Hospital chaplains - both ordained and non-ordained - are employees of the Evangelical Lutheran Church.

In Finland the hospital chaplains are employed by the Lutheran church of Finland. That means that their support comes not from the institution in which they serve, but from the churches which send them into the health care environment to be the people who bring God's presence into that environment.

Sentence 2   Their duty is to serve patients, their families and the health care staff as experts in questions concerning the values and view of life stirred by illness.

The first thing I notice here is that the role of chaplain comes with a duty. Too many of us in the role of pastors and chaplains see ourselves as privileged members of an inner circle of care-givers. But instead, we need to see ourselves as those who carry out a duty. This duty is not something which is just made up, it is much like the duty that we find among the prophets of God. The prophets were to be present as those who answered, not to the secular authority, but only to God. As a person who knows God in an intimate way, the chaplain will always present himself, herself in a humble way. The chaplain is present because, as Amos put it, the Lion has roared, who can but prophesy? The chaplain has heard God speak in his/her personal life and now must humbly respond by speaking on behalf of God to others. It is a duty the person of God discovers in their life. 

Then note the word "serve.” In the New Testament, the Greek word diakonos is used to speak of those who serve. The original deacons of the church were appointed to be people who, among other duties, served the needs of widows in their distress.  The word may derive from an ancient word which meant one who runs errands. That is a good way to think of the role of the chaplain, God has sent the chaplain into the healthcare setting to run God's errands on his behalf. The duty of the chaplain is to serve the image bearers of God about whom he cares very much.

Who are these image bearers? In the hospital setting, it is first of all the patients. When I was a volunteer chaplain in a hospital, I made calls on every new patient who had been admitted to the hospital since noon the previous day. My duty was first and foremost to those people whose bodies had encountered a significant enough problem for them to be admitted to the hospital. That is always a difficult moment for anyone, unless they are someone who needs to be admitted to the hospital regularly for some reason. But for most people, it is a time of significant tension and anxiety because they do not know for sure what lies ahead for them. Their time frame of planning has gone from weeks or months to the next hours and many people dread the testing that goes on. So afraid all of us are, of hearing really bad news about our bodies.

But it is not only the patients who are facing a crisis, their families are as well. If a young mother is taken to the hospital and is fighting for her life, her husband and her children are also deeply affected and filled with fear over the difficult times that might lie ahead. The duty of the chaplain is also to care about the families. The chaplain has a duty to help the family that is confronting this crisis in health so that they will be able to make the necessary adjustments in their lives as they face the future.

The healthcare staff itself, the doctors, nurses, technicians and others all are dealing with sick people all day every day and it can become a horrific burden if they are faced with overwhelming injury, illness, or tragedy in the lives of their patients. The duty of the chaplain is to serve these people too. The staff deals with life and death issues constantly and their own emotional reserves can run very shallow. They become people who need to take some time to talk through their emotional reactions to some of the difficult things they do and see in the course of their work. Here the chaplain becomes a person whose presence offers an opportunity to the staff to informally discuss their work and their reactions to it. In my own experience I have seen many nurses whose lives have been crippled because of what they had seen so often. I have heard medical personnel making jokes that are very inappropriate, but which are the coping mechanism that some have developed to deal with the ugliness in the human condition which they are called to fight.

The chaplain is present to be an "expert” in discussing the "questions concerning the values and view of life stirred by illness.” I put the word expert in quotes since it is very difficult for anyone to be an expert in values and life view. But the chaplain certainly can be a person whose life has included some time of reflection on the basic meaning of many issues which arise in the presence of illness. A chaplain is to be comfortable discussing the following:

      Is there such a thing as a quality of life that needs to be considered in this case? An old friend of mine died a few years ago from ALS. She had been diagnosed some three years prior and has faced the decline of her body with dignity. Yet the question needs to be asked, "Is it appropriate to 'do all we can' to preserve her life - even to the point of putting her on a respirator - when we know she is going to die soon?” Quality to life arises in cancer treatments of radiation and chemotherapy. It confronts the diabetic person who is facing amputation of a limb. It affects the decisions made by a family when a heart attack or stroke has left the patient in a vegetative state with only a small hope of recovery of any semblance of a quality of life. The chaplain will be asked to give an "expert” opinion in many of these sorts of cases; a response which has been pondered for more than a moment is called for from the chaplain.

2.   to what extent do we give room to the patient themselves to make decisions for their treatment or lack thereof? In the medical ethics texts this is referred to as the right to autonomy for the patient.  When a person has been injured severely and faces a question of whether or not to amputate their damaged leg, the chaplain must be present to allow the injured person, if it is possible, to have a say in what is going to happen. A young man I know stepped on a rusty nail while at work. He did not think he needed to go to a doctor and a few days later gangrene set in and his leg was amputated at the knee. So, should he have listened to his wife who wanted him to go to the doctor immediately, or was it within his autonomy to tell himself that this injury was no big deal. When faced with the challenges of rehab after his amputation, he has had a very good attitude because (for better or for worse!) he had made the decision to not go to the doctor in the first place. His autonomy as a person now means he is going to work at his rehabilitation as a consequence of his own choice.

3.The chaplain will be able to offer the ill person, their family, and the medical staff a perspective which will permit the asking of a serious, but often left unasked question, "Will this treatment actually do me any good?” The family of a dying person will often refuse to have the question be raised. But the chaplain is there to, as a person who is the sign of Immanuel, to ask the question and to help the family know that this life is not the only one which matters, while death is a great enemy, death is not the last word that will be spoken over this person's life. This is where the chaplain's own faith comes to expression - not as a push to deny treatment, but as a reminder to all that God is alive and well and is eternal.

4.The next principle involved in medical ethics and about which the chaplain can speak as an "expert” is the question of non-maleficence.  This is the issue of, are we doing the patient some good here, or in our rush to help are we actually hurting the patient? Hippocrates thousands of years ago, in his book on epidemics was the first to postulate this as a dictum to the health care profession, "First of all, do no harm.” That is the primary consideration for all medical treatment. Medical personnel have been trained to do all they can to help an ailing person. But could their help actually be hurting the patient? For example, as my mother aged, her bones became very weak and brittle. She also suffered from congestive heart failure. If an ambulance were called in the event of a heart stoppage and the medics did their CPR, her rib cage would have been crumbled and quite possibly a broken rib would puncture her lung. The chaplain can discuss these issues with the patient and their family and care-providers so that we will all be thinking, "First, do no harm.”

5.The chaplain may at times find him/herself in the perilous situation of having to stand for the protection of the individual when that person's human rights are about to be trampled upon. In the material for this course, you will find a copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as adopted by the United Nations in 1948. Following the conclusion of World War II many of those who saw the degradation of human rights under totalitarian regimes came together to declare that all human beings have certain rights. There will be times when a chaplain is found to be in the presence of a situation where one person of power will be lording it over another to the detriment of the weaker person's human rights. It is up to the chaplain at this point to recognize that all humans bear the image of God and all deserve to be treated fairly.

Sentence 3. Hospital chaplains promote holistic care by supporting the whole care community, and serve as a link between the religious communities and the health care system.

Science is becoming more aware with each passing year of the powerful link between faith and the biological functioning of a human being. The link has been championed for a decade or more by Dr. Bruce Lipton (see for example, his book, The Biology of Belief 10th Anniversary Edition: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter & Miracles.)  The chaplain plays a vital role in promoting the holistic approach to medical care which arises out of this understanding of how a human being functions. Chaplains are not just those who stand outside the healing community and come in when no one else can do anything.  "Call the chaplain. This person is dying.” The hospital chaplain promotes a life affirming approach which includes the belief system of the patient. A generation ago, such was not the case. Then the chaplain was thought of as the person who is tangent, at best, to the work of the healing community. Today, this is changing for the better. The chaplain today is much more likely to be included in the care of the patient.  The chaplain can, therefore, be the one who bridges the gap between an ill person and their faith community as well. There are times when the patient may have been alienated from his/her faith community at some time previous to their entry into the health care system. The chaplain can then serve as a "surrogate” for that faith community or can serve as the conduit to bringing the patient and the community of faith together again. This calls for each chaplain to be comfortable with addressing the spiritual needs of each patient, no matter what their faith commitment is. This calls for great discernment on the part of the chaplain to know when to be quiet and simply listen and when to speak on behalf of God.

Sentence 4.  If necessary, hospital chaplains participate in the deliberation of ethical questions in health care.

I make no claims to know how medical ethics are pondered in all the differing countries of the world. I am only aware of how ethics does or does not inform our medical practices in the United States, and even here the understanding of ethics varies widely from one medical care situation to another.

The contemplation of ethical questions arises when the provision of medical care conflicts with the (apparent) realities of the condition of the patient. For example, a patient has been poisoned with an agent that causes a slow and devastating death. How should we use our medical skills in this situation? The case may be isolated or it may be more widespread as when a leak of chlorine gas poisoned hundreds of thousands of people in Bhopal, India. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster) How to address severe situations is never easy and often has to be done in a short time frame. It is in these moments that a thoughtful chaplain can speak to the ethics of a situation. (By the way, ethics is defined and used here to mean "Ethics is concerned with distinguishing between good and evil in the world, between right and wrong human actions, and between virtuous and nonvirtuous characteristics of people.” From Dictionary.com) The need for a clear headed approach to right and wrong is what the chaplain can bring to the discussion table. Many times the differences between what is virtuous and what is nonvirtuous cannot be easily articulated. Once again, it is the thoughtful chaplain who has taken the time to ponder the characteristics of good and evil who will benefit the conversation more than a chaplain who simply guesses at what might be good or evil and concludes with, "But then, what do I know?” The chaplain is of the most good to the consideration of the ethics of a certain situation when he/she can speak from a position of faith and understanding with confidence but not arrogance.

Sentence 5. The duties of hospital chaplains also involve the non-institutional care setting, as well as supervision and training for both parish and health care staff.

This statement has to do with the physical boundaries of the chaplain's duties. The implications of this statement are that the chaplain has duties that extend well beyond the immediate confines of the facility in which the chaplain is working. The chaplain can reasonably be expected to be available for working outside the institutional setting. When a patient has developed a close relationship with the chaplain, release from the institution does not cut off all contact. The chaplain is not to refuse to speak to a patient when she/he has been released by saying, "My responsibility to you ended when you were released from the hospital.” What this does, is it provides the chaplain an opportunity to enter into the life of the community as a respected person who is present to help. As the chaplain is seen more and more in the community, the chaplain is identified as evidence of God's presence. 

Furthermore, as the chaplain becomes more integrated into the community fabric, there will be opportunities to offer to do training for laity and clergy from the churches in the community to expand the presence of caring people who can listen and help both within and outside of the institutional setting.

Sentence 6. Voluntary work, as well as pastoral care after crises and disasters, brings additional duties to hospital chaplains.

The chaplain by his/her presence brings to the community the sense of Immanuel, God with us. As such, the chaplain must be careful to not begin to think of himself more highly than he ought to think! (As the Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 12:3  "Forby the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment,...”) Instead, the chaplain must, by means of regular spiritual disciplines, keep in mind that he/she serves the people around him/her as a person who knows God and is humbled by that fact.

That will provide the chaplain with many opportunities to serve as a volunteer in a variety of situation. When a crisis strikes in a community, the chaplain may be called upon to serve meals, to wash wounds, to hand out clothing, or any number of different things quite apart from hospital chaplain duties. These are all the ways that God cares for his people and his creation. The chaplain walks among the hurting and the hopeless and brings a sense of the presence of God in way that many others simply cannot. That is, if the chaplain has humbly done the job given and served the Lord in a simple loving way as he/she served the people in the medical setting.

Sentence 7. Religious and spiritual support in palliative care, support for grieving families and co-operation with the police and rescue services require the expertise of a hospital chaplain.

When a human being is nearing the end of their earthly existence, spiritual support is an important element in most settings. There may be some who have so been alienated from God that nothing, not even death, can bring a sense of the divine to them. But that is not the situation in most cases. So the chaplain brings to the dying a sense of the eternal presence of a God who exists above time. The writer of Ecclesiastes chapter 3 reminds us that there is a time to be born and a time to die, and that "he has put eternity into man's heart.” Deep within our being is a sense of eternity. We know our days pass by on this earth very quickly and then, what? The chaplain comes alongside the dying person and allows them to discuss this sense of eternity in their own way and in their own time. This is where the chaplain must be sensitive to the needs of the patient. Often, the chaplain will instead have his/her own need to speak to the person and do all they can to evangelize the patient before death, but here the chaplain will learn to set aside his/her own agenda and allow the dying person to speak from their heart.

Allow me to give you a for example. An elderly reclusive couple who had not had very much interaction with other humans for some years (actually about 20 years) had recently been found very ill on the floor of their home by a nephew whom they managed to phone. He had tended to their needs and had gotten them into a place where they could be cared for. All who were aware of their condition knew they were not long for this world. The nephew one day, knowing of their perilous state, asked them if they would like to speak with his pastor. (Who happened to be me.) When he brought me there, I sat with them as they spoke of their impending death and wondered aloud what might become of them after death. I asked them if they would like to know for certain what would happen and both responded with a yes.

I then took only about 5 minutes to share with them the words of the Scriptures where Jesus said to the dying thief on the cross, "Today, you will be with me in Paradise.” I told them that they too could hear those words of Jesus, all they had to do was believe that he was on that cross for each of them. "Is that what you want?” I asked. With tears running down their faces, they said yes. We bowed in prayer and spoke with God of his children's desire to know for certain that Jesus was their Savior. When the prayer had ended, they both had a glow on their faces and they knew the Gospel was for them.

The woman lost consciousness within an hour of that conversation, and dies two days later. Her husband lingered for a couple of months. But as the one with whom they had prayed, I knew that God was with them in their dying.

Our calling as chaplains is to be present and to listen for the words of longing for eternity which will come. At that point, we beautifully carry a cup of living water to them and they can drink deeply of the water of life and never will they thirst again.

This sentence also mentions grieving families. They too need to be listened to and cared for. The chaplain is the one whose job it is to take some time to be present with these people. One of the great evils that has infected the mind of the Western world (I cannot speak to this in other cultures) is our sense of the necessity of being productive. We measure everything by how much does it cost in "human capital” by which we are asking, how many hours did it take for various skilled people to accomplish this task? But when that mindset infects the chaplain, he/she becomes a person who always seems like they have to get on to the next person. "I have given myself a quota of seeing twenty-five people today.  If I stay with you for an hour, I will fail in my objective.”  The chaplain who looks at the position as checking off a number on a checklist will not be the sort of productive that God needs us to be.  God needs his servants to be those who will be patient and kind. Who will suffer alongside of others, who will be gentle and full of love. God's servants will carry with them a peace that even they themselves do not comprehend. The people whom they serve will sense that and allow the chaplain to be a part of their lives in their moments of extremity.

This sentence also mentions working together with police and rescue personnel. The expertise of a chaplain lies in being on the second line of the rescue effort. The front lines are manned by those who are fully trained to be the police and rescue people, but as victims are brought away from the scene of a disaster, the chaplain is present as the one who can be trusted to care for the injured and assist the injured, the dying, the fearful, and wounded so that those whose training is to get the victims to a medical facility as soon as possible do not have to take the time to give of their heart to the victims. That is what a chaplain can do for his/her community.

Sentence 8. Discussions between hospital chaplains and patients do not always occur on religious terms, but there is a presence of a deeper dimension, a sense of the sacred.

As I have been pointing out earlier, the chaplain brings with his/her person a sense of something deeper than the usual level of discussion. The conversations are not always deeply personal, nor are they specifically religious in nature, but because the chaplain is the chaplain the discussions are always filled with a deeper sense of meaning. There is a sense of the sacred which is recognized and accepted as a given when the chaplain is present. In my experience over nearly four decades has been that when the ordained person arrives on the scene the tone of a conversation changes. The jokes are not vulgar, the language used is more humane and gracious. And the demeanor of those present is more respectful than it might have been before.

Why is that? I have often asked people if they think that I have God in my back pocket and so they do not want to offend God when I am around? I assure them that God can handle whatever they dish out and that he is always present, so go ahead, be yourself!  But I also know that in my person, as an ordained "man of the cloth,” that I represent the presence of God in a way that others do not. I have come to accept that I am salt in the decaying world. I am light in a dark world. Not so I make others uncomfortable, but so that there is a glimpse of God's work in a person's life when I show up. There is a sense of Immanuel that makes the situation different in a good way.  That is the role of the hospital chaplain. To bring God's presence into a person's life in that setting, whether they be staff or patient, they all long for a sense of the divine because so often the chaos in which they labor as staff and are subjected to as the ill person, needs a sense of order. They all long for a sense that what is happening is for the good of mankind. If what they do is not that, then why be there? The chaplain's work makes these people have a sense of hope in life and in death that otherwise they might not have.

 To bring a sense of the divine to a chaotic situation is to remember the work of the Holy Spirit as revealed in Genesis 1. There we read that the earth was formless and void and the Spirit moved over the face of the waters. The word "tohu” in Hebrew we are told, can be translated as a place of chaos and confusion (as it is in the KJV in Isaiah 24 and 34, for example). Evil has as its desire the end result of confusion and chaos. God has blessed his good creation with order and beauty; and now the Evil One is bringing confusion and chaos so as to turn the creation into something alienated from God, its creator. The presence of the chaplain can bring that sense of the good creation back into a scene of chaos. Suddenly it is an Immanuel moment which gives a sense of the divine to those trapped in the chaos of their lives.

Sentence 9. A hospital chaplain is an expert in spiritual issues, and an interpreter of the religious language.

In the Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin, in one of the early chapters, writes of how God speaks with us when in the Scriptures we read of God's eyes and hands and ears and so on, he says

For who is so devoid of intellect as not to understand that God, in so speaking, lisps with us as nurses are wont to do with little children? Such modes of expression, therefore, do not so much express what kind of a being God is, as accommodate the knowledge of him to our feebleness. In doing so, he must, of course, stoop far below his proper height. 1.13.1 (retrieved from http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/institutes.iii.xiv.html)

When we as chaplains make our way around our calls, we will have many opportunities to speak with people about the God we serve and what God is like. And we will often need to use words that, taken by themselves, can never give a full understanding of God (who thinks they can do that anyway?) As one professor I had remarked, "I am of the opinion that every sermon is slightly 'heretical' because you can never give a full understanding of all God has said on any subject with just one text and just one explanation of it.” So we serve as interpreters of religious language. Because religious understandings arise from our hearts where many times words cannot even be found to express what is there, our language turns poetic and metaphorical. Religious language is filled with simile and picturesque expressions. The chaplain is one who will listen long enough to get an idea of what is in the heart of the patient, the staff member, the anxious relative so as to speak into their hearts the wisdom, comfort, and peace of God himself. No one should ever correct another's attempt to explain what is in that person's heart. Instead, God has called us to bear witness concerning him and his great work of redemption in this world. It is that bearing witness which will resonate in the heart of your hearer. By not correcting a lisped metaphor spoken by the lips of a hurting person, we can then in turn use God's own metaphorical lisping to respond and bear witness. In order to do that, that Chaplain must be a constant student of the Word so that his/her mouth will overflow with what is found in the Scriptures hidden in one's heart.

Spiritual issues that arise in the medical setting often can be described as issues of relationship (with God and with others), issues of meaning, and issues of value. The chaplain is a person who is willing to recognize these issues and to patiently discuss them with the patient and their families, with the nurses who care for the patient, and the doctors who often are so busy as to not allow these issues to intrude on the plan of care the physician develops for the patient. We will look at each of these in turn.

Issues of relationship can confound the prospects of any patient. The estranged son, or daughter who suddenly appears at the bedside of a dying parent can cause profound struggles in the heart of the patient who feels as though he/she is a captive and cannot control what is happening with this other person. The independence we all come to enjoy in our lives is lost as we become ill and others must take our hand and lead us to where we would rather not go. We call for an ambulance and suddenly we have lost our right to direct what is going on with us. We awaken from a coma and discover that in the month since we lost consciousness, our family has given up hope and were about to (in the patient's mind and heart) abandon us to the grave by ceasing treatment. The doctor won't look us in the eye and tell us what we know is the truth about our condition. One's sense of modesty and a desire to be clothed is, literally, stripped away when we enter the medical facility. The profound sense of pain cuts us off from all who say, "I know what it is like,” to which the patient wants to scream, "Get out of here, you have no idea!”

Another aspect of the issues of relationship come to play when the patient is sure that the medical staff is not being honest with the patient. This is where the chaplain can play an important role, but it is fraught with the possibilities for major problems as well. The chaplain will be the person to whom the patient may share a distrust of the medical personnel. What the chaplain does with this information will vary greatly from one culture to another. Being aware of hospital protocol in these issues will help the chaplain to be of service to both the staff and the patient as a mediator. But the chaplain needs to always be aware that his/her role is not to diagnose any medical issue, nor to press the medical staff to do more testing to find the underlying condition the (hypochondriac or, worse, cyberchondriac - that is one who has looked up the symptoms online and is sure that the problem is such and such) patient is worried about. The role of the chaplain is to be the expert in spiritual matters which include matters of relationship between hospital staff and the patient, but not anything more than that.

The deepest issue of relationship is the one which arises for the patient who is convinced that God has abandoned them in this time of illness. This is when the role of the chaplain is to be the representative of the presence of God here at the bedside. The chaplain will listen carefully and speak gently of the loving presence of God in this place. In the time of critical illness, in particular, gentleness with the doubts and fears of the patient is essential. This is not time for the cheerful, "Aw come on, you don't really think that, do you?”  Rather, this is the time to hold the patient's hand, gently stroke their arm, and pray that God will make himself real in this place.

Another of the categories of spiritual issues which can arise for the hospital chaplain is that of meaning. No matter who we are, when we are confronted with the need for medical attention, the question of "Why is this happening to me?” is a common one. What does it mean to me that my body is breaking down, that my pain is excruciating, that I have become an amputee, that my sores are so infected that everyone wears masks and gloves and other protective clothing when at my bedside? Why?

The question of why is a difficult one. It is not readily answered, and it should not be ignored. So, instead of attempting to give a cheery answer to why this is happening, the chaplain can direct the patient to questions which address the question, but which also can help the patient find his or her own answer. The time of illness is an opportunity to ask oneself about what it is that makes my life good. Too many people in the world have looked at an occupation for their meaning in life. Others have decided that "The one with the most toys when he dies, wins.” And yet when death looms, those toys look rather childish. Still others have found their meaning in being a popular person, a person everyone knows; but for whom no one shows up when the person is dying.

So it is good to ask oneself, "When I die, what do I want to be remembered for? Who will miss me? What is it they will miss? What would my eulogy sound like?” That sort of question is important for anyone over the age of 18 to ponder. It will set a young person's life on a trajectory that will mean something in the end, no matter how long it might take to reach the end. It is a significant question to ask when we are half way to the end of life but especially when nearing the life expectancy for our region of the world.  Who am I? What will I be remembered for? Those are the questions of meaning that the chaplain may have the privilege of helping a person to answer. Here again, it will take time on the chaplain's part to delve into these thoughts with the ill person, but they are some of the most cherished moments in a chaplain's experience.

Sentence 10. A hospital chaplain's duty is to bring the sacred to the everyday bustle of a hospital.

Here the statement returns to the sense of duty that a hospital chaplain carries. It is the chaplain's duty to bring the sacred to the everyday bustle of the hospital.  This is the fundamental role of the chaplain - bring a sense of the sacred to the everyday bustle. When there is a significant commitment to the place of science and the busyness that impinges on the everyday activity, the sense of the sacred can simply disappear. It may not be intentionally excluded, but with all the necessary rush and attention to scientific detail, God is ignored. Then the chaplain shows up and becomes the sign of Immanuel even in the hallways of a busy hospital.

That wraps up this consideration of a mission statement.