The Black Sheep Chaplain

That's me - and I say it simply because I'm not the typical chaplain at all. I had been thinking about it a little more and more the past week, and today at morning report simply solidified the thought even more.

Let's just start with the obvious before I move into some new material. I'm an adherent to Universal Reconciliation. This means that for some reason, my peers continuously want to label me as a Unitarian. They aren't very good listners it would seem :)

Now then, let's move on to prayer. If / when I give them on behalf of others, I do semi stick with the language that most people are familiar with, simply because I don't want to stir the pot too badly for a patient that is say, 80 years old, a die hard Catholic, and would just fallback dead if they had an inkling of what their chaplain had done at one time.

The very specifics of it, I feel it a little silly at the language used time and time again, or some of the content that seems to need to be thrown in time and time again. For example, this morning started out with something like "Father in heaven, we give you thanks that you are an awesome, powerful and strong God, and..." Such flowery language gets thrown around a bit later and near the end too.

Does God really need us to tell Him how strong He is constantly? I'm not saying that taking a disrespectful or degrading stance would be better, but it seems a like lip-service in a sense. Let's contrast this with a parent / child relationship. If my little boy (once he grows up a little and starts talking) came up to me and said "Dad I sure am glad you are big and strong" it would be cute the first time, but if he did it every day, I'd be getting a little suspicious. Is he trying to get something out of me and thinks that by buttering me up I might be a little more inclined to shell out? Or does he think he has to say that in order to be a good little boy and me to love him?

So if God knows our every thought, isn't it more than enough to just keep tucked back in your mind, "He sure is a pretty kick ass for God"?

I will fess that I'm pretty guilty of this the following as well, but I was reading someone else's thoughts in that, do we really trust God in prayer as we say we do? Or do we just pray and some how hope it works out? I would wager that most are in the latter, and that most includes all the super church goers, pastors, chaplains, religious types, etc. And for that claim, I offer the question (coming from the one I was reading): If we really trust God to provide and answer prayer, why can't we pray about a subject just once?

That is a fantastic question. Does God require ten prayers to help us find a job? Or are we just too insecure in thinking, I'll pray about this once (my personal version would be, "Hey God, I could really use a job, thanks") and trust that it will all work out?

The previous would probably really freak out all my patients - not too mention generate some complaints headed to my supervisor. Imagine if I walked in a room, and after having a discussion, the patient / family asked for prayer and I said, "No. I think you guys have been praying a lot and there's no need for me to do anything. God has it under wraps."

So that's that on prayer. I'll go into more blacksheep traits next time, perhaps.