Chaplains coping with distance, introspection
Austin Bond sat in bed, occasionally pointing into the phone held by his wife a few feet away.
Once, he reached toward the screen and turned his hand sideways, sandwiching his face between his thumb and index finger.
“Are you trying to squeeze your own head?” Dawn Malone, a Catholic chaplain, asked over a Thursday afternoon Skype as she sat in a home on Houston’s south side.
The two met after Bond, 26, was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2018, but Thursday’s talk felt a bit awkward, Malone said. There were long pauses, and the fleeting bits of conversation were occasionally interrupted by incoming calls to Malone’s desk phone. Sometimes, their screens went dark or their voices echoed and became inaudible.
“This isn’t usually how chaplaincy works,” Malone joked after a few more minutes of jumbled back-and-forth.
It wasn’t — until now.
As COVID-19 continues to spread across the nation, hospitals have increasingly barred or limited access to patients, forcing chaplains and others who minister to the severely ill or the elderly to move their conversations online.
At its core, chaplaincy is less about religion than it is about simply listening, about lending a sympathetic and non-judging ear to those working through questions of life, death and everything between.
“There are only so many things our families can hear,” said Bond’s wife, Kate. “They’re kind of thrown into this crazy show and don’t know how to process their feelings And while we love our friends dearly, it’s also very hard for them.”
It’s work that relies on body language and other social cues that are particularly difficult to convey over a screen.
“Austin, I just wish I could sit in the room and talk with you,” Malone later said to her blurring, pixelated computer screen. “But I’ll take this.”
On two conference calls this week, chaplains from across the nation expressed similar frustrations.
There were practical tips to combat the virus’ spread or assuage the anxiety of patients who may not receive the funerals they’d like because of new restrictions.
But more than anything, they worried about morale, and how to continue doing their work amid so much uncertainty and chaos.
Not being with patients “goes against my heart and soul,” said one chaplain.
“The very thing that we are called to experience as human beings — relationships — is that which this virus is trying to diminish,” said another.
There are hundreds of chaplains or pastoral volunteers who work in Houston-area hospitals, jails or nursing homes each year.
The Catholic Chaplains corp alone has more than 400 people who meet with tens of thousands of patients at the Texas Medical Center.
For many, the work is a way to find the community and purpose sometimes evasive in retirement.
Sheila Yepsen, a retired nurse, started volunteering through the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston after her son was killed in Iraq.
Now that she and others have been barred from hospital visits because of the virus, she’s found a new group in need of help: Her fellow volunteers.
“These are all people that like to work, to serve,” said Yepsen. “And so it’s a loss for them. It’s like losing their family or purpose.
“There are so many losses that are unnamed.”
Now, as congregations continue to close in-person services and with three major religious holidays fast-approaching — Passover, Easter and Ramadan — some say they feel like they’ve lost that support overnight. And there’s no telling when normalcy will return.
“Everybody right now is experiencing systemic loss,” said Denice Foose, who oversees the Archdiocese’ chaplaincy program. “How, in the midst of all of this, do chaplains continue to be a non-anxious presence? You’re supposed to be a calming presence, but as a chaplain you have your own fears and anxiousness. How do you keep that balance?” It’s a question that Hope Lipnick, director of Jewish Chaplaincy at the Texas Medical Center, has increasingly pondered for weeks now.
Like so many others, her ability to visit with patients has been limited. Nor can she see her husband, who is in a nursing home.
“My whole ministry has been about using Jewish resources to be a cheerleader for a person who has hopelessness, anxiety or depression,” she said. “So I’m just doing what I’ve always done, but with my own anxiety because I’m not used to being home.”
Still, she said there’s cause for optimism: Quarantines provide much-needed time for self-reflection.
And Lipnick said that Passover, which begins in a few weeks, is a reminder of one thing: “This too shall pass.”
“For the last 5,000 years we’ve had to be resilient,” she said. “We’ve had to be flexible and we’ve survived.”
Yepsen, the retired nurse and pastoral volunteer, also noted the timing of the global pandemic.
The Catholic season of Lent had just begun as the United States reported its first cases of coronavirus, which Yepsen said felt poignant.
“This is a true Lent,” she said. “We are all seeing how our sacrifices can help many, and it’s a beautiful thing.”