Council for Health and Human Service Ministries

Word and Deed: Thoughts on Faith-Based Leadership

Healing Words for Healing People

Deborah L. Patterson, executive director of CHHSM member Deaconess Parish Nurse Ministries in St. Louis, Missouri, is the author of a book that helps to illuminate some of the challenges and joys in caring professions. Healing Words for Healing People – Prayers and Meditations for Parish Nurses and Other Health Professionals offers reflections that are poignant, humorous, enlightening, and divine. Some chapters are mild and simply convey a nice story, but others will grab you by the throat, challenge your beliefs and open your eyes to some of the absurdities in this world.

Right from the start I found myself amused after reading the first chapter, Placing Your Prayer Order, whereby Patterson explains that, "Prayer is not like placing an order at a fast food drive-through. One can't pull up to the speaker, yell, 'Heal Aunt Millie, please, and pull around to the window to pick her up doing cartwheels out of the ICU (16)." And in the same chapter we are called to examine our beliefs about prayer and its inherent value upon our lives. In reference to experiments that have been conducted to test the validity of prayer, there is concern that those who are prayed for get God's help, but those not prayed for get to fend for themselves: "What sort of God would care only for those who are the object of our prayers and not for the lost and lonely without a "prayer team" in their corner (17)?"

In this book, you are sure to find stories and prayers that speak directly to your heart and those that may pierce your soul and open your eyes. Patterson sees the caring profession from the perspective of a soul in the trenches observing perilous and changing times, and notes that doctors and nurses are suffering from stress, addiction, and burnout at unprecedented rates. On the other hand, she shares a compassionate memory of one who is near and dear to her in The Woman with the CVA...a victim of several cerebral vascular accidents or "strokes." Also included in this book are an assortment of prayers: Prayers for work, Prayers for "The Dark Nights of the Soul," Prayers for Someone Who is Moving, and a myriad of other prayers to help navigate the rippling waters of life.

Central to these meditations for parish nurses and other health professionals is Patterson's belief that health care demands are calling us to bridge the cavernous divide between the scientist and the theologian. She believes that clergy, nurses and doctors will some day find themselves walking side-by-side to discern our medical needs so that we heal in all facets of our lives. In the search for human wholeness, all are needed, especially the work of parish nurses, with emphasis on wellness, disease prevention and health promotion, including healthy spirituality. The care provided in parish nursing is based on the belief that health is growth toward well-being and emphasizes the interrelationship of body, mind and spirit. Health is related to everything a person does, thinks, and feels and is not merely the absence of disease.

As you meditate on the healing words in Patterson's reflections, may you be renewed and blessed with insights to deepen your own sense of self-care and heighten your efforts to support parish nurses and other health professionals who extend themselves on behalf of others--often forsaking their own needs. Deaconess Parish Nurse Ministries, LLC, is one of many CHHSM members reaching out to communities of faith. To learn more about their ministry, please visit www.parishnurses.org.

Shirley Nelson

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