Charleston: House Calls
“I hope you don't mind if I make a house call to see how you are doing. Most of us have been so preoccupied with the virus and national politics that it is easy to lose track of one another. But that doesn't mean that our personal lives have been put on hold. I know that behind the scenes your life has continued with its own twists and turns.
You may even be carrying a heavy load that very few other people realize. I won't pry into the details, but I will offer a quiet word of support: your life right now may not make headlines, but that doesn't mean it goes unnoticed.
There is a gentle but powerful force watching over you. There is a loving Spirit that never looks away from how you are feeling. Right now, right here, if you will close your eyes and open your heart, I believe you will feel that love surrounding you. How do I know that will happen? Let's just say I make a lot of house calls, and I always find the Spirit is there ahead of me.” Bishop Steven Charleston Facebook Page
As a pediatric radiologist, I did not make house calls, but I often visited the children, and especially the babies I was helping to care for at their bedside. However, as a deacon in the Episcopal church, I frequently made pastoral care house calls to be with the homebound, the sick, and dying in their homes. It was often a challenge to find the house and finally get into see the person sometimes around many obstacles. I frequently went at the end of the day when I was tired which also complicated the visit.
However, I never made a visit where I did not get more out of being with the person I was with than I think they did. I keep in my memory book, the smile or joy on their faces and the faces of those attending them at home. It was an intimate setting, personal. Often we had communion from the reserved sacrament. We prayed together. We touched each other’s hands. We looked into each other’s eyes and hearts and saw the Christ within each other. The visit always energized me.
It was a constant place for learning about listening, receiving, and love in its purest form, stripped of much of our false selves. Pretending was now not an option. We were greeting the person God had created each of us to be.
As physicians, we listen with our ears to the heart of another with a stethoscope. As a spiritual friend we also listen to the heart of another simply by listening as we give them our total attention, listening for the Christ within them. It helps if a physician can do both. It helps if we as spiritual friends can do as St. Benedict suggests, “to listen with the ear of our heart.”
Joanna. joannaseibert.com