Second installment of the book!

“Ted!”
I burst into his office. I had wasted no time running down the seven flights of stairs and winding my way through the maze of hallways to my supervisor’s office. “You’re never going to believe what just happened to me.”
Ted was sitting at his desk eating a salad. He turned and motioned me to sit down, a look of amusement on his face. “What just happened?”
“I was up on the floor and I went into this guy’s room… “
I related the entire story. Ted sat there calmly eating, listening and nodding. When I finished, he said “that’s wonderful Jackie.”
That’s it? I stared at him.
“You should probably get back up to your unit.”
He picked up a magazine. Did nothing faze this guy?
When I first met him, he was flipping through the pages of my ten page spiritual autobiography. I watched him read for a few minutes before I cleared my throat to let him know I was here for my interview. All I knew at this point was that I needed to get into this program in order to get ordained as an Episcopal priest.
“So,” he started. “I see that you moved around a lot as a child. What was that like for you?”
No one had ever asked me that question. I had never really thought about what it was like to move so much. I had just accepted it.
“It was difficult. I don’t have any life long friends.”
For the first time in my life, I felt the loss that comes with moving. The times of saying goodbye to friends, packing up and starting over came back to me in a wave of feeling. I sat there feeling very sad.
Ted was silent watching me, “I’m sure it was very difficult for you.”
I felt very emotional. I just sat there waiting for his next question.
“What are you feeling right now? Ted asked.
“Sad.” I said.
“I would imagine so. We can spend some time talking about these things during your time here.”
That was how I found out I had gotten into the program.
Ted half eaten salad sat on top of a stack of manila folders next to his chair. He was absorbed in his magazine. I wondered if he even knew I was still there.
“Ted, doesn’t that surprise you at all? I mean I make a statement that I’m going to study the power of prayer and less than 30 minutes later there is this incredible coincidence?”
“No, I’m not really surprised. You seem to have a lot of these “coincidences” going on in your life.” He kept reading.
“What do you mean?”
He put down the magazine. “Don’t you remember the story you told me about how you got permission to take three months off from your corporate job to do the chaplaincy?” He got up. “I have a meeting.”
He left me in his office remembering when I had gone to my sales manager last September to ask for three months off. I had probably been naive to think that I was going to get all this time off without a hassle. I figured I had it coming since I had twelve weeks of vacation. My manger was not at all supportive.
“You want to do what? Take off May, June, and July? We would all love to have the summer off. Why do you need three months off?”
“I need to complete a unit of clinical pastoral education. It’s part of my ordination process.”
“Well,” he said. “I need to make quota. How do you think I’m going to make my number if one of my reps is off working somewhere else? Who do you think is going to cover your accounts?” Red face, sweat stains-he meant business.
I knew this question was coming so I had prepared a coverage plan. I waved it at him. “I have a coverage plan right here that should work.”
“No. Absolutely not.”
“Can’t we discuss this?”

The phone rang, he looked at me like I was certifiable. He picked up the phone and began talking. I sat there until he motioned me out.
I went back to my desk and sat down. It was September. Somehow, I needed to be able to keep my job and take off three months next year. How was I going to do this? I needed my income. My husband and I were both on a second marriage. Between us we have 5 sons and two houses. My husband’s boys were in Maryland where he shared custody with his former wife and my boys were in New York where I shared custody with their father. Two houses and 5 kids were not cheap. I couldn’t afford to quit.
“OK, God. If you want me to get ordained, you need to make this happen.” At that moment the phone rang on my desk.
“Jackie Herrick speaking.”
“Jackie, it’s Kurt. I’m calling because there’s a new job opening up in New York at one of the distributors. They’re looking for a rep in your location and I thought you would be great.”
Kurt was a rep I had known a long time. He had left his current sales job and was now managing a distributor.
“What made you think of me?” I couldn’t believe he had called me just as I was wondering what to do.
“I don’t know, I just thought you might need a change.”
This was a huge change. These accounts had been mine for over ten years. There was nothing that could surprise me about the territory. At the end of the month, I could look at the numbers and figure out which account would generate the business I needed to make quota. Starting a new job would mean starting over. New relationships would have to be established, which meant a lot more time and effort on my part. How could starting a new job possibly be a better path? Besides, how could a new manager be willing to give me three months off next spring? The whole situation seemed crazy. So I applied for the job.
Two weeks later, five candidates were on the early morning flight from Rochester to New York City to interview for this job. The number of people applying was impressive. The other candidates were all good sales people already working in a variety of sales jobs. WE all sat in different parts of the plane and although we shared a cab, no one said a word.
My interview was last. I hung out at the company’s office on the fifty fifth floor and pretended to work. This whole idea was crazy. I had never planned on going into the ministry and here I was interviewing for a totally new job just so I could get three months off to go work another job. I watched as four other reps went in and out of the conference room. They were there for about an hour each and when they came out, they looked straight ahead. The last candidate had a large folder and a pile of papers with the account’s annual report on the top.
Now I was nervous. I hadn’t really done any research on the job or the account. All of a sudden, I had a feeling that I should really want this job.
The door opened and out stepped the hiring manager. She was from California near the account headquarters. Her blonde hair fit my California stereotype but the rest was all Manhattan. Black Suit, black heels, black coach bag, and the corporate silk blouse.
“Jackie?” She looked at me. “Mary Pat,” whe said sticking out her hand. As we walked in the conference room, she put her arm around my shoulder and whispered “Let’s get out of here.” She stuffed her cell phone, her PDA and her laptop into her briefcase and grabbed her coat. The materials from the last candidate were lying on the table. She swept them into the garbage can turned to me with a smile. “Ready?”

When we hit the ground floor, she said, “I know a great place. The Monkey Room.” She took off. I almost had to run to keep up with her.
The Monkey Room turned out to be a trendy upscale restaurant just around the corner from the office. Mary Pat roared into the restaurant, swept by the hostess and sat down at one of the tables by the window. “I’ll have a Cosmo,” she announced. This job opportunity started to feel right.
“Me too,” I said, sitting down. What the hell. I didn’t have anything to lose. I waited for the interview to start. Mary Pat was reapplying her lipstick.
“Well, do you want the job?” She looked at me over the lipstick mirror.
“Yes, but I need three months off next May, June, and July.” I managed.
“Sure. Not a problem.”
She launched into a long speech about what needed to be done at the account. She talked in short little bursts with a Trace of a Long Island accent, stopping occasionally to comment on someone’s shoes or hairstyle. She looked at anything that caught her attention, and everything did. I got tired just watching her.

The waitress placed a towering mound of quivering chocolate mousse in front of Mary Pat. “So, why do you need three months off?”
I was surprised by the question. I didn’t think she had heard me. “I’m studying to be an Episcopal Priest and I need to complete a three month program in clinical Pastoral Education.”
Her eyes narrowed. “And then what, you quit your sales job and save the world?”
“Oh no, I still have five kids to get through college.”
“Great.” She eyed my cheese cake. “Can I have a bite of your dessert? I’m running the New York City marathon tomorrow.”
This had all happened in September. The new job started in October and Mary Pat was an amazing manager. Her signature line was “What’s stopping ya?” The sales team would come up with some very creative marketing and sales ideas. When we would present them to Mary Pat her only comment would be ‘what’s stopping ya.’ Finances, usually. Mary Pat would start peppering us with questions. Whom had we asked in the company for money? Why had they said no? What was stopping them? By the end of the conversation, we all knew the only thing stopping us was us. I still hear her voice. Our sales team soon became unstoppable. The business at the account was increasing at and in the midst of the busiest time of the year, I left and started at the hospital. The entire team said they would pray for me. Whatever that means, I thought at the time.

Read a Section of my book!

Below is the first section of my book on prayer. Please read it and feel free to comment or ask questions in the comment section at the end! If something is unclear or needs more detail, I would love to have your feedback. Enjoy! Julie

This conference room was far removed from the corporate conference rooms I had frequented in my sales days. The white plastic table was stained with coffee cup rings, and its mismatched chairs barely fit inside the room. On my way to the back of the room, I paused to ask my fellow chaplains to slide their chairs in so I could get by. We were the new group of student chaplains accepted into the hospital's Clinical Pastoral Care Program. I was taking the program because I felt compelled to become an Episcopal Priest. After plodding my way through seminary and taking six years instead of the usual three to get my Master's degree, I was here for the mandatory three month program. I just had one problem.
"I don't believe in the power of prayer." The faces at the table looked blank. I could tell they thought they hadn't heard me correctly. They probably thought I said the exact opposite. I continued. "NOT believing in prayer is a problem for me since I'm called to do it all the time, so I thought I would study prayer."
"Okay." My supervisor, Ted, made a note and then looked up at the next person. We were in the process of creating our "learning contracts". The contract was just one of the requirements we needed to get credit in the Clinical Pastoral Education program, CPE for short.
"Whoa, just a minute." Nick was holding up both hands like a cop stopping traffic. "How can you be in the ordination process and not believe in prayer?" He was breathing hard and the words came out in little bursts of air. Nick was Baptist. He survived on prayer. Prayer was as necessary as oxygen, water and food. And could he pray. We had decided to start most of our meetings with prayer. When Nick prayed, he would hunker down in his chair, close his eyes tightly, open his hands and beginning in a soft, deep, melodious voice call upon Jesus. The use of "Lord" became a rhythm and as he prayed, he would move from pianissimo to forte as he crescendo to the great Amen. After the first time Nick opened a meeting, we hit a slight snag. One of the Chaplains was Unitarian and didn't believe in a "God". She also did not want to have the Christians in the group invoke the name of Jesus. This was like telling Nick that he would not be able to use his arms and legs. As we hammered out the "rules for praying", our supervisor sat back and took notes. This was part of the CPE process - handling conflict. And there was conflict.
Beth, our resident Unitarian, was very clear about her beliefs. "I know there is energy in the universe that can be used for good, but I'm offended when you insist on calling it Jesus." Nick shook his head back and forth and looked at the rest of the Christians around the table for support. "Well, I'm offended when you call God, En - er - gy!" He spit out each syllable.
The arguing continued. I kept waiting for Ted to weigh in. He was an Orthodox Christian. I wanted him to stop this crazy dialogue and tell us what to do. He didn't. He just sat there calmly observing the scene. I wasn't calm. I don't like conflict. I was Episcopalian, the polite denomination. We don't raise our voices. I felt very uncomfortable. During these first meetings, I didn't dare join the argument. I didn't really believe in prayer so how could I have an opinion about how to pray?
"This is really not a problem." Judy, a sixty year old nun, had just returned from missionary work Malaysia. I still hadn't figured out why she was taking Clinical Pastoral Education. "Why don't we each pray in our own traditional way? We can take turns opening our meetings and this will give us the opportunity to experience different ways of praying."
The group silently considered that option.
"But I'm the only Unitarian. The rest of you are Christian. I'm going to be buried in Christianity," Beth whined.
"Suck it up, Beth," Judy said. And that was the end of the argument.
Now that I had made my statement about not believing in the power of prayer, it was like picking the group scab. Nick was appalled, Beth felt like she might have gained an ally, Judy was bored and Frank a sixty-five year old Roman Catholic Priest was eager to help me see the light.
"All I'm saying Nick, is that I don't really understand prayer and how it works, if it works at all. I'm used to being able to do something about problems. Prayer at this moment seems like a cop out. If someone is sick or dying there is really nothing I can do about it as a Chaplain except pray and what does that do?"
Nick took a deep breath. "Well, for starters--."
"Let's go to our assigned units." Ted finished.
Good, I had been rescued from a lecture by Nick. I picked up my notebook and my little black, zippered Bible headed toward the stairs and climbed the seven floors to my assigned unit, Oncology. Nick followed me but choose instead to take the elevator. He was assigned to the ICU on the eighth floor.
I had a list of patients on my floor. The list showed their name, age and diagnosis. I glanced down at the list before I entered the first room. Robert Allen, fifty eight years old, diagnosis: liver cancer, terminal.
"Hi, Mr. Allen, how are you?" I was trying to sound nice without being overly cheerful.
"Who are you?" He lay on his side facing away from the door. He was very thin and his skin was a dirty yellow. He wore a knitted cap.
"I'm the Chaplain." I walked around to the side of the bed and sat down in the chair.
"Well, I don't believe in God." He'd pulled the blankets up under his chin. "I'm cold."
I was on my way to the door.
"You don't have to leave. You can still talk to me."
"Okay."
I had no idea what to do next. This was my third day on this floor and I was at a loss. I felt totally incompetent. In my "other life" I had been in corporate sales, twenty years of account calls, presentations in boardrooms, and solving customer complaints. Now I was making small talk with terminal patients. I had taken a leave of absence from my job to complete this unit of Clinical Pastoral education. The Diocese required it for ordination. Three months of giving pastoral care, working through conflicts brought about by my fellow chaplains and dealing with all my own stuff because I lived in a crisis-filled environment. I felt helpless as I looked at the man in the bed. He was dying of cancer, he didn't believe in God, and he was cold.
"Can I get you a blanket?" The problem solver in me had kicked in.
"No, it doesn't matter how many blankets I put on this bed, I just can't get warm."
"Oh."
That was it. I had no other solutions. All I could say was Oh? I didn't know what to do. I didn't know where to look and I certainly didn't know what to say.
He took pity on me. "Since you're the chaplain, why don't you just say a little prayer?"
"Okay."
Now I was at a total loss. What should I pray for? The man was terminal. It said so on my patient sheet. I resorted to my sales background. Always find out what the customer wants first.
"What would you like me to pray for?" I asked him.
He thought for a moment. "Well, I would like to go home to die, but for some reason, the doctor won't let me. Why don't you ask your God to let me go home?"
I took his hand, closed my eyes and said "Please God, let Mr. Allen go home. Amen."
At that moment, a doctor came into the room. "Bob, I was just walking down the hallway thinking about the possibility of sending you home and I felt compelled to come in here and tell you that I have changed my mind. I'll contact Hospice and we'll make the arrangements to get you out of here."
Mr. Robert Allen looked at me and smiled. "Wow, you're good."