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."