When I arrive in the surgery prep area, I find Julia, a black woman in her late 70s, sitting upright on her gurney, legs spread in front of her under a blanket, with a despondent look on her face.  I greet her and confirm she’d requested a chaplain visit; she looks at me, nods, then stares away again.

“Nobody seems to care about me.  Nobody here, nobody anywhere, nobody but Jesus.”  I look at her as compassionately as I can, but I say nothing.

“I’ve got four sons but two of them are dead, the other two got their own health problems.  I don’t want to bother them with mine—that’ll just make their problems worse.”

“I’m sorry, Julia.  That’s really hard to have lost two sons—it’s not supposed to be that way.”

“No, it’s not.  And I’ve been let down by my church, too.  People I thought were friends, pastors—I tell them what’s on my heart and it turns into gossip.  No, I got nobody to listen to me.”

“Well, Julia, that’s why I’m here.  Let me grab a chair.  I can sit and listen until it’s time for your procedure.”

When I return, her face brightens a bit and she stares into my eyes intently.

“Jesus is my rock.  Without him I wouldn’t have anything.”

“Jesus is my rock, too,” I reply, “but we need other people, too, to listen to our stories.”

“Yes, we do,” she affirms, then takes my hand and begins sharing from her heart.  Born in rural Georgia with a club foot that left her with a limp, leading other children to ridicule her.  Being labeled the “black sheep” among her “perfect” siblings, ultimately being disowned by her father.  Making her way west, working hard, bearing children, finding purpose but also heartbreak.

“But through it all,” she sums up, “Jesus was always there, telling me I’m not alone, telling me he’s got my back.  That’s something no human could ever do.”  She pauses.  “I’ve got a song on my heart today—Precious Lord—do you know it?”

I smile broadly.  “Julia, we just sang that at my church yesterday.”  She wraps both of my hands in hers and begins to sing, and I join in.

Precious Lord, take my hand
Lead me on, let me stand
I am tired, I am weak, I am worn
Through the storm, through the night
Lead me on to the light
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home

When I look up, her eyes are brimming with tears.  “You are God’s way of telling me that I am not alone today, that he’s still got my back.  Thank you so much for coming to see me.”

My heart swells, too.  “You are a gift to me as well, Julia.  I’m so blessed that you asked me to come visit you today.”

“I’m Aunt Julia to you now, honey—that’s what everyone who knows my heart calls me.”

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Contrary to commonly held notions, many chaplaincy encounters—maybe most—do not explicitly involve religion.  Looking back over previous Elder Chaplain posts, the majority consist of simply being present with people experiencing stress or loss, giving them space to speak freely and authentically, and validating their condition and their humanity.  I find joy in meeting people wherever they may be, and using the language and frameworks they are most comfortable with to bring them solace and hope.

But often religious faith and practice are central to a chaplaincy encounter, because these are what many people turn to in times of stress or loss.  They seek comfort in the cadences of familiar psalms or prayers, finding strength in feeling connected to something greater than themselves.  People of many faiths believe in the efficacy of prayer as a means of drawing the divine closer and invoking their protection in the face of uncertainty and vulnerability.  “I’ve got lots of friends praying for me, but there’s no such thing as too much prayer” is a common refrain I hear.  So I ask them about their faith traditions and what prayer means to them, then I offer prayers aligned with their faith and concerns.  I always invite them to add prayers of their own, but they usually reply, “What you said was all I need—thanks.”

Less frequently, I encounter someone like Julia, for whom a relationship with the divine is central to their identity and to their way of seeing and engaging with the world—as it is for me.  They speak of being called personally by God to follow the precepts of their religious tradition.  A Hindu woman told me, “God slapped me across the face and told me to wake up.”  Julia told me, “Jesus said, ‘Julia, you are mine.’”  I have felt that call, too, and when I validate the reality of their call, the conversation moves to a yet-deeper level.  The shared experience of such a call can bridge religion, race, culture, gender, time, and everything else that separates one human being from another.

Joining voices together in song or chants is part of almost every religious and cultural tradition because, among other reasons, it creates a sense of unity among the participants.  It was a special gift that the song on Julia’s heart was one I know and love well.  “Precious Lord” is a gospel song written in the 1930s (full lyrics here) that was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s favorite song, often sung at civil rights rallies.  He asked that it be sung at his funeral, and Mahalia Jackson did so; Aretha Franklin sang it at Mahalia’s four years later.

When Julia and I joined our voices together in the humble, curtained-off space in the pre-surgery unit, we did not ascend to the heights of these singers, but the unity it created between us in that moment could not have been more powerful.  The memories and images that “I am tired, I am weak, I am worn” conjures up for Julia are doubtless vastly different than those it conjures up for me, but these feelings are universal to the human experience, and to share them in song is to feel fully connected to one another.  Such connection is a rare and elusive experience, but few things can do more to give us hope and strength for what is to come.