Values:
Executive Director Bette Cooper spoke to over 1000 attendees at the 2007
"Lighting the Path" Breakfast. She explained The Chaplaincy's
Values and how they were established.
"The Chaplaincy Values"
Bette Cooper, Executive Director
2007 Lighting the Path Breakfast
Good Morning! My name is Bette
Cooper and it is my privilege, as Executive Director of The Chaplaincy,
to represent the board, volunteers and staff of The Chaplaincy. As I
look out, I see many faces that I know and some that I do not know, but
all of you have one thing in common…you are an answer to my prayers.
Beginning with the first “Lighting the Path” breakfast in 2001, I have
had the same prayer and it is this…That each person who is here is
chosen to be here…that somehow God will use the time you spend here this
morning to add meaning to your life.
As I thought about our time
together and wondered about the message I would bring, a question came
to my mind and it is THE question that everyone who has ever worked for
The Chaplaincy has been asked… HOW DO YOU WORK THERE? ISN’T IT JUST SO
SAD AND DEPRESSING? The question is often followed by the statement…I
DON’T KNOW HOW YOU PEOPLE DO IT! I thought this morning that I
would simply attempt to answer that question for you.
Each of us at The Chaplaincy has
our own reason for why we are there. Mark who does maintenance had a
brother who died in our Hospice House in 2000. Each day Mark cares for
the very room in which his brother died and Mark also cares for the
patient who is now in that room. Colleen, a social worker, came because
she says God tugged at her. She feels her whole life including the
death of her 18 year old son and her own life-threatening illnesses have
prepared her for being with those she serves. Jackie, our receptionist,
knows her work is her calling ...so much more than answering the phone
and greeting people. Her role is often, among other things, to provide
the first compassionate voice of hospitality to those who call The
Chaplaincy. So each of us comes with our own personal story about why
we serve at The Chaplaincy and the common thread is that the work we do
carries meaning and purpose for our lives.
But the question
“How do we work at The Chaplaincy?”
has a larger context and one that we defined for ourselves more than a
year ago. We took time to ask ourselves the very question that all of
you have been asking us for years. “How do we work at The Chaplaincy?”
“What does it require of us to do this precious work? Work that we
believe is sacred. What does it require of each of us to fulfill our
mission: Serving others with impeccable spiritual, emotional, and
physical care?”
The ancient Christian Celtic tradition had a phrase that
describes the context of our work. They would say that we who work at
The Chaplaincy work in “thin places.” Thin places, vulnerable, yet
powerful places, where there is daily confrontation with pain, suffering
and death. Thin places of confronting ones own mortality, thin places
of being present to a child’s grief and the healing resources of love,
and thin places of companioning others through their last days here on
earth and then gently handing them over to God. Being present to these
thin places is a gift… for those who are cared for and for those who are
providing the care because they simply make us more human, more soulful
with a deep understanding that life is both wonderful and fragile.
The values we have defined for
ourselves as a staff answer the question of how we are able to do this
work, how we are able to embrace the privilege of working in the thin
places.
The first value that we name for
ourselves is “Passion for the Work.”
Passion for the work is a gut understanding that the work we do is
part of something far greater than ourselves. We can’t describe in
words the passion that is felt in caring for children at Cork’s Place
who have lost a loved one, or sitting with a patient whose life has been
changed forever with a diagnosis of cancer, or accompanying a precious
soul in their final days. Passion for the work cannot be expressed in
words it can only be felt in the heart and seen in actions of those who
serve.
The second value we named is
Humility. Humility is essential in our
work. It’s the quality that allows our hospice team to serve in the
most humble of surroundings at times. I’d like to tell you that every
patient we serve lives in a clean well-kept home with a loving family,
but they don’t. It is the humility in the hearts of the hospice team
that takes them where most of us would rather not go and they go with
the same compassion that is afforded all families. At times their work
takes them beyond offering pain and symptom management to advocating for
a patient’s safety, keeping them safe, sheltered from chaos that
surrounds them, and doing whatever they can to ease the way. Their
reward comes from the patient who says, “In my whole life, I have never
been taken care of like this.”
Humility allows our Chaplains at the
Benton County jail to look beyond the actions that lead to the
incarceration of those that are there to the soul of the person. To be
present to their stories of pain and brokenness and help them find
forgiveness for themselves, find meaning in the experience of
incarceration, and find hope for a different future. This requires
Chaplains who companion others not with judgment but with humility.
Our next value is
YOU our community. We value you who
participate in this work with us, whose collective spirit has been the
foundation of the work of The Chaplaincy for 36 years. Our work cannot
be separated from you. The Chaplaincy is part of each one of you just
as you are part of us. We know that you support us, count on us and
have immeasurable devotion to the work of The Chaplaincy. The devotion
you gift to us is humbling and fuels our passion for the work in
the community we create together.
We value a
Supportive Work Environment. The work of The Chaplaincy
requires that we have compassion for each other as we work, just as we
have compassion for those we serve. This work is equally about our
personhood and our professional skills. It is the human being that
fills the role that we support by the environment we create. I have
never received a thank you from a family receiving care that spoke of
their gratitude for the great medications the nurse brought or the
bountiful art supplies for children at Cork’s Place. I do receive notes
about the souls of the people who serve them, their kindness, their
presence, their steadfastness. When we support our employees, we
support those we serve.
We value
personal and spiritual growth. Our staff can only support,
care for, and companion people on their journeys to the extent that we
ourselves are making that journey. We can only light the path that we
ourselves are walking. We have dedicated staff and we seek to support
their desire and need to continue their growth as vibrant, caring, and
compassionate people. We know the quality of care they provide proceeds
from the deepest part of their being. The Chaplaincy originated from
and was nourished by Spirit, by God. It was and is at the core of all
our care.
If we take all of these together, we
reach for impeccable care. Impeccable Care
means we bring the best of who we are and seek the best for those we
serve. It means we bring all of ourselves; all of our skills, all of
our compassion, all of our strength, all of our courage, and all of our
faith in service of the best for those in our care. We strive for
impeccable because we know in our
work we do not often get second chances. We get just this one chance to
serve a young man in jail, one chance to serve this grieving child or
your loved one at the end of their journey …one chance…so we strive, in
that one opportunity, to provide impeccable care.
When we are asked how we do this
work. Our reply is usually…It’s a privilege to do this work…. and it
is, a privilege to serve you, your co-workers, your friends and your
loved ones. How do
we do our work?
We do our
work with passion and humility, with you standing beside us, by caring
for each other as we care for others, and by the deepening of our
ability to serve through our own personal and spiritual growth.
We do this work with the deepest of gratitude as we fulfill our
mission…Serving
others with impeccable spiritual, emotional, and physical care.
