On Religion: Chaplains Helping People Journey From ‘Why’ To ‘When’?
(ANALYSIS) The chaplain’s prayer is posted near the chapel of Baptist Hospitals of Southeast Texas in Beaumont, Texas, a space shared by patients, their families, visitors, doctors and the whole staff.
“Dear God, who makest thyself known in deeds rather than in mere words, deepen within us respect and appreciation for opportunities to serve. Thou has promised aid and blessing where men deal justly, show mercy, and serve humbly. Give us a faithfulness to our task, a patience in anxiety, added skill in work done. Add to our wills a readiness to follow thy guidance; to our hearts a compassion like unto the Great Physician who ministered in love and without favor.”
The prayer was written by the Rev. Weldon Langley, the hospital's chaplain from 1960 to 1985. Langley continued part time until 1993, completing four decades of chaplaincy work with Baptist institutions on the Texas Gulf Coast. He died in 2013 at the age of 96.
Langley’s prayer has retained its strategic location as the hospital complex expanded into new, updated facilities.
“Weldon was a chaplain to the patients and their families, but he was also a pastor — year after year — to the doctors, nurses and everybody else,” said the Rev. David Cross, who followed Langley at Baptist Hospitals. While Langley focused on the needs of patients, “his insights into what makes life worth living made him a shepherd for everyone. He was a chaplain's chaplain.”
Every year, the Global Chaplains Alliance dedicates the first Saturday of February to honoring chaplains. For me, it's impossible to discuss the ministry of chaplains without mentioning my “Uncle Weldon” Langley, who was very close to my father, the Rev. Bert Mattingly, who also had experience as a chaplain. My father died in 1999.
Chaplains work with hospitals, hospices, military units, legislatures, schools, sports teams, corporations, prisons and police and fire departments. Many, but not all, are ordained ministers. For most Americans, the chaplains they know best serve in the nation's 6,000 or more hospitals.
Pastors visit the sick and dying from their own congregations, noted Cross. For hospital chaplains, this is the heart of their work — every day.
“Some pastors are skilled at hospital ministry. But, in my experience, some pastors run away from all that pain,” said Cross. “If the pastor isn't there for the long haul, that's when the chaplain has to step forward. ... Working with Weldon, I learned that chaplains have to resonate with what people are experiencing. You're there full time, doing what you can to meet their felt needs.”
Chaplains minister to people who, in a mysterious way, are “living and dying at the same time.”
Chaplains are there, he explained, when patients and their loved ones face the "Why?" moment of a terminal diagnosis. Chaplains share the “When?” moments as a person dies. “The chaplain has the privilege of making that journey from ‘Why?’ to ‘When?’”
When Langley retired, Cross helped create a book — “Chats with the Chaplain” — containing writings from throughout Langley’s era at Baptist Hospitals.
One 1974 reflection noted: “The experiences of sorrow, loss and deep disappointment can bring a person to a depth of understanding which cannot be acquired in any other way. There is a depth of feeling and a sweetness known by those who have suffered gracefully and nobly, which popularity, prosperity and good fortune cannot produce. The ability to extend sympathy is one of man's greatest assets. The man who cannot feel for others is the poorest of all men.”
Another focused on wisdom from St. Paul, drawn from 2 Corinthians: “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed. ...”
Langley added: “The experiences mentioned in these verses are those common to human experience. Each one of us can quickly respond — ‘I have been there.' ... The mature Christian is one who has learned that with God's help he ‘can take it.’”
As one chaplain speaking to another, Cross said, “What I heard Weldon saying was, 'We are beaten down, but we're not down and out.’ ... In the end, chaplains have to live with the big ‘Why?’ questions, day after day. But God gave Weldon that gift. That's what God called him to do.”
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Terry Mattingly is Senior Fellow on Communications and Culture at Saint Constantine College in Houston. He lives in Elizabethton, Tennessee, and writes Rational Sheep, a Substack newsletter on faith and mass media.