But I Digress: A Nursing Pinning Reflection

Digress with abandon. Digress in your caring and comforting, listening and loving, soothing and sacrificing. There’s a hurting world out there that needs you to digress in this way. And you won’t regret it. Promise. 

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Catholic Higher Education and the Pursuit of Holiness

“Why do we educate our daughters? Briefly we educate them for exactly the reason for which

God made them: to know, to love, to serve, to glorify Him now and forever.” 

 ~ Sr. M. Madeleva Wolff, CSC

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Of Shopping Carts and Service: A Pinning Reflection

I was honored to give a faculty reflection at the Saint Mary's College Nursing Pinning ceremony today. The graduating class is the first cohort of students I had the privilege of teaching since coming to Saint Mary's two years ago, and I wanted my reflection to be a gift to them and their families. I wanted it to be something really special and meaningful. 

So I ended up writing two. 

This was the first one, but I wasn't satisfied that it struck the right note. Neither was my wife, and I trust her opinion, so I buckled down and hammered out another (which I managed to deliver with a minimum of sobs, believe it or not). Still, I kinda' like this one, and I did write it for my students, so I'm going to post it here to make it easy to forward to them. 
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Welcome honored guests, friends and family (moms and dads particularly), and, of course, you – Saint Mary’s College class of 2024 nursing graduates. Congratulations! You made it! 

Before I get rolling, a quick shout out to Torie Hardt’s mom. Thanks for teaching your kids to put away stray shopping carts in the grocery store parking lot. Hearing that from Torie last week was just the affirmation I needed as I prepared this address. 

Shopping carts, you ask? Parking lots? Stay with me here. Now, think back, if you will, to the height of Covid with social and economic upheaval, including disruptions in the labor market. Among other things, that meant that collecting shopping carts from the parking lot was often a lower priority for the grocery stores trying to keep shelves stocked. 

If you’re like me, you started bringing in your own shopping cart from the parking lot to make sure you’d have one. I generally tried to grab one that hadn’t made it into one of those stalls – the ones that roll around and scratch your paintjob on a windy day. 

Sure, I’d grumble: Couldn’t this person have walked ten feet to put away the cart? No matter – I grabbed it for myself. Then I started feeling guilty about bringing in my own parking lot stray when I saw others inside cart-less and stuck. I started bringing two – sometimes three or more when I was feeling ambitious – and then leaving the extras for others who hadn’t thought ahead. 

So that was one level of attitude change; here’s the next. That grumbling about the abandoned carts? I began imagining the folks who didn’t stow their carts properly, and I was convicted that some – most even – probably had good reason. Maybe a mom struggling with numerous kids; maybe an elderly woman for whom that extra ten feet of walking would be a real challenge. 

And, besides, who cares why those carts were loose or who’s responsible. I had the time; I had the energy. It’s a good thing to grab ‘em and bring them inside to benefit somebody else. I’m still doing it, but I’d like to think that my heart is softening little by little as well – that I’m more likely to give the benefit of the doubt to whomever left their carts adrift. 

So how is my guilt trip about shopping carts connected to nursing? Think of it like this: The shopping carts are like the job of nursing – the various tasks that nurses perform throughout the day, passing meds and doing assessments and all the charting, stuff like that. New nurses tend to focus on getting their tasks done – grabbing a cart for themselves, that is. Eventually, as they get more comfortable and confident in their skills and routines, they’ll begin grabbing carts for others – helping out nurses with busy patient assignments, for example, or going beyond the minimum in their bedside care.

But then, some nurses go even further: They manifest a generosity of spirit and a charitable demeanor that permeates all their interactions with others – patients and their families, for sure, but also fellow nurses and other staff as well. Even doctors! 

Let me give you a recent example: My chronic med-surg juniors do their clinicals on a local cancer unit. Toward the end of the semester, my student Allison told me about rounding on patients after morning report with her staff nurse, Amber. Entering one room, the two discovered that the patient’s I.V. had infiltrated and was leaking all over the bed. There was fluid and dried blood everywhere, and the patient was a mess.

Now, my kneejerk reaction might be to speculate why the night shift staff hadn’t caught this problem and dealt with it themselves. “My busy day is just beginning,” I might grumble to myself, “and now I have to make time for fixing somebody else’s problem.”

But Amber’s response? Without comment, Amber got right to work and enlisted my student to help. They pulled the I.V., cleaned up the patient, and changed the linens. Sure, they were delayed in their rounds, but it was the right thing to do – and they did it! No backbiting or criticism; no complaining or grumbling. It was a superb object lesson for my student in metaphorically grabbing an extra cart without judgment – just doing the right thing because it’s the right thing, even if you never get the credit.

And my student caught it – she remarked that Amber’s the kind of nurse she wants to be. That remark itself is a sign that she’s well on her way.

Maybe you’re wondering why I’m telling a story about a junior BSN student instead of one of these graduating seniors, right? Here’s the thing: As a rule – and I can say this because I’ve had all of these graduates in my class, and half of them in my clinicals – as a rule, catching on to Amber’s demonstration of charity and generosity is standard fare for Saint Mary’s nursing students. I see it, we all see it – heck, the patients and staff nurses see it, too! Telling about Allison, in other words, is telling about all our students, these graduates included. 

It's the ethos of this place, of Saint Mary’s – its culture and legacy of selfless service, initiated by the Holy Cross Sisters nearly 200 years ago, and carried forward to the present. It impacts all our graduates, but it’s no surprise that it’s particularly evident in our nursing grads. 

In other words, they didn’t just learn how to be a nurse here at Saint Mary’s – you can do that a lot of places. No, they got way more, and they’ll spend a lifetime in caring for others – at the bedside as nurses, at home with their families, and who knows where else – with a grace that’s borne of this place’s unique dynamism. 

So, again, congratulations graduates. God bless you as you launch into your nursing future and everything that’ll go with it. And friends and family, moms and dads? Next time you’re at the grocery story and see a stray cart, say an extra prayer for your graduate and then bring it inside as an act of solidarity. You’ll both benefit, and the world will get one more cart’s worth kinder as a result.

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Saint Wannabes: Catholic Higher Education and the Pursuit of Holiness

Saints don’t have to found activist movements, start religious orders, or run colleges. They can also become saints by getting the kids to soccer practice, making dinner, and reading bedtime stories.  

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Springs of Salvation & Safety Precautions

With joy you will draw water from the fountains of salvation (Is.12.3).

This is a PSA for anyone who attended the Easter Vigil last night at St. Matthew Cathedral. I was one of the cantors, and I got to sing four of the seven Psalms. 

Maybe you noticed during the second reading that I kept leaning over to my left. Maybe you noticed that I left the sanctuary during the fourth reading and came back during the fifth with a fistful of paper towels. Maybe you noticed that I was a bit distracted as I intoned the fifth and seventh Psalms. 

Here's the deal (or "tea," as they say), not that you care: As I sat down after the first Psalm, my alb knocked over my uncapped water bottle, and a sea of Kroger-brand purified H2O suddenly materialized on the marble floor. 

Damn. I was sitting up in front of a fairly full house. It was pitch black except for the reader's lamp, and the lectern was right in front of me, so all eyes were fixed in our direction. For liturgical decorum's sake, I could've just left the puddle alone, but my nursing conscience kicked in: A pool of water? On a marble floor? And people of varying ages and mobility possibly moving through the area? No way.

So I did the best I could under the circumstances. Sorry if my fussing about was a distraction to you. Sorry to Anna, the sacristan, who had to clean up the mess I left behind. Sorry, too, to Jon, my co-cantor, who was no doubt bewildered by my strange behavior during the solemn liturgy. And I'm sorry if the damp floor resulted, God forbid, in anyone taking a spill (pun intended). I was glad that there were no messages from law firms on our answering machine this a.m. 

Finally, I could use this moist anecdote to segue into an Eastery discourse on baptism and its attendant risks – that allowing yourself to be splashed with salvation means peril, suffering, and death to self – but that would be a metaphorical stretch, so I'll skip it. You're welcome.

Happy Easter! Alleluia!
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Note to Amber: The Stuff of Nursing

When I started teaching nursing 15 years ago, I was still a pretty new nurse myself. What's more, in the middle of my first year as a nursing instructor, my infant son required emergency surgery, and I had to scramble to keep everything together. 

Somehow, despite my inexperience and stressful life circumstances, the first cohort of students I taught that year made it through, and they went on to become successful nurses. Some of them—wonder of wonders!—are still friendly with me and keep in touch. 

One of them is Amber. Recently I stumbled across a note I wrote Amber soon after she graduated and started her nursing career. With Amber's permission, I'm posting it here unedited. Maybe it'll be an encouragement to nursing students and new nursing faculty alike.

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I threw you and your colleagues to the wolves, Amber, but still you all survived.

Fundamentals of nursing was a whole new world for both of us that year—for you as a student, for me as an instructor. When we got to clinicals at Elkhart General, we all learned some significant things the hard way!

Still, with God’s help, you persevered, only to be shell-shocked by med-surg the following spring, as taught by a very green instructor. The course content was challenging enough, but you had the additional challenge of trying to follow someone teaching it for the very first time. Space helmets, whoopee cushions, and rubber chickens helped some, but they couldn’t make up completely for all the chaos.

And, still, you survived.

Clearly, if God brought you through the wildness of that first year of nursing school, He really wants you to do this!

I’ll never forget, Amber, how you and your colleagues cared for my family that fall semester—how you gave up your time (and money!) to spend an evening with the kids so that Nancy and I could go out; how you tidied up the house and did the laundry that same night; how you worried and prayed and were patient with me when Nicholas required emergency heart surgery.

And that’s the real nursing stuff, the true nursing stuff. Sure, you’ve learned all that other stuff you need to be an RN—all the chemistry and pathophysiology and skills—no question! To me, however, what really makes you a nurse is what you demonstrated from the very beginning: A love for Jesus that spills over and splashes everybody around you.

Dorothy Day wrote, “When you love people, you see all the good in them, all the Christ in them. God sees Christ, His Son, in us and loves us. And so we should see Christ in others, and nothing else, and love them. There can never be enough of it.” You were doing that before you were a nurse, and now you can do it as a nurse. May God richly bless you as you move forward with your profession, Amber, and may He continue to bless others through your vocation of love.
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Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell

Being a Christian means embracing the Cross.

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Public Comment: RU-486

The St. Joseph County Council met on Tuesday evening, December 5. During the public comment period at the close of the meeting, about 30 healthcare workers and concerned citizens spoke out against the possibility that a new facility would open in South Bend offering chemical abortion (RU-486). My contribution was a brief review of maternal physiological risks associated with this heinous practice.
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All medical interventions are accompanied by risk, and we accept those risks when they’re outweighed by the potential benefits. Even a simple Band-Aid can present the risk of injury for those with very fragile skin, or even an allergic reaction, but we don’t think about it too much because the risk is so small.

The same rule applies to medications – like a simple dose of Tylenol, that we take without much thought because the risks are so minimal. But we can be allergic to Tylenol and other drugs, or we can experience a variety of adverse reactions if those drugs interact with our bodies in unexpected ways.

Most drugs have been used and/or studied so long that their side effects and risks are well known. Such is the case with mifepristone and misoprostol, the two drugs that together make up RU-486, the chemical (or medical) abortion procedure under consideration tonight.

Among the side effects that women who take these drugs may experience are these:

• Nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea
  
• Significant cramping and pelvic pain
  
• Insomnia, anxiety, and dizziness
  
• Headaches, along with back and leg pain

More serious complications, while uncommon, include the possibility of:

• Heavy bleeding, lasting day, weeks, and even months, and sometimes requiring blood transfusions
  
• Large uterine blood clots or even incomplete expulsion of fetal remains from the uterus
  
• Infection, including the possibility of sepsis (or whole body infection), which can be deadly
  
• Additional complications associated with an undetected ectopic (or tubal) pregnancy, which would be a medical emergency 

Proponents of medical abortion argue that these risks, even the serious ones, can be handled if and when they arise, but keep in mind that women only receive the first dose of the two-dose regimen in a clinical setting. She’ll return home after that – or, if she’s from out of town, to a motel room – to take that second drug, and then face any complications or problems on her own.

Consider, too, that these possible side effects and risks are grave enough that women must be warned about them and sign an informed consent before receiving the abortion drugs. Like I said, all medical interventions have risks, and we have to weigh risks against benefits.

But the risks associated with medical abortion are high, too high, even if you want to argue that abortion is a “benefit.” RU-486 is a dangerous regimen, and it has no place in our community.
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The Spirit of Nursing

Nursing is a high calling, one that brings us to the very threshold of heaven. It's a work that is as much a benefit and blessing to nurses as it is to the recipients of their care.

How so? What is it that drives us to be nurses? 

Crazy hours; tiring, sometimes even exhausting work (and that not only physically, but mentally and emotionally exhausting as well); a huge amount of responsibility; innumerable multi-faceted and multi-layered demands that stretch the concept of multi-tasking to the extremes of human endurance.

So why do we do it?

Well, starting with the obvious, there’s the paycheck, and it's true that compensation for nurses has significantly improved over the last generation. No one’s going to get rich being a nurse, but certainly you can make a comfortable enough living, and job security is virtually guaranteed for the foreseeable future.

O.K., there’s the paycheck, but is that enough? Well, there’s also a prestige attached to nursing and a real opportunity for professional advancement. Survey after survey shows that the American people trust nurses more than any other profession, and for good reason: The kind of people who make it in nursing are the kind of people you want in your corner no matter what the crisis or problem. 

And as a career, the sky’s the limit for nurses. We all start off at the bedside, but after that, we can go in countless directions: Research, management, entrepreneurship, a host of specialty areas, advance practice nursing – even education! With all that opportunity, there really shouldn’t be such a thing as a bored nurse!

So, a paycheck and professional excellence – that’s a pretty good combination for most career paths.  But for the Christian nurse, that’s only the start, for the heart of Christian nursing – the soul of Christian nursing, as it were – is an encounter with Christ Himself.

Jesus Himself refers to this encounter in His parable of the sheep and the goats: 

The King will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink?  And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee?  And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?’  And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.’

And so, the young girl dying from cancer; the elderly man in the nursing home with no family; the parents of the child in the ICU; the frightened woman facing a major surgery – are not all of these Christ? When we care for them, aren’t we ministering to the Lord Himself?  Aren’t we on Holy Ground?

I want to share with you my nursing hero. Most of us who choose nursing as a profession are inspired by at least one nurse-hero in our lives – maybe a mom or an aunt who was a nurse; maybe a friend, or maybe the example of a compassionate nurse who cared for us or our loved ones. Although the example of many nurses influenced my decision to go into nursing, the one that stands out is a woman I never met – a woman who died almost 80 years ago: Rose Hawthorne.

Rose was the daughter of writer Nathaniel Hawthorne and grew up in a privileged home. Following a very profound conversion later in life, she determined to demonstrate her love for Christ through some form of service – but not just any service would do. For Rose, it had to be the hardest work, the least desirable; a work that was commensurate with the depth of her new Christian commitment.

At the time, cancer was a disease not very well understood, and those afflicted with it were shunned – much as lepers in biblical times and throughout history. People whose cancer didn’t respond to available treatments were considered hopeless, and they were often relegated to die lonely, miserable deaths.

So, Rose took a nursing course, went to the poorest section of New York City, and began taking in and caring for the indigent who were dying from cancer. In effect, she started a kind of hospice in her own apartment.

And what was this courageous woman’s philosophy? Why did she do this thing? Here are her own words:

I have set out to love everyone. I do very little, and am as stupid as I can be about it. But even this imperfect effort is so beneficent in being according to God’s plan, and, in so far as it goes, free from selfishness and sloth, that each person coming into contact with it is refreshed. I myself tremble to see the power, even in me, of a little of the right spirit. It is as if God brushed me aside each moment saying, ‘I am here.’

This, for me, was electric. Here was something I could dedicate myself to! Here was a work – an employment – that could be more than just a job; it was a work that could make me a direct instrument of the Lord’s love and mercy every day!

So, my friends, congratulations! You have reached a significant milestone on your road to a nursing career – a career that is both financially and professionally rewarding. 

But allow me to remind you – and those of your family and friends that are here gathered with you to celebrate your accomplishment – that your chosen career path is also one that will afford you many, many encounters with Our Lord Jesus in the face of the sick and the suffering. Watch for those encounters; do not neglect them; humbly embrace them and take full advantage of them. I assure you, they will be your greatest, your richest rewards.
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This essay was adapted from an address to first-year nursing students at their Nursing Dedication ceremony, Bethel College, Indiana (15 January 2005). A version also appeared on Catholic Exchange.

Channels of Grace

An address at a Nursing Dedication ceremony (19 January 2013, Bethel College, IN)

This day, this ceremony, marks a pivotal moment in your educational journey. It’s a resting place, an oasis of sorts, after having made it through—having survived, in other words—your first clinical rotation, and now you are well into the next stage of your preparation for a future in nursing.

Before you know it, we will all be gathering here again, in this very room, for Pinning—an event that will coincide with your graduation from Bethel, and the commencement of your nursing career. Between now and then, however, you will remain a nursing student—just a nursing student, some of you might be tempted to say. Not a real nurse—just a student.

With that in mind, I’d like to tell you a little story—a story I just came across recently, and one that involves a nursing student—a nursing student who was, I believe, a channel of grace.

Henri Matisse (1869-1954)

This is the French artist Henri Matisse—perhaps you’ve heard of him. Matisse did most of his work in the first half of the 20^th century, and is considered one of the forerunners, even a father, of what we call Modern Art. 

His innovative style, especially with regards to his simple designs and exuberant use of color, continues to influence art and graphic art, even today.

Here’s an example. It’s a still life, but there’s movement, and the rich blue is like a sea, a rolling sea—or like a water balloon burst.

Still Life with Blue Tablecloth (1909)

Or another, The Dessert, one of his most famous paintings, where red is the dominant feature—almost a shout, or a trumpet blast—with green in the corner adding a muted accompaniment.

The Dessert: Harmony in Red (1908)

You can see that Matisse’s creations were sumptuous, lively, sensual—some a bit too sensual to be included in a talk like this—and bursting with life. He clearly was acquainted with joy, but it was a joy that was tempered by a spiritual restlessness and yearning.

Although raised in the church, Matisse rejected faith as an adult. And yet, unlike many in his circle who were hostile to religion, Matisse instead simply became indifferent. “I don't know whether I believe in God or not,” he wrote. “I think, really, I'm some sort of Buddhist.” Worse than atheism, don’t you think?—as if, when it came to God, Matisse was grunting a flippant, “Whatever!”

But, even if the artist was done with God, God wasn’t done with the artist. And the great thing was that God chose to reach out to Matisse through a humble, unassuming student nurse—just a nursing student, as they say, one just like you.

The student’s name was Monique Bourgeois, and she served Matisse as a home health aide of sorts for several months during his recovery from cancer. Bourgeois was not interested in modern art, and so was not fazed by her patient’s fame. Instead, she went about her duties with competence and compassion—attributes that all nurse educators seek to instill in their students.

But with Bourgeois, there was something more, something different—a frank openness and simplicity, perhaps a kindness and generosity, that went beyond her professional duties. She was, in fact, a devout Christian, and I’m guessing that her deep faith was reflected in her care in such a way that Matisse couldn’t avoid it or deny it. It was too real, too present.

Whether the student nurse and the artist talked about matters of faith during the convalescence, we don’t know. But we do know that when Bourgeois later decided that she wanted to become a nun, Matisse vigorously objected. From his point of view, Matisse saw no value in a life totally dedicated to God, and he didn’t want his friend to throw her life away.

Nevertheless, Bourgeois persisted and entered the Dominican order, taking the name Sr. Jacques-Marie—and here’s the startling thing, here’s the kicker: As a result of her choice to heed God’s call, the young nun’s friendship with Matisse—far from fading away or ending abruptly—instead, transformed and intensified.

Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence

The artist stayed in contact with Sr. Jacques-Marie, and when he discovered that her convent required a new chapel, he took on the job himself, throwing himself into the work. The result? Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence—or simply the Matisse chapel, considered by the artist himself as his crowning achievement, his masterpiece.

Design, inside and out, furnishings, liturgical objects, religious art, even vestments—Matisse saw to every detail. Aesthetic considerations were, of course, a priority, and his use of color and light, line and space are beautifully harmonized throughout the small enclosure. It’s quiet, airy, and calm—almost ethereal.

But even above aesthetics, even above the art, Matisse attended most of all to the use for which the chapel would be dedicated—namely, prayer. And even today, public access to the chapel is very restricted in order to protect the sisters’ ability to use it as it was intended to be used—a place for worship and praise of God.

Vence Chapel interior

So, the utterly secular artist, at the end of his life, poured his talent and passion into creating a profoundly religious environment—something that many found surprising, even shocking. And the question naturally arises: Why?

I think the outlines of an answer are clear: The artist desired to honor his friend—the nursing student turned nun—and the life she had embraced, but not only her. Matisse was also honoring, perhaps reluctantly, or even unconsciously, the One who called her to that life.

Matisse seemed to have been rattled by Bourgeois—something about her was different, even holy in an understated way—and it bothered him. It bothered him so much that the aging, agnostic artist was moved to create a “spiritual space,” as he called it, and one that his friend, the nun, as well as many others, declared to be inspired by God.

So, what’s my point? Am I suggesting that you should all take care of aging artists and share your faith with them? Better yet, am I suggesting that you all join the convent?

Matisse with Sr. Jacques-Marie (1921-2005)

Far from it. What I am suggesting is that you can be—you are—channels of God’s grace right now—even now, while you’re still “just” student nurses! Like Monique Bourgeois, you can and will have a profound impact on the lives of those you care for—you’ve seen it already in your first clinical rotation; we’ve seen it, and the residents you cared for last semester saw it, too!

All the skills you’ve learned, all the knowledge you’ve gained, all the critical thinking you’ve been practicing—it’s all good, all essential, of course. But what sets you apart—what makes a Bethel student nurse (and a Bethel graduate) different is beyond all that.

And you know what it is: It’s love. And not just any love. It’s sacrificial love—love expressed in service.

It is, in fact, the love of Christ—and it’s not optional for us, as the Evangelist John relates in this scene from the Last Supper:

Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper, laid aside his garments, and girded himself with a towel. Then he poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded.

“For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you,” he told them. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

Go then, just nursing students. Go, be good nurses, but also be good lovers—as He showed us, as He commanded us—and be channels of his grace.
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