Spiritual Help for Caregivers
Whether asked overtly or not, profound questions about meaning, value, and relationship are posed by illness and death, questions that are transcendent, stretching beyond what can be known empirically.7 Patients struggle with these questions, but so do Health Care Providers.
They ask, “Why must my patients experience such pain, struggle to breathe, and die in isolation?” “How can I preserve their dignity in such catastrophic circumstances?” “Why do I experience real grief whenever any patient dies?” These questions could aptly be described as spiritual, regardless of whether a person believes there is a deity or a transcendent answer to these questions.
Although death cannot be avoided, human desire and hope may reach deeper than death. Ultimate hope is not a prediction but the conviction that events will make sense, no matter what the outcome. The opposite of hope is despair, but despair is just another word for meaninglessness.2 The hope that there is a meaning beyond the disease, pain, and distress they confront daily among patients may permit HCPs to continue their task of caring for patients with advanced disease and those who are dying.
Health care requires clinicians to accompany people as they experience pain, distress, functional impairment, doubt and death that result from illness and injury. Clinicians do so well when they provide care with empathy and compassion. Healing requires acknowledgment of what the patient is experiencing, along with empathy for him or her, and compassionate action, reminding patients of their intrinsic dignity, meaning, and value in the midst of dependency and fear.4
Healing in its deepest sense is a restoration of all the relationships that disease and illness disrupt, not only biological ones involving the patient’s body but also those between persons who have illness and their families, their communities, the natural order, and, for believers, their God.2
One of the deepest human fears is of dying alone. HCPs can help patients to regain their own humanity by establishing compassionate relationships with them. It is through genuine relationships with patients that HCPs reach their own humanity and identity, finding meaning in their profession along the way.
It is crucial, however, that HCPs be given opportunities for spiritual support as well.
Health care professionals have a duty to take care of themselves, take time alone, regenerate, and (re)construct themselves. It is precisely when time seems lacking and fatigue hampers motivation that HCPs must do something for their own well-being.
Social activity, association with others who share the HCP’s beliefs about life and death, provides strong support for such beliefs.
Worship in church, meeting and sharing with fellow believers, is the primary way Christians reaffirm our beliefs. Simply being with other believers reassures us of our beliefs.
As recently as 2018, Pew Research found seven in ten Americans say they are Christian so Christian doctors and nurses need not fear objection on gently mentioning their faith to patients.
A Christian doctor or nurse is often able to convey to patients their own confident and fearless view of death, greatly comforting the patient.
Although others can help, the choice to seek help or to help oneself is up to each HCP. An individual’s spiritual well-being is always a personal quest.
Info: shpr.fyi/spiritualhealth
Tiny church leads online personal faith vaccination resistance
(Reuters) – From the outside, First Harvest Ministries in Waveland, Mississippi, could almost be mistaken for a storage shed were it not for the steeple.
From the modest building however, Shane Vaughn, the Pentecostal church’s pastor, has helped spearhead an online movement promoting personal faith as a way around workplace COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
He posts form letters for U.S. workers seeking religious exemptions that have been downloaded from his website around 40,000 times, according to a screen shot of web traffic he shared with Reuters.
“This is the only way out,” said Vaughn, 48, of the letters, which he makes available for free, that mix Biblical scripture with warnings to employers of legal fallout if they are disregarded.
As the Biden administration prepares a federal vaccine mandate and more states and companies impose them to help accelerate the pandemic’s end, letter-writing efforts by religious leaders are being reinforced by legal advocacy groups such as Liberty Counsel.
Info: shpr.fyi/religiousapply
Container ship afire 8 miles off Victoria
Fire is in hazardous chemical containers, 40 of which fell off and are afloat off Washington coast. Fire is said to be “contained” on Oct. 24. Gale winds are forecast.
Info: shpr.fyi/containerfire
Amazon offering 500 jobs at Fife
Amazon is hiring more than 500 positions starting at $18/hr ahead of the launch of its 520,000 square-foot sort center in Fife. The facility will open later in October, in partnership with the Puyallup Tribe of Indians and Marine View Ventures, the tribe’s economic development entity.
Info: shpr.fyi/fifejobs
Boosters available of Pfizer, Moderna & Johnson & Johnson
Booster is suggested to be different vaccine than your initial dose(s).
Eligible: Age 65 and older,
Residents of long-term care facilities, Ages 18-64 with underlying medical conditions or who are at increased risk.
Find vaccination at:
https://vaccinelocator.doh.wa.gov/locations/98356
Info: shpr.fyi/boosters
Electric vehicles mean loss of 4.7 million jobs.
“Anybody who thinks this transition is going to go smoothly is fooling themselves,” said Michael Robinet, executive director of automotive advisory services for consulting firm IHS Markit.
Making, selling and servicing vehicles employ an estimated 4.7 million people in the U.S., according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Info: shpr.fyi/electriccarjobs
First it was toilet paper.
Then it was processors and other silicon. Now it’s cardboard. (And there’s a whole lot of other stuff in between.)
The latest kink in the planet’s ever-gnarled supply chain is one that is sending retailers, shippers, and consumers all scrambling. Cardboard supplies are unreliable, as are those for other packing materials like paper and plastic. And what is available costs more.
Info: shpr.fyi/cardboardshort
Dave Bunting, Oct. 25, 2021
References in links below items.
See these columns on my blog: daverant.com