Some Things That Are Helping

1. My supervisor, Whit, here at the hospital. She has been a shoulder to cry on, company when I've been lonely, good food for me to keep me going.

2. Another chaplain, Amy, who had exactly the right words to say this morning.

3. Our good friends, the Stierles, who arrived last night with songs and provisions.

4. My husband, who I don't feel quite so separated from.

5. The doctor. Who is smart, caring, well able to communicate, and shares our frustration.

6. Chai tea and french onion soup.

7. This poem by someone who inspires me - along with the knowledge that we are in their prayers too:

when despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
and I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. for a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

wendell berry