Center for Ministry Formation

Learning to Steward the Gift of Presence

Spiritual Health volunteer training includes listening exercises meant to help volunteers develop the reflective and active listening skills they will need when visiting patients. For one impactful exercise the instructions are simple: share with a partner about a time when you or a loved one have been a patient. The partner then actively listens and uses reflective listening to minister to the speaking partner. The roles then reverse. Questions raised during this five-minute discourse were: What were you feeling? What vulnerabilities did you experience? What coping mechanisms did you use to get through your admission? As often happens, deep reflection about patient experience leads to new and valuable insights.

Recently I facilitated a Spiritual Health Volunteer Partners training session and partnered in this exercise with “Bill.” Bill shared about all the uncertainty he has experienced in supporting his mother in her time of illness. How could he be there for her? Reflecting on her treatment in the hospital, he described staff that were likely having a difficult day and were less than helpful, constantly interrupting her rest. He felt frustrated towards them. For the first time he experienced the nearness of his mother’s potential death and the feelings of a vast, unknown future. As he shared, tears began to flow, and I shared tears along with him, connecting with him as he connected with his memories.

“I don’t think I realized how much this training would be about me reflecting so much about my own experience,” he said. “I can see how important it is that those that visited me were open and listening without judgment. When friends or family have called and visited us during my mom’s illness, a lot of times we feel their insensitive statements, and I wish I could tell them openly how it makes us feel. Now I have the opportunity to use that experience as I visit patients here. I have that same tendency: the tendency to want to fix the patient’s difficulties and emotions. I realize now just being present and available is what our patients need, just like I need from those visiting my mom and I.”

The beauty of the training in Spiritual Health for volunteers is that this is part of the process. Many seek counsel from their pastors, counselors and close friends and find stable footing in order to be great ministers of care. Within the hospital walls, though, self-awareness is essential, taking time to reflect on how each patient’s story affects them as well as their family members and caregivers, and learning to be responsible with the gift of one’s presence in return.

A few weeks into his visiting patients on the units, Bill ran into me in the office. I asked him about how his rounding was going, and he told me about a patient recently diagnosed with cancer. He felt deeply moved inside, realizing he faced a similar situation in his own family. He said he shared about his own experience, but he spent most of his time simply listening actively to the patient’s feelings and experience, avoiding his tendency to want to “fix it.” He looked at me and told me, “I can see why we do this.”