FRED'S SICK BED

" O'Spirit we stand beneath your Gaze of Love. You yawned and the slime became

Bugs, Beetles, Bees, and Butterflies.

You breathed and we became flesh.

Creation shouting Praise, Thanksgiving, Gratitude, and only Good Things!"

robert r. lackney, chaplain

Meditation: The Life Journey?
FRED’S SICK BED

One of my first assignments as a chaplain in traing at St. Vincent's Catholic Hospital in Toledo, Ohio, was to record my experiences of the people, places, and work that I had been involved over a lifetime of doing all kinds of things.

Surprised that in the writing an abbreviated ‘autobiography’ you can organize life in order to see and to understand a bit better all those moments of happiness, struggles, and circumstances that lead from one point to another.

A chaplain does develop a sense of what has happened to that stranger visited in a hospital as well as your own personal life’s journey.

I remember a friend of mine named Fred who was in is sick bed who after I had read from a saint's theology that when we close our eyes to this world in a split second we open our eyes in the next and look into the face of Christ.

Wondering about this reality I asked my friend, "Fred, what are you going to say to Christ when he met the Lord "face-to-face" after your death?" After a long time looking at me, pausing to look out the window, and staring at the ceiling:

Fred said:
“ Lord, what in the hell ... was that all about?”

Well, writing your auto bio is something like that. Dealing with the good things of course- but recognition of the misdirection’s and regrets that are certain to come to us all.

robert r. lackney, chaplin