An Unholy Mission Read online

  “Y-yes, I am,” said Olympia. “How could you tell?”

  “I guess it takes one to know one. I’m glad somebody besides me is going to be late.”

  “I’m not so sure I agree with you on that. My mother used to say, ‘Misery likes company,’ but she also said, ‘There’s strength in numbers,’ so one of those two is sure to apply to this situation.”

  The man smiled, held out his hand and fell into step close beside her.

  “I’m Luther Stuart. I’m planning to be an interfaith hospice minister. And you are?”

  Olympia took his hand. “I’m Olympia Brown.”

  When they reached the doorway of the glass-walled conference room, Luther pulled open the door and stepped aside so she could enter ahead of him.

  Right, let me go first, she thought. That way I can get the dirty looks for being late. I’m starting to dislike you already.

  The other four members of the chaplaincy team, along with the Pastoral Care Supervisor, Sister Patrick, were already seated along either side of a long oval table. In the uncomfortable silence Olympia and Luther made their way to the two empty seats. Sister Patrick looked down at her watch before speaking.

  “You must be Olympia Brown and Luther Stuart. Come in and get settled. We’re only just getting started.” The nun paused to look around the table at the two men and four women that would be the pastoral care cohort group for the next four months. She was a solid woman, neither fat nor thin, wearing a gray, street-length jumper, a white blouse and a gray shoulder-length veil. Olympia noted the gold wedding band on her left hand.

  “Before we begin let me congratulate you one more time on your acceptance to this program. You are an elite group. As I said in your individual letters, I had over fifty applicants for this session. That means slightly fewer than one in eight were accepted.” She smiled and gave them all a quick nod of approval.

  “Starting today, and in fact right now, it will be up to you to see that our longstanding tradition of excellence in faith and practice at Mercy Hospital is carried forward.” Sister Patrick adjusted her glasses and sat straighter in her chair. She was a powerful and direct woman in both speech and manner, but Olympia sensed from looking into her eyes that she was also a woman of wisdom and compassion.

  “You must never forget that you are dealing with human beings at their most vulnerable. You will be ministering to people who are gravely ill and, in many cases, actually dying. You will be caring for family members who are trying to come to grips with what is happening to their loved ones and also to themselves. Sometimes even members of the medical staff will seek you out for comfort and spiritual guidance. It goes without saying, but I’ll remind you anyway, pastoral confidence is a sacred privilege. There may be times it will feel like more than you can bear, but that particular act of trust is both the gift and the burden of our religious calling.”

  Sister Patrick paused for a second time and glanced across the table at Luther. He was tracing the letters on the cover of the Bible he’d placed on the table in front of him and nodding agreement.

  “Always remember,” she said, spacing her words for maximum impact, “as a hospital chaplain, you are here to serve God. You must never, ever, be tempted to play God.”

  “Sister?”

  “Yes, Luther.”

  “Could we go around the table and say our names?”

  Olympia looked at Sister Patrick and thought she saw a flicker of irritation but quickly dismissed it as her own first day nervousness.

  “You must be a mind reader. As it happens, that is the next item on my agenda. I’d like each of you to say who you are and a few words about how you think this experience will help your future ministries. You may remain seated.”

  Luther started to speak but fell silent when Sister Patrick held up her hand.

  The nun turned and looked across the table to Olympia. “Rev. Brown, I’ll ask you to begin, as one who has done this before. It might be a help to the others.”

  Olympia wished that the nun hadn’t singled her out but nodded yes, cleared her throat and decided on a minimalist approach. Her mother used to tell her it was better to let people discover who you are over time rather than blasting it all out on impact.

  “My name is Olympia Brown, and I’m a Unitarian Universalist minister. Before I say anything else I want to apologize for being late. It is not habitual, I assure you. Six months ago I retired from over twenty-five years of teaching Humanities and Religious Studies at Meriwether College in order to take up pastoral ministry. It’s been a long time since I graduated from seminary, and I thought this would be a good refresher in terms of transition and re-entry to the profession.” She paused and then added, “To be honest, I’m not exactly sure what kind of work I might end up doing, but I do know this is one way to help me work through my own process of discernment.”

  Olympia pushed back her short hair, which was still wet from the dash from the car.

  Sister Patrick cleared her throat. “I admire the sincerity and honesty of your intentions, Olympia, but don’t be surprised if you find your experience here at Mercy turns out to be more than a refresher, as you put it. Medicine and the health care system have changed dramatically over the last decade. As I said earlier, we have one of the finest chaplaincy programs in the state, and we’ve earned that reputation through our ongoing commitment to professional integrity and hard work. This has not changed.”

  If Olympia felt the sting of a veiled rebuke she accepted it in silence and waited for the next person to speak.

  The woman sitting to the left of Olympia was about as big a woman as she had ever seen. She had a deep full voice and introduced herself as Timothea Jones. She told the group she was a single mother of a son, and she wanted an inner-city ministry.

  “I got the call when my boy was grown and out of the house.” She made a soft noise at the back of her throat, half hum, half breath, between sentences. “I believe the Lord knew I wasn’t ready to hear him until then.”

  Olympia turned and smiled. She felt an immediate kinship with the woman beside her. She, too, had been a single mother for most of her own two sons’ growing up years (and all of her daughter’s), and like Timothea, she had come to her own ministry somewhat later in life.

  Seated next to her on the other side was a small, dark-haired woman who introduced herself as Alice Whitethorn. Olympia was desperately trying to lock names and faces into her fifty-plus-year-old brain, and to that end, she was making quick notes on the inside cover of her notebook.

  Alice twirled a lock of hair and never looked up while she told everyone she was in her last year of seminary, and when she graduated, she wanted to work with AIDS orphans in Africa somewhere. She went on to say that because she was adopted, she felt a strong calling to help children who were abandoned.

  It took everything Olympia had not to jump up and throw her arms around the young idealist. The longing for her firstborn, a daughter, adopted and raised by another mother thirty-five years earlier, was still an open wound. One day she would find a time and a way talk to this young woman.

  Timothea hum-grunted an “uh huh” that only Olympia could hear.

  Across the table from Olympia was a woman who introduced herself as Jenny Abelard. She appeared to be about a decade older and whole lot tougher than Alice. She spoke in a raspy smoker’s voice and told everyone she was an ex-convict and recovering alcoholic. “I found Jesus when I was in prison, and now it’s time to give back what I got. It’s been a long road home, and I’m not there yet. Just takin’one day at a time and waitin’ on Jesus to show me the way.”

  Timothea nodded with her whole body and hummed her approval in some deep internal register.

  When all but two of the new chaplains had spoken, Luther Stuart took his turn. He sat forward in his chair and curled the fingers of his right hand over the cross hanging around his neck. He told them all that he was currently working as a social worker but believed God had now called him to become an interfait
h minister and work as a hospice chaplain. He added that he’d been raised and confirmed as a Lutheran but now felt that representing a single denomination was too confining for someone like him.

  Timothea leaned back folded her massive arms across her even more massive bosom. This time she didn’t hum but made a noise that sounded like a low growl.

  Sister Patrick smiled. “Thank you, Luther. I’m sure this will be a challenging and exciting time for you—for all of us, really.” She turned to the other man in the group who had not yet spoken. “Joel, will you complete the circle of introductions?”

  A bearded man of medium height and stature, who appeared to be in his early to mid-forties, stood to speak. He was wearing a black crocheted yarmulke with a thread of silver stitching bordering its circumference.

  “My name is Joel Silverstein. I’m a medical doctor and a rabbinical student at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. I’ll be staying with my wife at my parents’ house in Brookline while I undertake this program of pastoral education. Before beginning my religious studies, I had a family practice outside of Boston; but the longer I practiced medicine, the more I saw the need for something beyond the stethoscope and the prescription pad. When I complete my rabbinical studies, I think I’ll be going into medical ethics, but that’s still a long way off.” He lowered his eyes and smiled modestly. “By the way, I keep kosher, so I’ll be bringing my own food and utensils, but I’m happy to sit with you for meals. Thank you, Sister Patrick.”

  Joel Silverstein made a slight nod of his head to the nun at the head of the table and then took his seat.

  Sister Patrick inclined her own head in acknowledgment and began to gather up her papers before addressing her new chaplains.

  “As you can see, we bring many gifts and very different perspectives to our time together. I look forward to working with you and learning from you, because every time I do this, I learn something I didn’t know before. Now I’m going to take you all upstairs to Human Resources where you’ll be issued your identification badges. After that I’ll give you a map with a floor plan, and we’ll have a walking tour of Mercy Hospital. We’ll finish the tour downstairs, underneath the hospital, where I’ll show you how to negotiate the underground tunnels that are shortcuts to our affiliate hospitals in the immediate vicinity.”

  She pointed to the rain-streaked window. “On a day like this, you’ll be glad to know where they are. You’ll be doubly glad today, because the hospital cafeteria is down there, as well, and by then you’ll be more than ready for some lunch. I’ll expect you all back here in the conference room at one-thirty. That’s when I’ll give you your clinical assignments. You can leave your coats here. The door locks automatically. The elevators and the bathrooms are down the hall to the left.”

  Luther was the first out of his chair. He went to the door and stood holding it open for the others. Olympia shot him a grateful smile as she heard the snap of the lock behind them. He fell into step close beside her, and side by side, they walked toward the elevator.

  “I’ve only been here for an hour and I’m already overwhelmed,” she whispered.

  “It always feels like that on the first day,” Luther whispered back. “The supervisor has to lay out the routine and get everyone on board and in line. She knows what she wants, and she tells you. You said you used to teach, so you probably did much the same yourself in your classes.”

  “First day?” Olympia looked over at him, her eyes wide. “Have you done this before?”

  Luther Stuart put his hand on Olympia’s shoulder and leaned in to respond, but their conversation was cut short when Sister Patrick pressed the up button, and the smooth steel door of the elevator slid open. Olympia shrugged and slipped out from under his hand as she and the rest of the cautious first day chaplains filed one by one, like schoolchildren, into the empty car and turned to face the door. Olympia found the hushed quiet inside the closed cubicle to be eerie and unnerving. Everything was so new. These people were really all still strangers to one another, and strangers don’t talk in elevators.

  Three

  By the end of day one, Sister Patrick had made her requirements and expectations unquestionably clear, and Olympia, along with the others, was not about to fly in the face of even one them. The director-supervisor, Sister Patrick Alphonsus, was known as a brilliant teacher and formidable task-master. A good recommendation from this woman and this program would open any number of doors for Olympia in the future, and she was determined to qualify.

  Now, mentally and physically exhausted, she stuffed her writing materials and a leftover cookie saved from lunch into a colorful Martha’s Vineyard tote bag she’d acquired that summer. Tired as she was, she knew that however challenging this might turn out to be, she had made the right choice about wanting to come here. She was too tired to think about her colleagues and how they might fit together as a working group. There would be time enough for that another day. All she could think about was home, a glass of wine and Frederick in that precise order.

  By the time she was finally ready to leave, the others, including Sister Patrick, were gone, and she and Luther were alone in the cool, empty room. Fortunately for Olympia, when they all returned after the tour, there was enough time for the new chaplains to go around a second time and say a little more about themselves. Even Sister Patrick joined in this time and told them she had been born less than a mile from there on Mission Hill. She entered the Dominican Order because it was committed to prayer and social justice. It was after she had qualified as a nurse that she began to understand the mind-body-spirit connection in the healing of the body as it related to the well-being of the soul. That’s when she decided to go into pastoral care as a profession and then went on to become a credentialed CPE supervisor. Finally, she told them that she had a brother who was a priest serving a church in Charlestown, just over the Tobin Bridge; and when she had the time, she liked to cook.

  With more information about the group, Olympia was feeling marginally more comfortable, but only just. There was something pricking at the back of her brain. Certainly no one had been rude or unkind, just the opposite. Well, then, what was it?

  Could it be that at my menopausal middling age, it’s nothing more than the challenge and uncertainty of all this newness? She shook her head in silent response to the disquieting thought. I don’t think so.

  “Got time for a coffee before you head home?” Luther Stuart was arranging his Bible, notebook and writing materials into the black leather attaché case lying open on the table.

  “A quick one,” said Olympia, grateful to be distracted from her uncomfortable pondering. “If the traffic is anything like it was this morning, I shouldn’t hang around for too long.”

  “Husband expecting you?” Luther snapped the case shut and tucked it under his arm.

  “I’m not married,” said Olympia, shouldering her backpack, “but there is a significant someone expecting me at home this side of midnight. Can you remember the way to the cafeteria? My brain is totally fried.”

  “I think I do,” said Luther, once again holding the door open for Olympia. “Sister Patrick said this thing would lock automatically. Let’s see if really does.”

  After Olympia passed in front of him, Luther pulled the door closed and wiggled the handle to test it.

  “It’s locked. Let’s go downstairs and find that coffee.”

  Alone in her Jamaica Plain apartment, Sister Patrick kicked off her shoes, put her feet up on the coffee table and took a sip from of the can of beer she was holding. It was a rare indulgence reserved for days like this. She almost never bought alcohol for herself, but if a dinner guest brought some along, and there was some left over, she did the right thing by not letting it go to waste. The two other nuns with whom she shared the apartment were off to meetings that evening, and she had the place to herself until they returned. She was totally drained, too tired even to turn on the evening news. She loved her job, but the tension of the first day of a new session
always exhausted her.

  Later on, she might call out for a pizza, or maybe she would just make do with a bowl of cereal. She thought about this newest group of student chaplains, two men and four women. What would they be like? First day introductions were just the tips of their personal icebergs. She knew that. And what about those last two to come in? Olympia Brown, the one with the impressive résumé, and Luther Stuart, the social worker with the big cross on his chest and his Bible on the table in front of him. What about him? Patrick took another sip of her beer. The man seemed nice enough, certainly very polite and deferential, but she had never been fond of flashy religious jewelry and was less fond of people who needed to advertise their religion. On the other hand, given her profession, she should be the last person to pre-judge someone.

  She was pleased with the diversity of the group. It would certainly make for some interesting discussions. She’d never had an ex-convict before. That one was a little rough around the edges, and what about Timothea? She had a magnificent speaking voice and appeared to have a true calling to serve. Alice, the young, earnest one sitting beside Olympia, the maybe future missionary, she might need some looking out for, but this was the place for it, was it not? Clinical Pastoral Education, this time of supervised chaplaincy, was often a turning point in the lives of religious professionals. After all these years as a supervisor, Sister Patrick Alphonsus knew only too well how to separate the wheat from the chaff, and she didn’t back away from doing it.

  She thought again about Luther. He was the only one who had asked to be reassigned from the post-op medical/surgical floor to the hospice unit. When he did, he reminded her that he had said in his letter of application that he was preparing for hospice work, so it made sense. The other five were content with their assignments so far. Time would tell how they’d all work out, but on this first day Sister Patrick was feeling positive about the group and its prospects.