Where is my office?
There are lawyers that have big fancy offices with fancy large desks and try to come off with a persona to impress peoples, to make them think that they are worth their fees. Doctors have all the fancy equipment and their certificates and diplomas. Many of the executives have offices where they do their business.
Many times my role changes throughout the day, I may have a Bible in the bag to keep me grounded in my faith and be able to lead others in their faith.
I may have a tablet in the bag with material on disaster, crisis, trauma and other subjects.
I don’t have a place to hang my certificates or a place to keep my books.
I have my comfort in the bag as well. I may have my favorite tea and emergency food. I may have pictures or trinkets that remind me of loved ones. There may be favorite music on the tablet and different electronic adapters and pads and pens.
?Sometimes I even surprise myself with what I have: a toothbrush and paste, soap, comb, binoculars, ball cap, a clown nose to help someone laugh, or a solar charger for my phone or a solar blow up light.
I may carry things in the pockets of my jacket that some people may not figure out, like Narcan, a CPR mask, ammonia inhalants, some tools, tissues, or I don’t even know these days.
Some of the others things that I have in the bag and leave there are the wakes that I have done families that have lost loved ones that I had to try to comfort, hospital visits, working with people after disasters who now have nothing in their life, working with addicts almost begging them to give us drugs so that they can watch their children grow up, not knowing that I talk with people who were thinking about taking their lives, or stuff like working with a family that lost a mother and special needs child in a fire and the mother looks like my child. These are things in my bag that get unpacked when I least expect it and it may take a while to get back into the bag.
I may carry things in the pockets that some people may not figure out, like Narcan, a CPR mask, ammonia inhalants, some tools, tissues, or I don’t even know these days.
I am nothing special. I am an experienced person who has been helping people through challenges for about forty years. I may never receive recognition and few people will ever remember my name, that is not why I do what I do. I do my work because I am here to love, encourage and assist people. I need to build relationships quickly so that I can hear things that they may not trust to tell others.
My office, my life, my everything seems to be in that bag. Most of what I have lived and learned, people may not to ever know.
Let’s hear it for the chaplain bag.
Stay safe,
Didymus McHugh
didymus-mchugh.com
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