Naming the Silences

The Bronze Serpent” CA. 1600 Anonymous 

Grohmann Museum

Museum of Work

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Personal Photo

So Moses made a bronze snake

 and put it up on a pole. 

Then when anyone was bitten by a snake 

and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.

Numbers 21:9 (NIV)

“Naming the Silences: God, Medicine and the Problem of Suffering” by Stanley Hauerwas described a universal dilemma that leaves us all reaching for words when confronted with suffering and death.   If you practiced medicine, you know the reverence we experience is the other side of awe that inspires and breathes life into our lives.  I continue to look for new reports of this healing.

The psychiatrist, Robert Klitzman, in his new book, “Doctor, Will You Pray for Me?: Medicine, Chaplains, and Healing the Whole Person” explores the changing intersections of faith and medical care.  It is a personal report, a survey of spiritual care and descriptions of what is missing in the delivery of health care.

“I still regret my silence, which has continued to haunt, embarrass, and disturb me. 

Yet it made me wonder about the roles of religion and spirituality in patients’ and families’ lives.”     

  Robert Klitzman

He specifically reports on the “silences” in hospitals with the Covid 19 pandemic and his personal loss with the 9/11 attack.  The absence of meaning and new uncertainties surrounding the care of these patients and families left physicians, nurses, administrators and chaplains speechless.  What also happened as described in this book is a deeper search for purpose and meaning in the work we have all been called to do.  

This book resonated with my experiences in clinical practice and describes the healing responses to the many faces of suffering.  Thanks for these new stories of healing.  

Marvin

References

Hauerwas, S. (1990). Naming the Silences: God, Medicine and the Problem of Suffering. W. B. Eerdmans Publishing.

Hage, M. L. (2024). Reverence.

http://healingagents.blogspot.com/2024/01/reverence.html

Klitzman, R. L. (2024). Doctor, Will You Pray for Me?: Medicine, Chaplains, and Healing the Whole Person. Oxford University Press.

Hage, M. L. (2018). Healing Clergy.

http://healingagents.blogspot.com/2018/09/healing-clergy.html

Hage, M. L. (2024). Healing the Spaces between Us.

http://healingagents.blogspot.com/2024/07/healing-spaces-between-us.html