Hospital chapels

[Eastern Mind]

Vannakkam:

I'd like to share about a project I once took part in. We noticed one day that our local large secular hospital had a chapel, as most hospitals do. Inside there were various corners or places to represent the various faiths. There was a Koran, a Bible, a Torah, a cross, a Buddha, etc. If I remember right, there were symbols from Taoism and native spirituality as well. The hospital was doing its bit to have something for all. It was a an open place where patients or praying relatives could go for solace or just quiet in the midst of a hustle-bustle place for the diseased and ill.

Not surprisingly, Hinduism was noticeably absent. So we decided to do something about it. Three of us formed an ad hoc committee and approached the hospital's chaplain and religious co-ordinator, a liberal Christian. He had quite the job description, catering to the religious needs of so many, and disciplining the aggressive Christians for hanging around like bad smells when they weren't wanted at dieing peoples' bedsides. After a bit more work, we managed to have a metal Sanskrit OM hung on the wall, as well as a copy of the Gita provided as a choice for reading.

I'm sharing this here in hopes that the idea might spread. The next time you're in a hospital and have a few minutes, pop by the chapel, and see what's inside. Maybe you can do what we did as well in service to our brother Hindus.

Aum Namasivaya

[sanjaya]

Great idea EM! Can't say I spend much time in hospitals, but I do think that Hindus are often ignored in this regard. I remember back when I was much younger and my mom's sister was in the hospital with terminal cancer, the chaplain who spoke to my mom wasn't a Hindu, nor did she have much knowledge of Hinduism. Thus, she couldn't be particularly helpful. Given that Hindus are overrepresented in the medical profession, one would think that more would be done to accommodate the religious needs of Hindus.

[BryonMorrigan]

...and disciplining the aggressive Christians for hanging around like bad smells when they weren't wanted at dieing peoples' bedsides.

This reminded me of a story, something that recently happened in my life, almost exactly a year ago today.

You see, my father died. He was a lifelong Universalist who generally paid "lip-service" to Christianity. He'd spent many years in Middle-Eastern countries as a young man, so had learned to respect other paths as "leading to the same place."

Well, he had had many health problems for the past few years, and as a result, he was rarely very "lucid." His mind was just about "gone" when he finally died, and it was very difficult for him to talk. When he did talk, it was often nonsense, about things that were not real and people who were long gone.

At the funeral, my brother's father-in-law, a preacher at one of those enormous Evangelical "mega-churches," essentially conducted the activities. He gave a speech, which ran close to 30 minutes, on how he had been visiting with my father over the past week, and detailed my father's "conversion" to Evangelical Christianity. He did this while mentioning the full name of his church, "New Life Christian Fellowship," about 5 times. It sounded like a friggin' commercial for his church. Even during the speech, listening to his descriptions of my father "nodding" to say that he was acceding to the preachers' questions...made it obvious to me, (and a few others that I talked to afterward) that the guy was describing a man who was not at full capacity...being led by an unscrupulous individual with evil in his heart.

I seriously almost stood up, walked over and punched the guy in the face. At one point, my wife held my arm as I began to stand up. I looked at the sad faces of my daughters, who were too young to understand, and the rest of the people in attendance who did not see the way my father had been manipulated at his weakest point...and decided that I would cause more harm than good by "making a scene."

Needless to say, the man is not welcome in my home.

[Eastern Mind]

Vannakkam Bryon:

Sheesh, I thought that kind of stuff had stopped. Apparently not. I do know here certain evangelicals have been banned from some hospitals, even so much that they can't even come in to serve their very own parishioners. No nurse should have to follow some guy around just to see that he doesn't turn to the poor bloke in the next bed and start preaching away. My atheist father was very good at telling these guys where to go. Something like "I don't believe in hell, but why don't you just go there now, cause if it does exist, you'll certainly be there." Or just, "Did I ask you to speak to me?" No better then the criminals who watch obituaries to get opportunities to break into houses when nobody is home. Taking advantage of invalids in this way is just pathetic.

I'm hoping to hear some comments from Nurse Naya.

Aum Namasivaya

[Sahasranama]

I seriously almost stood up, walked over and punched the guy in the face

When I was reading your second paragraph I was thinking exactly this and then I read that sentence. I would have had the urge to punch him too.

[Ashvati]

I should see if the local hospital's chapel has anything related to hinduism as well. I would seriously doubt it though, in this area everyone thinks of hinduism either as heathenistic or a curiosity. While I was at work I once had an aging neo-pagan point to my mala and ask "are those for healing?" I was in a terrible mood that day and near the end of my shift, so I wanted to say "No, they're for praying you stupid hippy, go get a real religion" but even if I weren't at work that would have been far too rude for me to actually voice. When I explained what it was, she didn't even seem to understand how prayer beads generall work and thought you had to say a DIFFERENT prayer for each bead. I think muslims sometimes use them to count off different names for Allah, but thats about it, and I definitely shouldn't be quoted on that.

Now if I end up being allowed to donate a copy of the Gita to the local hospital chapel, what edition would be best to leave?

[Eastern Mind]

Vannakkam Ashvati: I believe we used the version by Swami Sivananda, but I'm not sure. But my wife just told me the story of how the Jehovah's Witnesses group came to her house on the day after her husband's funeral. She was not impressed apparently. If you do get to do something, please let us all know how it goes. i can't really see the point in smaller hospitals but in larger metropolitan ones, the chapel and chaplain should reflect our multi-religious mankind.

Aum Namasivaya

[Ashvati]

The most authoritative edition I have is a copy of the ISKCON edition that my parents found at an antique store and bought for me. Say what you like about ISKCON, but this is the only one of the two I have that seems to translate verse by verse. The other one, while nice to read, doesn't seem all that useful. I'll have to get the edition translated by Swami Satyananda Saraswati after looking into the chapel of the local hospital to see if I might need to order an extra one for the chapel.

[Sahasranama]

I think it's best not to get a sectarian version like that of ISCKON, because people will make wrong assumptions about Hinduism from reading Srila Prabhupada's work. For people who already have some knowledge of Hinduism, it's not that bad to read his books, because they can discriminate. But someone who is new to Hinduism will get confused.

[Ashvati]

Hence why I'd rather leave the Satyananda translation. He goes out of his way to not be heavily sectarian.