Tomorrow morning, at 7 :45 AM, I am scheduled to be in the little chapel of Good Samaritan hospital in Puyallup. This will be the beginning of two months and a half of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) in other words, an internship in the chaplaincy department of the hospital, as I mentioned it last November. During those weeks, I will be serving in specific units of the hospital, I will have classes, I will have the opportunity to write down “verbatim” (the account, word by word, of a conversation with a patient and how I explore this interaction). Those verbatim will be later on discussed on weekly classes and during one-on-one supervision.
Good Sam is a huge place – a maze really – which doubled its size last winter: an 8 stories building was added to the existing hospital. This internship is the last step of my process to become a pastor. «it is a life-changing experience, said a friend who is now a pastor in Wyoming. Very hard, very demanding, I learnt so much about me. The whole thing was a gift”.
One of my Hebrew students had a similar comment after doing a unit of CPE in Seattle. “that feels like your personality is scrutinized and analyzed, a fascinating time”, she explained.
So there will be the maze of the hospital hallways and the meandering of my psyche – summer should be interesting in Puyallup. To be followed…
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