I had no idea, signing up to be a hospice chaplain, that I would be ending my Friday afternoons doing the twist in a patient’s living room. I got myself into this situation by asking, as I typically do, “Is there anything else I can do for you before I leave?” I want to make sure I can help retrieve a drink from the fridge, open a window or a jar, whatever it is that might be tricky. The answer I wasn’t expecting was, “Do the twist!”

I have to admit: I don’t really know how to do the twist. Is there a correct method? Please feel free to comment with advice. I have been trying my best to twist around, following the instructions of this particular patient, who tells me, “shake your butt more.”

This is a person who has loved dancing throughout her life, and no longer has the energy to get up and do it herself, but still wants the twist happening in her home. I am happy to help with that.

There is no typical “day in the life” of a hospice chaplain. Every day brings something wildly unexpected. Even the people I think I know, whom I’ve been visiting for months, never fail to surprise me.

This week brought a deeply moving and deeply heartwarming celebration of life, a sideways kind of marriage proposal**, prayers offered in every room of a patient’s home to dispel energy that’s not welcome, playing harmonium and chanting with a patient at bedside. This week, I walked in to meet a new patient for the first time and noticed she had a piano; before I knew it, she was asking me to sit down and play while she sang along to “My Way.”

This week, I laughed, I cried, I was surprised by the sudden death of someone we didn’t know was transitioning. That’s one thing about hospice: I think from the outside, it seems like being “on hospice” means you may die at any time, which is kind of true, but also true for any of us, right? Most often, people start showing signs that they are transitioning, and then actively dying. In many, many cases, the team is able to help prepare and educate the family as someone is entering that more immediate dying process. When we lose someone unexpectedly, it can shock the team as well as the family.

This week brought lots of kisses from cats and dogs, lots of miles on my car, silly hand motions to “This Little Light of Mine” that seemed to elicit a smile. This week also brought phone calls with people who did not want chaplain visits but then opened up about their life stories, their hopes and fears, through the telephone line. I showed up to one visit this week only to be notified that the patient had just revoked hospice for the time being.

So, as one patient I visit says about his life, “Never a dull moment.” Well, some moments can feel dull. Sometimes I am with a patient with dementia who is repeating the same story or the same question over and over. Kind of a Groundhog Day situation. How do I remain present in those moments? How do I keep bringing love and attention? And how, when I am spent, do I recognize my limits and find an unhurried way to exit?

There is wild beauty in just getting to be with people, accept and love them for who they are, and try to reflect “the warmth of their own sun.” I find that so many of the people I meet carry guilt about not doing enough or being enough. As I often say, to paraphrase St. Anselm, if God is “greater than anything we can imagine”… wouldn’t God be kinder, more loving, more generous, than even the greatest human love we have witnessed or experienced? I cannot imagine how dearly God loves and celebrates each one of us.

But love evades our attempts to control, to impress, to win. We have to slow down, I think, to open up to that love.

I am forced to slow down right now, out with a knee injury. While I am of course disappointed that I will be laying low over the next few weeks when I would rather be hiking, jogging, doing just about anything else, I have to believe there’s a blessing here. More time to slow down and let the love in? More time to make music, to sit back and reflect on this past year, on my life and how it’s unfolding as I get ready to celebrate another birthday in a few days?

Luckily, I still seem to be able to do the twist.

**To clarify: this was a patient who expressed interest in me in a more-than-chaplain way. After clarifying my role a couple times, he said, “Well, it seems like neither of us will be getting married to the other today.”