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Awesome tagline, MarMema.

An interesting story from my time as a seminary student at Asbury Seminary. We had to participate in ministry experiences, so as a seminarian with military experience who hoped to become a military chaplain, I volunteered to work as an assistant chaplain at the Veteran's Hospital, Leestown Division, in Lexington, KY. I was there in a double capacity, both as a supervised ministry student, but also, as a veteran, on a work-study program for the hospital chaplain.

I was assigned coverage on 3 wards: drug/alcohol rehab, locked mental, and comatose. To this day, as I look at those wards I'm amazed at how the hospital chaplain permitted me to be exposed to such depths of human pain.

The comatose ward has memories that still are with me. I would conduct worship there on Sundays. The orderlies would wheel the patients in their chairs or beds (most likely) to the service. We had one faithful woman who always played the piano for us. The patients who attended were there because family members had passed on instructions that this patient would have wanted such. We would proceed with the service as if in a regular Sunday morning service. Hymn-singing, scripture reading, praying, and preaching. The hospital chaplain had taught me that we simply have no idea who among the comatose might be fully alert inside their incapacity to communicate with their outer world.

This was driven home to me in one of our dialogue/training sessions with the senior chaplains. They would gather us assistants once a week and have us share our experiences or difficulties. It was a great time.

One of the part-time chaplains, also an Episcopal priest in the area, was a big help. (I wish I could remember his name.) In any case, he shared about a comatose case from years before. I believe it might have been his case, but I'm foggy on this one.

He told of a priest (himself?) who had the coma ward as well as other hospital duties. Day in and day out, these duties would wear on him. As one of his ways of dealing with his private time and his workload, he would enter the room of a particular coma patient and conduct his devotions. He would read the scripture, the thoughts, and have his time of prayer. He did this for months, and then years.

One day he entered the room of his coma patient, and praise be to God, the patient had come out of his coma. There were tears, excitement, family members.

But the priest was overwhelmed when the former coma patient looked up at him with such gratitude and said, "Oh, I know you. You've come here for years to read and pray with me."

My trainer, Episcopal priest drove his point home.

"You always treat them as if they fully understand everything you say."

I think on these things as I consider Terri Shiavo and all the comatose. How tragic to snuff a life that is crying inside for you to understand that they do understand what you're saying and praying. The tragedy is their incapacity on the outside to communicate what is alive and well on their inside.