The Place of Danger
The following passage was written by Texas Children’s Chaplain Jessica Shannon.
Spiritual play is one of the interventions and gifts that sets Pediatric Chaplains apart from Chaplains who serve adult populations. It allows us to use play to guide children in processing their feelings and find both hope and meaning. Essentially, spiritual play creates a field where we can meet children where they are. We hop into their world and provide spiritual care in a way that is tailored to children. It can look like any form of play with games, coloring, and general silliness or with a specific spiritual intervention. My personal favorites are prayer activities, such as prayer bubbles and echo prayers, bibliotherapy and Godly Play. Godly Play is where we will land today.
Godly Play consists of Montessori-based stories that can appear light on the surface but create deep, meaningful conversations. The stories are Judeo-Christian, but Pediatric Chaplains adapt the language to be interfaith, allowing all children to experience these stories and find meaning in their diagnosis, hospital admission and circumstances. Godly Play stories have opened heavy doors with patients.
In one particular story, “The Parable of the Good Shepherd,” we find “a place of danger.” Children are asked to reflect on what their place of danger is, and like all thoughts shared during Godly Play, no answer is right or wrong. None of you would be surprised to hear that most kids label the dangerous place as the hospital or a feeling related to their illness and treatment. The way in which they describe the “place of danger” can be heartbreaking but important for them to share. One child once said, “It’s all of it,” as he gestured at everything around him in the hospital. The Godly Play storyteller then asks, “I wonder how you get through it?” The answers are rich, powerful, and often full of hope despite their fear and pain. It’s very important for the Pediatric Chaplain to create a safe space for a child to share from their heart, and we are blessed to hear children express heavy statements that they had not otherwise allowed themselves to articulate.
I wonder what your “place of danger is,” and I wonder how you get through it? What, or who, helps you? We know that stay-at-home orders can help protect the community and keep us healthy enough to continue serving in our roles at TCH, but those same orders can keep us from the activities and people who help us through our “place of danger.” Right now, it seems that everywhere we turn there is sadness, worry, and fear right now. It seems that coping with the darkness is more and more difficult as our activities, places of worship, and inability to be surrounded by friends and family. But, regardless of what comes our way, we can get through the “place of danger,” no matter how hard it appears to be.
The number of people testing positive for COVID-19 is rising all over the country, including in the Greater Houston area and at Texas Children’s. We may be in the “place of danger” right now, just as so many of the kids for whom we care are. Like our brave patients, however, we will get through it. We will find healthy and helpful ways to cope. We can enjoy a dog walk, a good book, or a family Zoom call. We will support each other with humor, permission to vent or cry, and simply sitting with each other in silence. We will rely on our faiths and the coping skills we have built over our years of caring for sick and dying children. We will find a way though the “place of danger.”