One of the residents in the chaplaincy program said something that went straight to my heart.
"This is an educational program. People are here to learn. We do not need to also get mad at them for those mistakes."
I have made more than my share, learning to document visits in the middle of the night. It is
not for a lack of trying, much less intentional. I find the system confounding.
My art teacher many years ago had a mantra.
"I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do, and I understand."
I wonder if instead of repeating the instructions to me, or even a PowerPoint of the process, they had let me chart my visits with someone watching. Not my actual visits, since I am alone on the floors. But during
our day of classes, I could pull up a patient and submit a note as if I had visited, and then click cancel.
But that isn't how it happened.
This undercurrent of disapproval has stayed with me. It has upped my compassion. When I teach sewing, I try not to thread the machine for the girl and assume she understands. I invite her to do it. I have to practically sit on my hands when a girl puts the wrong sides of the fabric together,
to resist fixing it for her. I calmly say that the pretty sides need to touch. It takes a few seconds, but I think it sinks in that way.
This whole experience of living on this planet is educational. We are destined to get it wrong, many times before we get it right. That is neither a character flaw nor a design failure. I am just grateful that God doesn't get mad.
"You can see how insane people are who think that God can condemn
anyone, curse anyone, throw anyone into hell, predestine anyone's soul to eternal death, avenge wrongs, or rage against or punish anyone. People are even more insane if they actually believe this, let alone teach it. In reality, God cannot turn away from us or even look at us with a frown."
True Christianity 56, Emanuel Swedenborg