Bob took a job in Cleveland with a paint company, and Liz found a job nearby. About six months after they were married, Liz told her husband that she was thinking about getting a piano for their apartment. Bob thought that was a great idea, he’d always wanted to learn to play the piano so they went downtown the next weekend to see what pianos cost.

They walked through the store, and soon a salesperson appeared to answer any questions. They continued to walk until they approached a grand piano when Liz asked if she could try the grand piano out. The salesman said by all means so Liz sat on the stool and opened the keyboard and ran her fingers up and down the keys.

She began to play, and her husband and the salesman were astonished. I recall Bob saying his jaw dropped and hit the floor. He had no idea that his wife could play the piano, let alone play with a master’s touch. A few months later, Liz was the lead pianist for the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra.

She soon enrolled at Harpur College in Binghamton NY to further study the piano, and after several years on the concert stage moved to Paris to study at Fontainebleau. Bob had unknowingly married one of the world’s most talented pianists. It turned out that Liz’s parents, who lived in an apartment above their luggage shop, had a stand up piano in their living room. Liz began to play that piano at a very early age, and developed into a world class musician during her school years. She resented what this had cost her growing up, and decided that she would not play while going to College.

I told you their story because none of us really knows the talent and artistry our mate possesses or might develop. The Bible tells us that we are to encourage each other as long as day follows day. If we do this with the right attitude and with joy, we will discover hidden talents and qualities in our husbands, wives and children.

Indeed you can be the one that opens the future and enables your spouse to become all that he or she can be. You can bless and help. You have a tongue that can build up or tear down. Let’s decide that we value our loved ones and from now on, we will become their number one fan. If we do that, God will move in his invisible Kingdom and bless you the giver and the one to whom you give will be so grateful.

Do you what talents God has given your spouse? You can be the one who brings those gifts out for all of the world to enjoy.

 H. Murray Hohns

Originally published on the Pneuma Foundation (parent organization of PneumaReview.com) website. Later included in the Winter 2023 issue.

Having served as a chaplain in two Pennsylvania State psychiatric hospitals for twenty-nine years, I was interested in reading the memoirs of hospital chaplain, Joan Paddock Maxwell’s, Soul Support: Spiritual Encounters at Life’s End. Maxwell chronicles her reminiscences and descriptions of the numerous experiences she faced as a chaplain from 1999 to 2011, in a Washington D.C. hospital. The majority of stories come from the edge of death, as she writes in the context of palliative and hospice care about what she learned in hospital chaplaincy situations. I realize that as I work with the most vulnerable persons in our society—those with mental health issues and struggles, I understood that the accounts she disclosed were an honest depiction of people at life’s end. After she related the personal stories with patients, she did not give answers to the situation but rather, allowed the reader to sit back and consider what and how they would react in the situation. In the structure of the book, the author shares a story and offers a reflection of the experience. Because of my involvement as a chaplain for many years, I then imagined and created my own consideration of the incident. Maxwell notes that she was an agnostic who eventually, through reflection and theological study, became a hospital chaplain. She speaks of God as the Mystery at work, and in that understanding, she relates what she experiences of God through peoples’ lives.

Joan Paddock Maxwell

The vignettes in her book are divided into three levels of understanding. One set of vignettes is under the title of listening. A second group of stories is designated under learning. The third group’s heading is called loving. At the conclusion of the writing is an appendix on surviving a hospital stay and assisting patients who are terminally ill. These three values of listening, learning, and loving are the core characteristics of the work which hospital chaplains serve, in the context of the ministry of presence. In being present with a person in that holy moment, one needs to earnestly listen, learn, and love a human being with the deepest depths of their being.

Maxwell quotes Psalm 88, a lament psalm, as a complaint to God. I believe that was an appropriate psalm to express the feelings of many people in these situations. At one point in the psalm we read,

O Lord, why do you cast me off?

Why do you hide your face from me?

Wretched and close to death from my youth up,

I suffer your terrors; I am desperate.

Reviewed by Cletus Hull

Publisher’s page: https://wipfandstock.com/soul-support-spiritual-encounters-at-life-s-end.html

Father’s Day is June 19th.

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