Lent began this past Wednesday with Ash Wednesday. I am using a devotional book called Blessed is the Body: Disability Justice and the Community of Faith by Tatum Tricarico. I’m enjoying it so far because I don’t know a whole lot about disability justice and want to learn.  On Ash Wednesday she asks us to reflect on a couple of questions. The question that stood out for me was the following. “Where do you feel the limits of your body? How can you honor those limits instead of thinking of them as something to be ashamed of?”

 This was a perfect question for me because I was visiting someone from the brain injury support group whose daughter was in ICU at Mission hospital.  I always get lost at Mission and I prayed what I call a “Santa Clause prayer” – a prayer when I ask for something hoping it will happen like one asks Santa Claus for a gift at Christmas time. As usual, I got lost. When I arrived, I was all turned around and ended up going to the cancer center affiliated with Mission instead of the main hospital. I wondered why it was so easy to find a parking place there! 

I honored my limits by asking for directions. A man gave me directions to the right place and of course I got lost trying to find it.  Usually when I get lost something happens to my brain. I can’t explain it, but I get upset and end up in a trance-like state. This time I didn’t. I patiently found my way to the front desk. I had to park in the large parking deck, and I wrote down where I parked so I would remember. Once at the front desk I had to go through a metal detector as well as have my purse searched. I felt like I was going into prison.  

After asking several people how to get to the room, I found it. I noticed how few staff they have in the hospital now. Ever since HCA Healthcare, a large, for-profit hospital corporation in Nashville, took over non-profit Mission hospital in 2019 there have been problems. They have cut staff down to dangerous levels. 

In fact, when I got to the ICU welcome desk there was no one there. I had to ask someone how to get to the right room.  Recently Medicare put the hospital for the third time in immediate jeopardy which means there are unsafe practices happening there. Being in immediate jeopardy could make them lose Medicare and Medicaid funding. That is a subject for a whole other blog post so I’m just mentioning it here.

I found the room and had a wonderful – or as wonderful a visit one can have in such a difficult setting.

This event brought my Ash Wednesday’s Lenten devotional to mind. How can I honor my spatial orientation limits? I think reading that devotional and praying before I left helped me honor my challenges. I didn’t get upset by them or wish them away. Mission hospital is difficult for anyone to get around in but for me it is even worse. I got lost trying to exit the parking garage and ended up going around in circles. Of course, the whole visit took much longer than I hoped.

Again, I was not distressed like I often am. I think my prayer helped. How? It put me in a different frame of mind. It did not help me with my spatial orientation challenges, but it helped me deal with them in a calmer way without that spacy feeling.

Sometimes we all pray “Santa Clause” prayers and that’s okay.  Afterwards, we need to realize what those prayers were.  Prayers get us in touch with ourselves and with other people.  It also puts us in touch with the God who loves and cares for us.  Even though God didn’t take away my challenges, God helped me handle them with patience, energy and imagination.  That is who God is.  That is the God I worship.  I don’t even believe in Santa Claus!