By Norris Burkes April 17, 2026
Whenever I’m asked what it takes to become a healthcare chaplain, I usually list school, work experience and the successful completion of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE).
CPE is a one-year clinical residency in which students visit patients under the mentoring direction of a gray-haired supervisor.
I tend to remember those training days in a mystic fog similar to the old Kung Fu episodes. My supervisor was like a Yoda Jet Eye Master and almost as comical in his appearance. His wisdom filled morning lectures and afternoons were spent applying our new wisdom on patients.
I remember he once told us that “Sometimes, the only power a patient has left is the power to kick the chaplain out of the room. You can’t kick the doctor or nurse out, unless you want to give up and die, but the patient will believe the chaplain can be dismissed without a negative effect.”
His advice came in handy one day as I entered the crowded hospital room of a woman being discharged after a routine hysterectomy.
But the morning brought terrible news – her house had burned to the ground the previous night. Now, the social workers and I were the preverbal “king’s men” summoned to put her Humpty dumpty world back together again.
I introduced myself as the hospital chaplain and then I grasped her hand to say, “I understand you received some terrible news.”
Upon hearing those words, she erupted in loud sobs. All she could do was shake her head acknowledging the truth in my statement.
Those tears suddenly brought a very tall and menacing 19-year-old man out of the corner of the room and in my direction.
“Get out of here!” he commanded.
“Pardon me? I asked, begging for understanding.
“You’re making my mamma cry!” he accused.
“Making?” my mind questioned the incredulity of the accusation.
Still sobbing, the woman used one hand to direct her son out of the room and her other hand to anchor my hand to her side.
“Get out of here!” he repeated, ignoring her direction. “You can’t come in here and make my mamma cry.”
“Maybe,” I slowly and guardedly suggested, “I am the only one willing to give your mother permission to cry.”
His mother nodded in more agreement, but my suggestion went right past him. He repeated his order and brandished his fist just out of his mother’s view. My supervisor had been right: the son was exercising the only power he had left and I was being dismissed.
“You! “his mom declared, “are the one who is leaving. Right now!”
“Mamma,” he pleaded. Mamma had the real power.
“Now!” She ordered. “Right now! Don’t make me call hospital security.”
With that, the son found an exit. I stayed as the social workers devised a plan on where she would spend the next few days. The tears diminished in proportion to which the problem was shared.
In the man’s efforts to suppress the tears, he was actually telling his mother that her pain was too much for him. Perhaps I should have asked, “If she stops crying, will you feel better?”
Many of us will seek to stop the tears of others with a pat on the back or a quick hug because their tears are making us uncomfortable. We mistake the symptom of tears for the actual problem and believe we can dismiss the problem with the tears.
What would it take to become a chaplain?
My guess is that it requires much of the same thing that is required to be a real person.
Perhaps being a paid chaplain requires much more, but it seems to me the message of the Gospel is that we all need to be ministers. And sometimes, when the only power people have left is the power to express tears – or even aggressive anger – ministry can take place as we become willing to give emotion permission to be expressed.
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Read all my columns at www.thechaplain.net Send comments to comment@thechaplain.net or 10566 Combie Rd. Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602. Contact Chaplain Norris at comment@thechaplain.net or voicemail (843) 608-9715.
