Limmud Toronto 2020

The Stay at Home world - During C-19 people are told to stay home unless they think they need hospitalization. The hospital is overrun with people who are “alone”. People with a cough walk into the ED and sit down, breathless, to text their loved one to tell them that they have arrived and are waiting. Sometimes that is the last time the family will hear directly from the patient. That’s how fast this happens. My new world is faceless. This story of Spiritual Care in the Age of Covid is not like any story we've ever told. As you know, a story has three components - a beginning, a middle and an end. But this story doesn't.  It doesn’t have a clear beginning,  none knows how close we are to a middle and our sharpest scientific minds don't know how to say when it will end. What does a chaplain do? We do what we are trained to do: we listen. We see. We absorb. We witness. We comfort. We pray.