As a Chaplain (Major) I recently retired from the U.S. Army after 26 years combined service in the Air Force active duty (8 years enlisted), Kentucky Air National Guard, Air Force Reserve, and for the final thirteen years in the Army Reserve. In years past I have pastored twice, served as a trauma chaplain at Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg, Pastoral Care Manager at Helen Ellis Memorial Hospital in Tarpon Springs, Hospice Of The Florida Suncoast, Director of Spiritual Care at Gulfside Regional Hospice, and most recently as a Chaplain at LifePath Hospice. Below are some tidbits from that ministry.

A Recent Newspaper Article Reprinted prom the St. Petersburg Times:

By Mindy Rubenstein, Times Correspondent
In Print: Saturday, November 21, 2009

God and Music Rise Up as Pasco Minister's Two Constants in Life

Pete Church, and his neighbor Morrie Vozdecky, who performs vocals and guitar in the heavy metal band Veins Iced Over, jam at Church’s home studio. Called The Upper Room Recording Studio, it caters mainly to locals.

HOLIDAY — Pete Church first harnessed his love of music into something greater at age 14, when he wrote a love song for a girl. He said he soon went from "love of a girl to the love of God," and the music followed. Now Church, 54, combines his passion for music with his devotion to God, reaching out to others who come to the upstairs studio of his Key Vista home to record their music.

The Upper Room Recording Studio caters mainly to local aspiring singers, instrumentalists and bands. Last year he helped make a record for a church praise band from Oregon, and he was recently contacted by a band in Malaysia that was going to be touring in the United States and needed a place to record.

"I'm helping people to realize their musical and expressive aspirations," said Church, a former hospital and hospice chaplain. "Music is a gift from God, and inspires us and comforts us in difficult times, and helps us celebrate during joyous occasions."

He'll produce anything from Christian music to heavy metal, but always in a "positive environment free of smoke and alcohol."

His studio includes framed prints of Dali paintings with religious undertones: one depicts the Last Supper, another shows the Crucifixion. Church has binders filled with songs he has written over the years, many of the handwritten pages yellowing from age. He said many of them are "love songs to God."

Church calls himself a "military brat" who spent much of his young life on the move as his father was transferred among bases, then to the Pentagon, finally ending up at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa.

Church became a military man himself, serving eight years in the Air Force, followed by stints in the Kentucky Air National Guard, Air Force Reserve and the Army Reserve, where he served as a chaplain until he retired in 2003. He was ordained through the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kentucky.

His own faith has been tested as he dealt with tragedies within his life and seeing the devastation experienced by others. But as the questions about God and faith grew, his faith became stronger.

"I have seen the best that life has to offer, and the worst that life has to offer," he said.

The worst was the death of his son, Spencer, who was hit by a car in 1983 at age 4. Spencer spent four months in a coma, then four years living with severe mental and physical impairments before dying in his sleep.

That painful ordeal later helped Church in his roles as hospital and hospice chaplain, supporting patients and their families through life's transitions.

He served as a trauma chaplain at Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg and as pastoral care manager at Helen Ellis Memorial Hospital in Tarpon Springs. He later became chaplain at Gulfside Regional Hospice in Pasco and Suncoast Hospice in Pinellas, and was temporarily based out of Woodside Hospice when Terri Schiavo was a patient. He described sitting at her bedside as "extremely profound."

"I made her aware of my presence, even though I knew in my mind that she probably had a limited sense of awareness," he said. "In the unlikely event that she did, as a courtesy, you make them aware of your presence so as not to intrude."

Church said he was struck by "the profound sadness and sense of loss" in Schiavo's situation, and said he prayed for her "much like I would have done with my own son."

Through all of his ministering and chaplain work, his real passion and saving grace has always been writing, recording, and performing music. Pastoring helped him to finally afford the equipment he needed to record and helped his music career to grow. He has recorded a handful of Christian CDs and tapes over the years. He said many of his songs reflect "the tension between Christian faith and the realities of living in this world." Church ministers through his studio and through his music. He hosts occasional birthday parties where the kids can sing and record along with their favorite music, and he performs at concerts in nursing homes and prisons.

"I try to come up with ideas that are just a little off, to get people to think, to question," and to ultimately strengthen their faith, he said.

Andy Anderson, 58, a chaplain at Gulfside Regional Hospice, described Church as "very knowledgeable, very compassionate, (and) soft-spoken" when he worked at hospice. Anderson has also recorded music with Church.

"I was really impressed with his skills in the studio," said Anderson, who also writes music. "He kind of took me under his wing and taught me a lot of things."

Morrie Vozdecky, 38, lives in Church's neighborhood and plays heavy metal music, which Church helps him record.

"He was kind of like a mentor for me," Vozdecky said. "He inspired me."

Church said one of his songs, called I Will Not Live My Life In Fear, sums up his own realizations later in life: "Even in these uncertain times, the light of love still shines."

"Faith in Motion" is a weekly feature about an individual or group doing something inspiring in the course of a spiritual journey. Story ideas are welcomed, via e-mail. Send them to mindy.rubenstein@yahoo.com.

My Visit With Terri Schiavo

A couple days after Christmas 2004, I was assigned to work at Woodside Hospice House in Pinellas Park, Florida. This was my first opportunity to work at Woodside as a Chaplain for Hospice of the Florida Suncoast. As a Chaplain, I am like the pastor of the parish and the seventy or so Woodside patients are my parishioners.

During my rounds on that first day at Woodside, it was my intention to visit each nursing station, and visit those patients in need, especially those who may be near death.

On that first day, I visited with Terri.
Of course I had kept up with the local and national news and was keenly aware of the ongoing legal battle. Only recently had Terriís feeding tube been removed per the husbandís wishes and then reinserted by order of the Florida legislature. There seemed to be a lot of debate over whether Terri was truly in a PVS or Persistent Vegetative State.
I wondered as well. But my questioning went deeper than a normal human curiosity.

Unfortunately, I was somewhat of an expert from my own personal experience. For, as a young father, my son Spencer, age four at the time, was hit by a speeding car while crossing a busy highway while riding his bike. The accident essentially left him without life on the side of the road, and only the heroic efforts of a passing physician eventually resulted in his heart continuing to beat.

But the damage had already been done. In addition to sustaining numerous catastrophic injuries including a shattered pelvis which resulted in a colostomy, and a broken back which rendered Spencer paralyzed from the chest down, his brain had gone without oxygen for several minutes as a result of the accident.

Cat Scans revealed profound and irreversible brain damage. Spencer lingered in a comatose state in ICU for four months. He began to regain some level of consciousness as his body healed and his eyes would open for hours at a times. Later I learned that his optic nerve had been damaged and rendered him blind. Spencer eventually returned home and lived (if you care to call it that) for another four years, and died in his sleep at age eight.

During those four years, my wife at the time and I took care of Spencer's many needs. We fed him through a tube in his tummy. We suctioned and swapped out his tracheotomy. We changed his colostomy bag. We changed his diapers as he continued to grow. A thorough neurological evaluation determined his mental ability to approximate that of a newborn. For four years it was hoped that his condition would improve with various sustained attempts to stimulate him. But nothing helped. The son I loved was no more. He was no more than a shell of the handsome, blond, bundle of energy I had known. But still, I was grateful to have him, even in that pathetic state. I could still love him, and touch him, and talk to him, and possibly be loved by him in some limited way.

During those four years of day to day care, Spencer would respond to loud noises, and move his eyes. But as much as I wanted to believe otherwise, his responses were involuntary, and not intentional. Occasionally, he would have a tear in his eye. I wanted to believe he could hear and understand, and see, and know that he was not alone. But most of the time when he was awake, he would stare out into space, unable to interact with his environment in any perceivable way. The reality was painfully apparent. But still I loved him, the best that I could, for as long as he was present in this life.

The day I visited Terri, I went to the nurses station and inquired as to her condition. I expressed my desire to visit Terri, and was given special permission.
I quietly entered her room, approached her bed, and announced my presence. We are taught to treat any patient no matter how incapacitated, as though they can hear and understand. I told her who I was. Her eyes were open but did not move in response to my presence or words.

I sat in a chair for a few minutes in profound silence, taking in the enormity of that moment, of this dear one, loved by so many. whose life was suspended in limbo between this reality and that which is to come. Silent prayers seemed inadequate for the moment. The emotions of my own experience rushed over me as I sympathised with the warring loved ones on all sides of the issue.

As I observed Terri in those moments, I felt the exact way that I had felt when confronted with the reality of my own son's hopeless dilemma. In my opinion, Terri was no longer truly there. She stared out into space in the same way Spencer had, hopefully seeing ahead to a better reality, when her broken body would be made whole, and she could run, and play, and enjoy the fragrance of a flower, and appreciate a brilliant sunset, or the love of a friend.

In the following months the unfortunate saga would play itself out on our televisions sets, and for those of us close to the situation, challenge us in extraordinary ways. As I continue my work as a chaplain I will forever remember and continue to learn from my special time with Terri.

Newspaper Article

Chaplain's Time: Darkest Hours Series: Religion

St. Petersburg Times - St. Petersburg, Fla.
Author: SUSAN WILLEY
Date: Dec 3, 1994

I believe in the sun, even when it is not shining. I believe in love, even when I don't feel it. I believe in God, even when he is silent. - Words on a cellar wall in Cologne, Germany, after World War II. The message is above Chaplain Pete Church's desk.

When the Rev. Pete Church hears his name over the hospital paging system, he listens carefully. The news is usually not good.

He catches an elevator or dashes down the stairs to where he is needed. It may be that a child was struck by a car, or a man was shot. Perhaps there is a drowning victim in the emergency room or someone in intensive care has gone into cardiac arrest.

Church, 39, has seen all this and more during his three years as a hospital chaplain. After serving eight years in the military, he currently is a chaplain in the U.S. Army Reserves. He also is a staff chaplain at Bayfront Medical Center and has a contract with All Children's Hospital.

He has experienced the grief and shock at the sudden passing of a young life, and he has shared the joy and relief at an unexpected recovery.

His job skirts the deepest mysteries of life and death. He enters the lives of grief-stricken families as a stranger, but soon becomes their lifeline and confidant.

Born in Montgomery, Ala., Church's father was an Air Force fighter pilot. The family moved frequently, but was in Florida in 1974 when Church graduated from St. Petersburg High School. In his teens, he was a three-time state weightlifting champion. He also taught himself to play the guitar. He recently released a recording of contemporary Christian songs that he wrote.

"The songs deal with the hard facts of life and how we manage to get through them with our spiritual resources," he said.

After he graduated from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., he was pastor at a small church for a year and then began his clinical training as a chaplain. He now lives in the Kenwood neighborhood of St. Petersburg.

At Bayfront, Church is often the first person who contacts family members. He is there for people people facing their darkest hour, as they struggle for meaning in the midst of tragedy. As a minister, he must serve as a representative of faith in a time when people no longer trust the concept of a loving God.

The holiday season is often the busiest time of the year for hospital chaplains, he said. Tragedies are hard to handle any time of the year, but at Christmas grieving is intensified.

"It's supposed to be a happy time of the year, and suddenly it is not," he said.

The most difficult are the deaths of children.

"They are the innocents," he says. "They don't understand the dangers in the world. They are the most vulnerable. They think they are invincible, and they have not done anything to deserve what has happened to them."

Church understands. He knows the pain of losing a child.

It was Memorial Day weekend 1983 in Riverside, Calif. Church and his wife, Jane, decided to go out one afternoon to celebrate their wedding anniversary. Their neighbors agreed to babysit their two children, Jennifer and Spencer. Church remembers they were gone less than three hours. When they returned, their world had changed forever.

Four-year-old Spencer had been riding his bicycle when he wandered onto a busy street and was struck by a car. He was in a coma for four months with massive injuries. When he eventually came out of the coma, he was severely impaired - mentally and physically.

"He was blind and had the mentally capacity of a newborn," Church said. "He was paralyzed from the chest down. He was just a shell really."

March 10, 1987 - nearly four years after the accident - Spencer died in his sleep.

Why did God let this happen? The question is a familiar one for people in grief. The question is one Church, as both a father and a minister, kept asking.

"When I look at the ideals of the Christian faith and then I look at the reality of human pain and suffering, I realize there is a tension there," Church said. "It is a struggle I will have all my life, trying to reconcile this.

"I was brought up to believe in a good God who looks out for you and will protect you. So when something bad happens, you ask `God, where were you? And why didn't you stop it? What terrible thing did I do to deserve this?' "

After years of study, prayer and struggle, Church says he still may not understand God's ways, but he strongly believes in God's love.

"I tell people that I believe God suffers right along with us and with the children because God loves us and loves the children. I see God as a very loving God, but he has created the world as it is, imperfect."

Church survived the tragedy and kept his faith partly because he began a long journey of introspection that reinterpreted his idea of God and life.

"I no longer think of God as Santa Claus. He is not there to give me everything I want, when I want it. He is not there so much to keep the bottom from falling out as to be there to catch us as the bottom falls."

Because of his own experience, he empathizes with people in grief. He calls it "a double-edged sword."

"It's both a blessing and a curse," he said. "But the bad that has happened is just the thing that makes me a good chaplain. That doesn't mean I like what has happened. If I could change it, I would. I would much rather be blissful and ignorant than experienced and tried by fire."

Hospice Community Memorial Service

Today we come together to remember before God our loved ones, to give thanks for their lives, to renew our trust and confidence in God, and to seek his comfort and blessing.
Let us pray…….
Almighty God, as you bring us face to face with our own mortality we thank you for making each one of us in your own image and giving us gifts in body, mind and spirit. We thank you now as we gather together to honor the memory of these dear loved ones whom you have given to us for a season, and whom have now transcended this earthly plane. We pray that you will comfort us in your love and mercy, and show us the true path of life and the fullness of joy in your presence, now, and forever more.  Amen.

Ecclesiastes 31 There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
9 What does the worker gain from his toil? 10 I have seen the burden God has laid on men. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. 13 That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil - this is the gift of God. 14 I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it.

Imagine that you had a bank that credited your account each morning with $86,400. You could carry over no balance from day to day. So every night, whatever part of the money you didn't spend would be lost forever. What would you do? Draw out every penny every day, of course, and use it to your advantage!
Well, you and I have such a bank, but instead of money, we are given time! Every morning the eternal bank credits your account with 86,400 seconds. Every night it counts as lost whatever of this time you failed to invest wisely. This bank carries over no balances, it allows no overdrafts. Each day it opens a new account with you. If you fail to use the day's deposits, the loss is yours. There is no going back. There is no drawing against tomorrow.

Recently, my 22 year old nephew, who bears my name, drowned in a tragic boat accident and was lost at sea in the Caribbean. That experience that my brother’s family is going through brought into focus my own memories of many years ago when my own son was hit by a car while riding his bicycle and subsequently died four years later as a result of his injuries. How senseless and tragic it is when someone leaves this life prematurely. A life is lost and many are left behind to pick up the pieces. But no matter if our loved was younger or has lived a long full life, it still hurts, we still grieve. And I assure you, that in time it will get better. You will get through it. You will learn to live and love again. God is an ever present help.

It is not until some of us are bereaved that we start to examine what is important in life. The loss of a loved one not only challenges us with our own mortality, but also causes us to question how we have used and are using our time. Each new day we are given 86,400 seconds.
We have about 40,000 seconds left in this day. How will you and I use what remains?
The Bible reading from Ecclesiastes, made famous by the song 'Turn, Turn, Turn' by the Byrds in the sixties, reminds us that there are times to do certain things. But for many people, their time was shorter than they might have expected or hoped.
Some people think they will never die, like James Bond. He has been going and going, and going….like the Ever-Ready bunny….. for many years, being played by different actors. Sean Connery is my favorite. The theme to one of the movies, 'Die Another Day', features the line 'I guess I'll die another day'.  That type of confidence and complacency is for the movies. Like the young person who feels invincible in his powerful sports car or speedy motorcycle. It is not real life. There is no guarantee, well, as they say, except for death and taxes…and for us……higher gas prices and hurricanes!

We have a firm hope and confidence, that when our loved ones go to be with God they receive new, perfect resurrection bodies and are no longer subject to suffering, death and sadness. We hope for eternal bliss.
Multimillionaire John D. Rockefeller was asked once how much money it took to make a person happy.  His answer was, "JUST A LITTLE MORE."

A woman who won $1 million playing a Pennsylvania Lottery scratch-off ticket earlier this year won another million on the same game earlier this month. Her win in January allowed her to pay off her mortgage and her children's mortgages, buy a new Cadillac and put away money for her grandchildren's education. Money can buy a lot of things, but it can’t buy you love. It can’t buy peace, and forgiveness, and peace.
We try to fill the God shaped hole in each of us with wealth, possessions, power, popularity, drugs, drink, ……but these things do not bring long term satisfaction and joy.
Learning to live with the knowledge that “each day is a gift” is the true secret to joy and contentment.
At Hospice we try to emphasize that it’s not so important how much time one has left, but rather how does one live to the fullest with what time may be left. May we embrace that philosophy as our own.

An elderly lady walked slowly into a life insurance office during the worst part of the Great Depression. She wanted to know if she could stop paying the premiums on her husband's life insurance policy.  "He's been dead sometime now," she said, "and I don't believe I can afford making the payments any longer." The clerk behind the desk looked up her husband's policy and discovered it was worth several hundred thousand dollars.
This poor lady was wealthy, but she had no idea. May we use wisely the wealth of time that we have been given. Let us not wait until our time is short to realize that we should live like we were dying, make every moment count, and be grateful for the life we have, no matter what our lot may be. May we all take joy in the fact we were blessed to have spent precious time with our loved ones recently departed.

Gen. William Nelson, a Union general in the American Civil War, had fought many battles in Kentucky and survived. But don’t you know that once, while he was relaxing with his men, there was a brawl and shots rang out. The general was fatally shot in the chest. He was caught totally unprepared. As his men ran up the stairs to help him, the general had just one phrase, "Send for a clergyman; I wish to be baptized."
He never had time for religion as an adolescent or young man.  He never had time as a young soldier or after he became a general.  And his wound did not stop or slow down the war.  Everything around him was left virtually unchanged -- except for the general's priorities.  With only minutes left before he entered eternity, the one thing he cared about more than anything at that moment, was his acute sense of mortality.  It was his desire to connect with the eternal spirit. Thirty minutes later he was dead.  

What would you do if you had only a few minutes or hours to live? This was a question that faced hundreds of people on three airplanes in America on September 11, 2001. Many of them with mobile phones tried to warn others of the impending danger. Many others called parents, partners and children to tell them now much they loved them. The news was full of tearful conversations between loved ones, or messages on answering machines.

In a world full of busyness and material goods this highlights the supreme importance of relationships. Today, relationships are replaced by possessions; we have neighbors not knowing one another, disposable relationships with little or no commitment, relationships that are sacrificed for work, and relationships that are strained for any number of reasons.
Virtually each of you is here today because you have had a relationship ended by the death of a loved one. Those who are left behind often feel that they didn't make the most of their relationship with their loved one, or that they wished they had said certain things to them while they were still alive.

A survey of elderly people asked if they had any regrets. The most common regret was not taking more risks, not making more of their lives. Others regretted not being more assertive, not having more self-discipline, and not spending more quality time with their family. It is noteworthy that money was considered insignificant by the vast majority.
In the movie "Braveheart" William Wallace, played by Mel Gibson said, "Every man dies. Not every man really lives." Death is something that we do not face up to easily, even though it will happen to each of us. The events of September 11th remind us of this. For thousands of people it started as a normal day at the office, or traveling on a flight, something that is an everyday occurrence in the United States.
"Every man dies. Not every man really lives." Let us not be content just to be alive, but let us determine within ourselves, each day, at every moment, to truly live! And to live our lives more fully because of the love and energy that each of our departed loved ones contribute to our living. Amen

Butterfly Garden Dedication and Blessing Prayer

We gather here today, to reflect on the brevity of life, to celebrate the gift of life, and to contemplate the hope in life eternal symbolized by these wonderful creatures of nature. Butterflies, so small, yet they mean so much. God transforms them into something beautiful, as He desires to accomplish in each of us. May our spirits be as free, as light and joyful, as these wonders of nature, who seek out the light, who pursue the sweet smelling goodness in life, and are open to the wonder of being what they were born, and born again to be: simple expressions of the richness of life. May we be mindful and grateful for what has been, and look forward with joyful hope and anticipation for what will be: something wonderful, and something marvelous.
May we live as do these butterflies, putting away the cares of this world and becoming fully alive, as we remember those whom we honor here today, those whose lives we celebrate, and by whose living we move forward with the energy their living has added to our own. Amen

Dear Lord, I pray now for this sacred place: As we traverse these bricks immortalized by these, whose inscriptions they bear, may this garden be a place of peace, and calm, and comfort. May it be, for each patient, family member, medical practitioner, volunteer, and any visitor who draws near, a place to feel your love and the love of those who have gone before. Bless this garden, and each of those who pass through it. May we take the time to smell the flowers, may we be drawn to the nectar of your presence, and may each of us here present this day, strive to be free like the butterfly, to carry your peace and love to those in need, especially to those whose days are numbered. Richly bless those who have given so freely of their time, money, and energy to make this dream a living reality. In your name, we pray, Amen