Learning to Sit in the Unknown: Week Two of Residency.
My second week as a Chaplain Resident at the VA Loma Linda Healthcare System has been more about watching than doing. Most of my time was spent shadowing experienced chaplains, walking beside them into palliative care and memory care units. What I witnessed this week was not loud or dramatic — it was quiet, steady, and deeply human.
The other chaplains didn’t rush to fill the silence. They didn’t try to fix pain with words. They simply were present. And that, I realized, takes more courage than it sounds.
Meanwhile, I caught myself wondering what I would have said if I were leading the visit. My mind kept searching for the “right” thing — a meaningful quote, a prayer, something that would show I knew what I was doing. But the truth is, spiritual care rarely follows a script. It invites you to meet people in their uncertainty while learning to sit with your own.
In Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE), the learning doesn’t just happen in the patient rooms; it happens in the tension between who I think I should be and who I actually am. I’m noticing how easily I equate worth with performance — how quickly I reach for competence to quiet the discomfort of not knowing.
But this week, by simply observing, I learned a deeper lesson: presence over performance isn’t just a theme — it’s a daily practice. True ministry doesn’t come from having answers. It comes from holding space for the questions, for the grief, for the silence that words can’t touch.
“I’m learning that presence isn’t about control. It’s about surrendering the illusion that I can fix pain by saying something profound.”
Every visit, every hallway conversation, every quiet moment of reflection is shaping me. This residency isn’t only forming me as a chaplain — it’s forming me as a person who can sit in mystery without needing to fix it.
For anyone discerning a call to spiritual care, chaplaincy, or CPE residency, know this: the sacred often hides in stillness. The growth happens not in mastering what to say but in trusting who you’re becoming.
So this week, I’m learning to sit in the unknown — one silent, sacred moment at a time.
