Sherri Posey is a Buddhist hospital chaplain {and professional} watchmaker. She displays on how time’s fleeting nature connects everybody.
For twenty-six years, I’ve been a watchmaker within the luxurious timepiece subject. Each morning I sit at my bench with my instruments laid out and a watch motion able to be disassembled, cleaned, lubricated, regulated, and reassembled. Decreasing the magnifying loupe to my left eye, I choose one in all my many pairs of tweezers or appropriate-sized screwdrivers and start to work. I assess how broken or worn the components are. Maybe it’s simply the tiniest piece of lint caught between the tooth of a wheel, stopping the entire mechanism. Generally I’ve to interchange the whole motion as a result of it’s gotten moist and is now an immovable ball of rust. Different occasions the job requires placing in a spherical calendar disk and setting the palms within the heart. I look, I hear, I diagnose, and hopefully I repair. Then I transfer on to the following timepiece.
I’ve additionally been a Buddhist hospital chaplain for twelve years. I am going to a affected person’s hospital room. Earlier than getting into, I test the wall subsequent to the door for any particular directions. Then I sanitize my palms, knock on the doorframe, and enter unhurriedly and with consideration for the affected person, the roommate, and the house the affected person is in. I scan the room, wanting on the whiteboard asserting the affected person’s identify, their physician, and their night nurse. I look on the bedside desk with, maybe, a half-eaten meal, get-well playing cards, and a mobile phone. Household photographs on the wall in entrance of the mattress imply the affected person has been within the hospital for some time. A small dreamcatcher hanging from a machine that screens vitals or a laminated prayer card taped to a bedside rail close to the top symbolizes hope. I present my badge, introduce myself, and ask in the event that they’re up for a go to. If their reply is sure, I sit down within the customer’s chair and—on this time of mask-wearing as a result of Covid—I smile with my eyes.
“What’s occurring for you immediately?” I ask.
I hear. Possibly they speak about a devastating prognosis, irritation with employees, disappointment with being again within the hospital but once more, non secular anxiousness, or loneliness. Possibly none of their household or buddies wish to speak with them about their impending loss of life—nobody’s comfy with that dialog—however they suppose the chaplain could be. I stay nonetheless, attentive. Is meditation wished or prayer required? Or, is silence and presence desired? I look, I hear, and I don’t attempt to repair. Then I am going on to the following affected person or employees member.
A number of years in the past, I spotted that my two professions had run into one another. Or maybe they’d at all times matched up, and I hadn’t observed. Each jobs measure a “passing”—of time or of a life.
When folks discover out that I’m a watchmaker, they wish to speak about time. Individuals surprise the place their lives have gone. Did they spend an excessive amount of time at work and never sufficient with household and buddies? How a lot time did they provide to themselves? Usually, they speak about regrets and that there isn’t sufficient time to perform something now as a result of… time is operating out in a short time.
Photograph by Wavebreak Media ltd / Alamy Inventory Photograph
I’ve at all times relied on my Buddhist follow for my life and work. Whereas it’s nice if you happen to meditate on daily basis and “really feel Zen” when occasions are good, it’s when issues have collapsed to absolute shit that maintaining along with your sitting follow actually means one thing.
A instructor as soon as posed a query in a spiritual-path class that I attended: “What would you like out of your follow?” It was a easy sufficient query, and it made me consider my mom. My mother is an evangelical Christian. She depends on her Christian religion. She’s constant in good occasions and dangerous. I immediately stated, “I need what my mom has.”
I didn’t wish to be the Buddhist model of a “Black church woman,” however I did wish to rely on my Zen Buddhist follow, and I’ve. As a Black girl throughout these very racially tense occasions, I’ve relied on and engaged my follow far more these previous few years. It helps me care for myself and be there for others, particularly the POC neighborhood.
The extra I have interaction my follow the extra I take into consideration the connections between my watchmaking job and being a Buddhist chaplain. Loss of life just isn’t handy. Individuals usually die carrying their watches. So, I’ve dealt with watches despatched in by grieving people and households that—via their injury—inform me when (the precise time the watch stopped) and the way (from the influence injury and blood) somebody died. Individuals by no means really feel they’ve sufficient time. They discuss how the passing of time is so quick it’s as if their clock’s palms are spinning spherical and spherical. I hear this not simply on the hospital, but in addition on the watch firm.
But, it’s time that connects all of us, casting its web over all the things. I’m not separate from any of my sufferers or watch shoppers, they usually’re not separate from me. Acknowledging my very own occasions of struggling permits me to acknowledge the struggling (and the enjoyment!) of others. I keep in mind my very own struggling when my spouse was rushed to the hospital and the way in that darkish second, as I used to be feeling misplaced, a chaplain got here to me.
I nonetheless have a lot to be taught and expertise. I proceed to be taught—many times—that second to second, second to second, proper right here and proper now, we’re collectively in struggling and pleasure.