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| The Nurse Church I have this niece who, last year, was accepted into nursing school. Intrigued, I wanted to talk to her about her career choice, because, being so healthy it’s stupid, the only nurse I’ve known is Nurse Ratchet, and she, of course, only in the movie. And me — I could never have been a nurse or a doctor because I have the bedside manner of Simon Cowell (“If you think that by spending all this money on therapy and nurses you have a chance at living, forget it. You’re going to die, man. Give the money to your kids or someone who can use it. Die and get out of the way.”) So I met with her at Pastini’s in the Nob Hill neighborhood of Portland, to have a chat. Why nursing? It wasn’t complicated. This Florence Nightingale glow flooded her face: “I really love helping and serving people, Uncle Timothy,” — and she said that with a string of linguini hanging out of her mouth making her look ridiculous. But I believed her. Most kids today, according to one study, are opting for self-employment, entrepreneurship or parenting careers. But an increasing number, like Katie, are finding meaningful work in the care-giving professions. Good thing, too, because former Health and former Human Resources Secretary Tommy Thompson says we have a critical shortage of nurses. The population grows at 10 percent, the pool of nurses grows only 4.1 percent. Then a couple of months ago, Jeanie and I were tramping about in an old growth forest on Cape Perpetua — a rugged and spectacular section of the Oregon coast. I met, quite unexpectedly, another nurse. We came across a giant spruce that’s called The Heritage Tree in these parts because it stands almost 200 feet tall and because it started to grow as a seedling about the same time Martin Luther was pounding his theses on the church door at Wittenberg. What’s really fascinating about this tree, however, is that there’s this tunnel about three feet in diameter that runs through its base, making it appear that the tree is standing, or rooted into the ground, on a tripod. The root system, often stretching four to six feet above the ground appears to be fingerlike extensions that claw the ground in an arch, creating formations that look like mossy buttresses. This tunnel, this empty space, running through the root “fingers” or buttresses, is the space where a nurse log once was located. This giant Sitka spruce began its life as a seedling on a nurse log. Nurse logs were once great, giant trees themselves. Then they died and fell to the earth. Over their barky surface a mat of sword ferns, lichens, mushrooms, mosses and other fungi began to develop. The log became a nursery for an entirely new ecosystem of life. They also became reservoirs of moisture, since the rotting surface of the nurse log retains water like a sponge. With the nurse log down on the forest floor, light, as well as rain, now streams through the canopy. In such a high-moisture environment, the nurse log decays rapidly, and soon the seeds of mighty trees, caught in the mossy layer that now grows on its surface, sprout and take root. As they grow larger, their roots will surround the girth of the nurse log and the tree will shoot up to take its place in the forest, and soon, strong and viable on its own, the tree stands alone, and the nurse log, utterly decomposed, has disappeared. Such has been the case with the 500-year- old Heritage Tree on Cape Perpetua. After seeing this giant spruce I began to think about nursing some more. This use of the word “nurse” as an adjective to describe a log was unfamiliar to me. I knew that we can nurse a drink, nurse a grudge, or nurse a child. Didn’t know we could nurse a spruce. This led me to think of some of the obvious connections between nurses and pastors. Like pastors, some nurses have special training and a specific skill set: the ER nurse, or surgical nurse, or hospice nurse, for example. Nurses, like pastors, sometimes have to be nursemaids. Pastors are Reverends whereas nurses are Registered — indicating how important it is not to be prayed for by an irreverent pastor, or cared for by an unregistered nurse. A nurse “practitioner,” I suppose, is better than no nurse at all. When there are a lot of little red-faced souls in one place either sleeping or yelling at the top of their lungs, we call it a nursery, or a church — or General Assembly, General Synod, whatever. And don’t forget that we start life in a nursery and we may end our lives in a nursery (home). Sometimes mothers cannot feed their young, and will bring in a wet nurse to provide feeding in her place using, no doubt a “My breast friend” nursing pillow. Nurses, like pastors, practice their craft everywhere: schools, hospitals, homes, battlefields, psychiatric wards, clinics, and do so in cities, towns, rural villages, jungle outposts and in low-rent hovels or high-rent condos. So it’s not a big leap to see pastoral ministry as akin to the nursing profession. In fact, the apostle Paul uses this very word to describe the mentoring relationship he had with the church at Thessalonika. “We were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children,” he writes. Perhaps, as his own life neared its end, he saw himself as a nurse log, and prayed that even in death or after death, he might yet be able to nurse people in the faith. To take this further, however, it seems to me that — given the tumultuous state of affairs in many denominations, given declining membership figures, and given the fact that most churches have a life span of less than 100 years, or are struck prematurely by doctrinal, theological or cultural lightning bolts that bring them crashing to the ground in the ecclesiastical forest — we should learn more about the Nurse Church, the church that in closing its doors, nevertheless provides in its death the soil and nutrients for a seedling that may someday become a giant. Denominational structures may change or disappear. They might be absorbed into other church bodies. Churches will close their doors. But nothing, Jesus said, would prevail against the church itself. It might be wise for us at the denominational level, or local level, to consider the “seedlings” in our midst. There are four things to do: Pray for lightning; Fall to the earth; Open the canopy; Offer our traditions — i.e., our history and our teaching to a new generation of giants to feed on. We’ll not be forgotten. There’s always a space in our history and traditions (see the photo above) that reminds us of the glory of the giants who preceded. But the Nurse Church must be willing to nurse, and, as in the case of the nurse log, first it must die. Me? I’m starting to look like a nurse log (consult the description above: “Over their barky surface a mat of sword ferns, lichens, mushrooms, mosses and other fungi begins to develop”). I’m not really interested in dying before being of any use to other people. I’d rather live in a way that strengthens and nourishes others. At least just a little bit.
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