Just to introduce myself, my name is Lee Gilbert and I am one of the Chaplains at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kings Lynn and as part of the Chaplaincy role, I get to meet all sorts of different people at all different stages in life. My main role is to listen to patients. Hospitals can be scary places and despite having lots of people around you, sometimes lonely places. Having a friendly face to talk to can be useful for patients and as far as the hospital is concerned, studies have shown that caring for the spiritual aspect of patients, as well as the physical and mental, means that patients tend to get better quicker. Always useful from a hospital managers point of view.
But from a Chaplains point of view, I get to meet and learn from many different people. Most of whom would only probably set foot in a church if there was a very specific reason (i.e. the classic reasons of hatch, match and dispatch!!). And yet, all those different people, young, old, rich, poor and any other category that you care to mention continually astound me. They astound me with their resilience, with their fortitude, even with just the different pass times and hobbies that people get up to, with the different jobs and roles in society that people have. And the one thing that I am constantly reminded about is that all of them have been created by God and all of them have been made in ‘God’s image’.
There is a verse in the New Testament book of Hebrews that says ‘Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it’. Which for me is the equivalent of that old phrase ‘Do not judge a book by its cover’ and the reason why I am saying that is that often the people who probably astound me the most are those from shall we say an older generation, who have had the most vivid and life affirming lives. At times, I have to remind myself that this person in a hospital gown (not the most flattering of items, I think we will agree) has had a life, has often a full life and often has much to share. And so by listening to these people who are strangers, at least initially, perhaps I am showing hospitality to angels without even knowing about it. I leave you to decide as to whether you are an angel or are entertaining one.