May 5, 2025 • 28 mins
In this episode of Joyously Free!, host Joanie Lindenmeyer speaks with Rick Majewski, a hospice grief support chaplain, about spirituality, grief, and the healing power of love and community. Rick shares his journey from a successful business career to chaplaincy, driven by a desire for deeper spiritual fulfillment. He reflects on his experiences providing holistic […]
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Episode Transcript
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(00:11):
Hi, everyone. Welcome. KCIW
listeners at one hundred point seven and kciw.org,
Brookings, Oregon.
Here we go. You know the routine, and
I'll teach my new guest who's sitting right
across this the, the plexiglass,
sparkling eyes and a big smile. So I'm
going to say a greeting that Carol and
I used to do, and I'll start out
(00:32):
with it's a brand new day, and you
get to respond never been lived before. Are
you ready? Wonderful. Yeah. Alright. Here we go.
Hey, everybody out there. It's a brand new
day.
Never been lived before. You got it. Welcome
to joyously free with none better than me,
Joni Lindenmaier. Yes. A Harbor, Oregon resident for
thirty four years.
(00:52):
Well, you know that this radio, also known
as Gaidio Show, is a show that talks
about LGBTQ
plus stories and tips
along with religion,
church, faith, and spirituality.
Simply put, it's about joy and freedom, courage,
confidence, collaboration, and lots of joy.
So as a vibrant, joy filled, great communicator,
(01:14):
we talk
every week and you get to listen in.
We appreciate your comments and we appreciate your
attendance.
The purpose of the show, like I said,
is about joy and freedom. It comes from
a book that I wrote, coauthored with Elizabeth
Atkins of 2sisterswriting.com,
called Joyously Free. It consists of other contributing
writers, often people living in Brookings, Gold Beach,
(01:36):
and Crescent City are joined in that book
and on our radio station.
Today, of course, we always start with a
prayer because I believe that there's hope,
there's a divinity of Jesus and God, whatever
name you happen to put on that higher
being, so that we do not need to
be troubled,
afraid, or saddened.
That joy and peace are an internal expression
(01:58):
of the love and harmony that is already
within each of us, and we only have
to reach deep
within and let it out.
All is well with my soul.
Be alive today. It's a precious, precious day.
There's no hate speech, no hate behaviors, and
no bullying
on this radio show and in my life.
It's about the courage, confidence, and collaboration.
(02:21):
It's wonderful to seek understanding. And with my
guest today, who will you'll you will meet
very, very shortly, totally understands that. We were
gonna think out of the box or sometimes
even no boxes.
We know about abundant gratefulness,
respect, and appreciation
with our beautiful nature,
walking dogs,
walking trails, hanging out with friends and family,
(02:42):
and our loving, kind community right here in
our neighborhoods,
Southern Oregon and Northern Oregon Coast.
Let's have a happy day.
As with every morning ritual,
let's begin with prayer,
a prayer that can shine light on our
community
and our world.
Let's center ourselves.
(03:03):
Together, we take a deep breath in
with the good
and out with doubt.
Relax your muscles. Let's breathe in again through
your nose
with hope
and out from your mouth
with any fears.
And last one,
(03:24):
take a big deep breath in with joy
and out with any worry, despair, or concerns.
I bless myself in the name of the
father, son, and holy spirit,
also known as mother earth, god our creator,
Jesus our redeemer, and the blowing winds of
the Holy Spirit.
(03:45):
Feel free to bless your own way.
Our reading today is a real short one.
It's from the first letter of John.
To remain in God,
we have to be in relationship with one
another.
No one has ever seen God, yet the
first letter of John attest,
(04:05):
yet we love one another.
God remains in us, and his love is
brought to us in perfection.
When I first read that, all I could
do was think about the word relationship
and love
and how many times we might have a
significant other, a very, very special person that
(04:27):
we are romantically and intimately involved with, or
the wonderful love of a child,
a dog, a cat, a brother, a sister,
a dear neighbor,
and how that relationship is so key
to listen to what they have to say,
to be there in their their difficult times,
and to be there in their good times,
(04:49):
to share root beer floats
or to share walks on the beach.
Either way, it's a relationship.
It's not a one-sided relationship.
It's a it's a two street
double whammy
listen and talk, listen and talk,
even just to sit and be with somebody
as you look at a sunset or a
sunrise,
(05:09):
that's in relationship.
And when we do that with a person,
we're doing that with God because God is
love.
I hope those golden nuggets help you out
today
because that's what's in my heart.
You know, it's wonderful to say to Jesus,
hi, Jesus, hi, God, hi, Spirit, every single
day. That's a simple prayer that just works
(05:30):
all the time.
So we end our prayer with thanking our
dear God, our creator for guidance and healing
today.
We thank our dear God to bless us
on this beautiful day. In the Lord's name,
we say,
amen. Amen.
So I'm excited, and I just heard that
amen from across the plexiglass.
(05:50):
I am so excited today to to introduce
you to a friend of mine that occurred
in my life about three years ago.
And,
this young man
is a hospice
grief support chaplain.
You might know him as chaplain Rick, but
this is Rick Majewski.
(06:10):
And, Rick, thank you for being here. Thank
you so much for being here.
Joni, it's wonderful to be here with you.
Thank you. Great to see you. Great to
hear you,
and share this time together. Absolutely. Absolutely. And
in sharing this time, we have a topic
today that we're calling grief pain,
finding healing and joy
(06:31):
through hope.
And that is exactly what you exuded to
me and to the group of people in
the hospice grief support when I first met
you. And that continued on every
oh, boy. Help me out, Mike. I mean,
excuse me, Rick. Help me help me out.
Was that once a month or was that
twice a month? Twice a month. Yeah. Yeah.
Would you talk a little bit about that
and then a little background of you, and
then we'll get into some other things? Yeah.
(06:52):
Worst well,
about me. Again, thank you so much for
the opportunity to be here with you. I
am a retired
chaplain,
still working though or ministering in retirement.
I came to ministry work later in life.
Despite success in the business world, there was,
as with a lot of folks, there was
(07:13):
something missing. There was that that hole that
get inside of me. Saint Augustine
refers to it, our soul is restless until
it rests in thee, Lord.
And, I didn't know that at the time,
but the emptiness I would describe as a
spiritual void.
That is the things of this world were
just not fulfilling.
That old adage of, you know, money can't
(07:34):
buy happiness was
was so true for me.
A long story short, I was blessed through
a reawakening
back to my faith,
cradle Catholic, but, you know, kinda in life
drifted in and out of
my faith practice.
But I was called to that
as a as a chaplain, particularly a chaplain
(07:56):
in a health care setting.
And what that means is
in most,
you know, true health care is we humans
are mind, body, and spirit,
that
holistic
care does involve care for the spirit and
that's where the role of the chaplain came
in.
And How how old were you at the
time when this is all happening? No. I
(08:17):
was in my fifties.
Wow. Late fifties when when that happened. So
many, many years, decades in the business world,
the rat race associated with that, building businesses,
closing businesses,
going through, you know, uptimes, downtimes.
It was just not that rewarding and fulfilling
from a spiritual
(08:38):
perspective. And so,
with God's help and the guidance of the
Holy Spirit, I was able to transition to
a career as a chaplain. First, working in
a children's hospital, then a trauma center. Oh,
wow. Hospice, skilled nursing, and then closed my
career in an adult setting.
Retired a few years ago after COVID. All
through COVID, I was
(09:00):
working full time in the hospital most of
the time in the ICU.
Working through those times of not only illness
but separation.
If you recall, you know, families were not
even able to come into the ICU and
hold their loved one's hands and Right. Be
there through that. So I was
working all through,
(09:21):
that situation.
But we moved up here after that a
few years back, about three years ago, about
when I got involved with, with hospice up
here,
as we had scoped this area out as
where we wanted to retire when the time
came. Mhmm. But once here, I was looking
for opportunities to stay involved in the in
the community, and someone had told me about
(09:42):
hospice, and that resonated with me. Mhmm. Both
my mom and dad were on hospice care
when they passed away.
It was as those things
can be a good experience
for our family in that we,
you know, you're
you're dealing with the medical situation, but hospice
was very helpful in getting us focused on
(10:03):
the quality time that mom and dad had,
remaining and that we would stay focused on
them. And you talked about relationship
and that was the focus. You know, when
you're engaged in medical
situations, you can focus on the medical aspects
and forget about, you know, what's really important.
(10:23):
Right. Right. So one of my activities up
here, getting to your question, you know, as
a hospice,
volunteer
chaplain
was to facilitate the grief and loss support
group, something I did when I was in
the hospital settings where I was a chaplain,
being no stranger to loss and the grieving
process
over the years,
being blessed to encounter many folks going through
(10:47):
loss and pain and suffering.
And as you said, that's how we met.
You were attending the group when I joined
as facilitator, and
I'll tell you, you were such a healing
presence as well. I I appreciate your compliments
to me, but quite honestly,
many times my role would just be to
kinda
step back and let the group support one
another.
(11:08):
That's that's where
the the real
opportunity
for healing occurred was when you shared your
stories.
And
your story,
your journey with Carol was very healing for
the group, I would say. And what a
blessing it was for me to hear that
story and to come alongside you at that
(11:29):
point in your journey.
It's just amazing how God works. Oh, absolutely.
And and thank you for saying that because
at the time when when I was in
that grief as well as a whole group
of us,
sometimes it's hard to hear
other people because you're
so down, and that pain is so raw.
(11:50):
It's it's like my body died as well.
My spirit died as well. And it was
wonderful to have you facilitate
that listening and empathy and compassion
and yet still instill in people
that the joy and the faith and the
hope that it's not the end of the
world. No. No. It's not the end of
(12:10):
the story. And I think we're gonna get
into to Go for it. Go for it.
Tell me more. Well, you'd asked, you know,
with with our subject here, what I wanted
to share, at least from some of my
experiences of coming alongside folks who have experienced
loss,
who have experienced
grief that accompanies the loss of a loving
(12:30):
relationship,
and that's just it. You know, the you
know,
I love hot dogs, but I don't grieve
when I can't have a hot dog.
That's a great example.
Different
when we're we're talking about
the the love
in a relationship, especially, you know, a two
way connection with another human soul being and
(12:53):
at the soul level. It's just so so
special.
And I think what we wanna
address is how hope
can lead us from the depths of grief
back to joy where meaning and purpose reunites
us, and you touched on this,
with the rest of our story Yeah. And
the future stories that are still within us
(13:14):
waiting to break out and be told.
So one thing I came to appreciate
as a chaplain is that grief is inevitable.
If you love, if you dare to love,
at some point, you will grieve.
Now that doesn't mean
you go through a life avoiding love. Heck,
you'd miss all the fun. Right? And you
(13:35):
miss those those special connections.
But that's why a deep and profound love
requires taking risks.
And and and,
I think about you and Carol's story,
when I say that in your book, None
Better.
As I, read your story, the the world
was telling you one thing,
(13:56):
but your heart was saying something very different.
Very good, Carol. Take the risk. It's worth
it. You didn't see that at the time,
but
it sure played out over time that God
was walking ahead, right? Yeah.
Yeah. So in my studies,
becoming a chaplain, I came across the writings
of Have you ever heard of Rumi?
(14:17):
Yes. Rumi is a wonderful thirteenth century,
poet and Sufi mystic.
Mhmm.
For me, what all all of what that
means, he said some pretty profound things that
here, you know,
eight hundred years later,
they still resonated
with me when encountering grief.
(14:37):
And one thing he said, I'm gonna read
it here,
grief can be the garden of compassion.
If you keep your heart open through everything,
your pain can become your greatest ally in
your life's search for love and wisdom.
And Wow.
(14:58):
And he went on to say
that well,
on that, what it tells me, what it
says to me is our pain informs us,
that pain becomes a part of us. And
what we do with that
driven
can create a compassionate
soul
because it starts with compassion for yourself.
(15:22):
Mhmm. And he went on to say, may
the beauty of what you love
be what you do.
And again, Joni, I I I had your
picture when I I read that, I saw
that. It made me, you know, think of
you. That love
is not just a part of our past,
(15:43):
but our lives.
But it it
lives within
us within us.
And we do,
in in what we do and what we
choose to do and how we approach. So
we can let that grief
weigh us down,
or we can take it, have it inform
us,
and through compassion starting with for ourselves,
(16:06):
find ways to share that with others through
story,
through, the lives that we live and the
things that we do
as we get our life moving again, you
know, in that,
you know, on that journey onto that next
chapter, so to speak. Yes.
Have you found, you know, in in doing
your work as a as a grief chaplain,
(16:28):
that timing for everybody is so different on
how they find that compassion,
that kindness to be to be kind to
themselves
and to move forward, Rick? Well, absolutely, Joni.
Everybody
you know, I I think of it in
terms of,
the story of our life.
(16:49):
You know.
It's
it's
it's written by us. I mean, you know,
we're we're we're, you know, it can be,
you know, dictated
by outside events,
but our choices in how we we deal
with that and address that are gonna be
very different.
You know, when I reflect on my own
life, I mean, I realize my existence, you
(17:10):
know, the evidence,
that I exist here on Earth,
is the narrative of my life. Mhmm. The
collection of stories I've been a part of
over the years.
And, you know, from that experience, my own
experience, that sense of self is not just
the collection of
the past experience along with my present stories
(17:31):
in progress, you
you know, that make up,
our our, you know, conscious continuity of our
identity.
That selfhood is also formed by our future
stories. Mhmm. Those aspects of one sense of
self growing out of that hopeful projection into
the future.
And so as we develop those stories and
(17:51):
and grief can kinda wallow us down. Uh-huh.
But as
we kinda take that and and and use
that
to
express our
foundation to hope,
which is the driving force for finding meaning
and purpose. Mhmm. So not everybody comes to
(18:11):
that,
you know, at the same time. You know,
they're gonna use their their
their worldly experiences.
They're going to use the
experience of the loss to inform them.
But in order to move forward,
they
will find
(18:31):
that to be a very personal process.
Absolutely. So there's, you know
I I remember one of the the attendees
when I attended the grief group
was there was a woman there
and her beloved I don't remember
husband, wife. I don't remember that part of
it. But, she had been in grief
heavy duty grief for five years, and she
(18:54):
was still attending
the grief support group. And I thought to
myself,
oh my gosh.
In five
years, do I still want to be attending
grief group,
in grief mode? And I said to myself,
Joni,
no. You don't. You need to move forward.
You promised that you would live every day
(19:15):
to the max.
You know? And that's the hope. And it's
so hard
to find your way out of that grief.
And but like you said, to share this
with other people, to have a leader, a
facilitator like you that would listen and guide
us was phenomenal, Rick. Mhmm. Talk a little
bit about the,
when you meet for our local group
(19:38):
and who can come,
how often can you come? Can you give
us some details about that? Sure. Sure.
Well, here in town, we meet the first
and third Tuesday of each month. Coastal Home
Health and Hospice, their location, 585
Fifth Street, across from the hospital there, where
we meet at 03:00, the first and third
(20:00):
Tuesdays of each month. We have an hour
session.
Anybody is welcome. Anybody
experiencing,
grief and loss of in any form.
Not just death. Not just death. Death. Loss
of a job or a loss of a
house. You know, we absolutely.
We've had folks
who
(20:21):
are caring for a loved one who is
suffering with
Alzheimer's,
you know, dementia,
and there is a pre grieving. I mean,
the person is still very much alive, but
the person they knew,
as their their memory fades,
they begin to lose that
connection with
in with those memories. And so,
(20:44):
you know, we've we've I have found sometimes
the the folks
have found that getting together and sharing that
story to be helpful.
To to that end, we have a caregiver
support group that we do on the second
Tuesday of each month, same location.
So And who would qualify as a caregiver?
You know, anybody who
is is, you know, providing,
(21:06):
that,
care for a loved one. You know? It
it could be,
you know,
a professional
caregiver and you know, but in the community,
or it could be someone and more most
of the folks that do attend
are providing care for a spouse,
a sibling,
a loved a child,
(21:27):
that's chronically ill, a loved one. Yeah. Wow.
Wow. You know, you know, and related to
that, I remember going thinking, do I really
wanna go to grief group? I thought, oh,
I don't need to do this. And then
it hit me and it said, maybe I'll
meet one of my best friends in my
life. Mhmm. You know? And and thanks be
to god, a a lady by the name
of Jenny Leffler, who lived in the town
(21:47):
at the time, she went to the meeting
thinking she wanted to find a best friend,
and her husband had died five days after
my carol. But I guess what I'm getting
at is you never know who might be
a part of your future, a part of
your hope that you meet at grief group.
That's just it. That's, you know, the the
beauty of
you know, we we think of our lives,
(22:08):
you know, the process of our, you know,
existing
through the metaphor of journey. You know, we're
travelers in the pilgrimage of, you know, trying
to uncover life's mysteries, find our place in
it,
and then loss happens. You know, we think
of that journey,
it implies movement towards a destination
with a starting point, a projected end point,
(22:29):
stops along the way, and potholes too.
And and, you know, that's where,
you know, you and Jenny, your story, you
know, you had you you were kinda in
that pothole. You know? Yeah. And you find
someone to be able to Our whole group,
there were seven of us that that somehow
we were connected all within a two week
period of losing our spouses. Yes. And we
(22:50):
went to lunches together, and we went to
movies together. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. So when
you when you think about that in terms
of the pilgrimage,
where we're at
is not necessarily
where we are going. Oh. You know, the
destination must be imagined as future story. What
gives us the energy for that journey, the
driving
force is
(23:12):
hope. Yes. And that's the one of our
themes here, that profound belief that there is
still more to our story, more life to
be experienced.
And we take that next step informed by
our loss,
keep them profound as it is, but we
learn to move with our grief.
The love we experienced and still have for
(23:32):
the one we lost can weigh us down
or it can energize us. Mhmm. Despair and
depression can set in,
and, you know, where we cannot connect with
that story
and we lose purpose.
And that's where I never like to hear,
when someone's asking for giving advice about dealing
with grief is, oh, you just need to
move on.
(23:53):
I mean, that's never been helpful. I've never
seen where that's helpful.
We need to learn to move with,
which is very What a great tip. Real.
That is such a great tip. And it's
now part of who we are. I mean,
you know, my
realization, I had a,
you call it,
you know, a joyously free moment
(24:13):
happened, at a very low point in my
life. Oh. And I found myself,
you know, slowly working my way back to
the faith and was sitting in a chapel.
And in our Catholic tradition, we have this
image of Christ called the divine mercy. Mhmm.
And our
Lord, in that picture has the wounds
(24:35):
of the cross.
And and his hands and his feet and
in his side, you know, and from his
side
flows the red
symbolizing the blood of our renewal, you know,
the baptism
the the the water from, you know, renewal
of life through baptism.
And what hit me, that day I'm sitting
in the chapel
(24:56):
and there's these words at the bottom of
the painting called Jesus, I trust in you.
Those words
shone
out at me.
And I realized that that moment, the revelation
for me, that joyously free moment was we're
all wounded.
When we meet our lord,
(25:17):
god willing,
he's gonna have the wounds of the cross.
Yeah. We're all wounded. We carry those wounds
with us. It's what we do with them
and how we allow that to inform us
that give us hope going forward.
Right on. Right on. You are so wise.
You are so spiritual. You never jam anything
down anybody's throats.
(25:39):
We're down to, like, a minute and a
half. Mhmm. Rick, we could keep going for
hours. How would
you finalize your last comments besides roomies?
How about giving us your final comments, please?
Sure. Well, Joni, again, thank you so much
for the opportunity to be here. I've enjoyed
this time and
our conversation. Amazing how quickly time flies.
(26:00):
You are a living witness to the things
we've been talking about.
We get we
get to choose
our attitude in any given sense of circumstance.
You know, that whatever life throws at us,
the pain, the suffering,
we get to choose how we respond to
that.
That is the ultimate human freedom
(26:23):
that cannot be taken away from us.
Whatever the circumstances,
you know, that spiritual freedom is what gives
life meaning and purpose.
And, again, you're a living witness to that.
And so are you. And there are listeners
out there, I bet you some of you
are fitting into that category if we have
a category of that as well. You know?
But if you're if you're hurting out there,
(26:44):
I would say get a hold of Home
Health Hospice, and we know it's
the second First and third. First and third
Thursdays. Brief support. The second Tuesday,
is for caregiver support. Fantastic. Fantastic.
Oh, listeners, thank you for being with us
today on Joyously Free. Thank you, Rick, big
time chaplain Rick, for for giving us your
(27:05):
words of wisdom, your joy, your your hopes,
your your special your special tips for the
day. I thank you from the top of
my heart, and I really, really mean that.
Thank you. Yes. We're blowing air kisses back
and forth here. So, also, of course, we
always need to thank KCIW one hundred point
seven FM LP, Brookings, Oregon. We have Mike
Gorse helping out today, Tom Bozak, Candice, and
(27:26):
Rose. You can find more information on kciw.org
for the future podcast if you don't have
time to listen, as well as my books,
2sisterswriting.com,
has all of them. So we wish you
a blessed day and a happy, happy day.
Hang in there and love big with big
colors and smiles that rock the world. Amen.
Amen.
Hi, everyone. Welcome. KCIW
listeners at one hundred point seven and kciw.org,
Brookings, Oregon.
Here we go. You know the routine, and
I'll teach my new guest who's sitting right
across this the, the plexiglass,
sparkling eyes and a big smile. So I'm
going to say a greeting that Carol and
I used to do, and I'll start out
(00:32):
with it's a brand new day, and you
get to respond never been lived before. Are
you ready? Wonderful. Yeah. Alright. Here we go.
Hey, everybody out there. It's a brand new
day.
Never been lived before. You got it. Welcome
to joyously free with none better than me,
Joni Lindenmaier. Yes. A Harbor, Oregon resident for
thirty four years.
(00:52):
Well, you know that this radio, also known
as Gaidio Show, is a show that talks
about LGBTQ
plus stories and tips
along with religion,
church, faith, and spirituality.
Simply put, it's about joy and freedom, courage,
confidence, collaboration, and lots of joy.
So as a vibrant, joy filled, great communicator,
(01:14):
we talk
every week and you get to listen in.
We appreciate your comments and we appreciate your
attendance.
The purpose of the show, like I said,
is about joy and freedom. It comes from
a book that I wrote, coauthored with Elizabeth
Atkins of 2sisterswriting.com,
called Joyously Free. It consists of other contributing
writers, often people living in Brookings, Gold Beach,
(01:36):
and Crescent City are joined in that book
and on our radio station.
Today, of course, we always start with a
prayer because I believe that there's hope,
there's a divinity of Jesus and God, whatever
name you happen to put on that higher
being, so that we do not need to
be troubled,
afraid, or saddened.
That joy and peace are an internal expression
(01:58):
of the love and harmony that is already
within each of us, and we only have
to reach deep
within and let it out.
All is well with my soul.
Be alive today. It's a precious, precious day.
There's no hate speech, no hate behaviors, and
no bullying
on this radio show and in my life.
It's about the courage, confidence, and collaboration.
(02:21):
It's wonderful to seek understanding. And with my
guest today, who will you'll you will meet
very, very shortly, totally understands that. We were
gonna think out of the box or sometimes
even no boxes.
We know about abundant gratefulness,
respect, and appreciation
with our beautiful nature,
walking dogs,
walking trails, hanging out with friends and family,
(02:42):
and our loving, kind community right here in
our neighborhoods,
Southern Oregon and Northern Oregon Coast.
Let's have a happy day.
As with every morning ritual,
let's begin with prayer,
a prayer that can shine light on our
community
and our world.
Let's center ourselves.
(03:03):
Together, we take a deep breath in
with the good
and out with doubt.
Relax your muscles. Let's breathe in again through
your nose
with hope
and out from your mouth
with any fears.
And last one,
(03:24):
take a big deep breath in with joy
and out with any worry, despair, or concerns.
I bless myself in the name of the
father, son, and holy spirit,
also known as mother earth, god our creator,
Jesus our redeemer, and the blowing winds of
the Holy Spirit.
(03:45):
Feel free to bless your own way.
Our reading today is a real short one.
It's from the first letter of John.
To remain in God,
we have to be in relationship with one
another.
No one has ever seen God, yet the
first letter of John attest,
(04:05):
yet we love one another.
God remains in us, and his love is
brought to us in perfection.
When I first read that, all I could
do was think about the word relationship
and love
and how many times we might have a
significant other, a very, very special person that
(04:27):
we are romantically and intimately involved with, or
the wonderful love of a child,
a dog, a cat, a brother, a sister,
a dear neighbor,
and how that relationship is so key
to listen to what they have to say,
to be there in their their difficult times,
and to be there in their good times,
(04:49):
to share root beer floats
or to share walks on the beach.
Either way, it's a relationship.
It's not a one-sided relationship.
It's a it's a two street
double whammy
listen and talk, listen and talk,
even just to sit and be with somebody
as you look at a sunset or a
sunrise,
(05:09):
that's in relationship.
And when we do that with a person,
we're doing that with God because God is
love.
I hope those golden nuggets help you out
today
because that's what's in my heart.
You know, it's wonderful to say to Jesus,
hi, Jesus, hi, God, hi, Spirit, every single
day. That's a simple prayer that just works
(05:30):
all the time.
So we end our prayer with thanking our
dear God, our creator for guidance and healing
today.
We thank our dear God to bless us
on this beautiful day. In the Lord's name,
we say,
amen. Amen.
So I'm excited, and I just heard that
amen from across the plexiglass.
(05:50):
I am so excited today to to introduce
you to a friend of mine that occurred
in my life about three years ago.
And,
this young man
is a hospice
grief support chaplain.
You might know him as chaplain Rick, but
this is Rick Majewski.
(06:10):
And, Rick, thank you for being here. Thank
you so much for being here.
Joni, it's wonderful to be here with you.
Thank you. Great to see you. Great to
hear you,
and share this time together. Absolutely. Absolutely. And
in sharing this time, we have a topic
today that we're calling grief pain,
finding healing and joy
(06:31):
through hope.
And that is exactly what you exuded to
me and to the group of people in
the hospice grief support when I first met
you. And that continued on every
oh, boy. Help me out, Mike. I mean,
excuse me, Rick. Help me help me out.
Was that once a month or was that
twice a month? Twice a month. Yeah. Yeah.
Would you talk a little bit about that
and then a little background of you, and
then we'll get into some other things? Yeah.
(06:52):
Worst well,
about me. Again, thank you so much for
the opportunity to be here with you. I
am a retired
chaplain,
still working though or ministering in retirement.
I came to ministry work later in life.
Despite success in the business world, there was,
as with a lot of folks, there was
(07:13):
something missing. There was that that hole that
get inside of me. Saint Augustine
refers to it, our soul is restless until
it rests in thee, Lord.
And, I didn't know that at the time,
but the emptiness I would describe as a
spiritual void.
That is the things of this world were
just not fulfilling.
That old adage of, you know, money can't
(07:34):
buy happiness was
was so true for me.
A long story short, I was blessed through
a reawakening
back to my faith,
cradle Catholic, but, you know, kinda in life
drifted in and out of
my faith practice.
But I was called to that
as a as a chaplain, particularly a chaplain
(07:56):
in a health care setting.
And what that means is
in most,
you know, true health care is we humans
are mind, body, and spirit,
that
holistic
care does involve care for the spirit and
that's where the role of the chaplain came
in.
And How how old were you at the
time when this is all happening? No. I
(08:17):
was in my fifties.
Wow. Late fifties when when that happened. So
many, many years, decades in the business world,
the rat race associated with that, building businesses,
closing businesses,
going through, you know, uptimes, downtimes.
It was just not that rewarding and fulfilling
from a spiritual
(08:38):
perspective. And so,
with God's help and the guidance of the
Holy Spirit, I was able to transition to
a career as a chaplain. First, working in
a children's hospital, then a trauma center. Oh,
wow. Hospice, skilled nursing, and then closed my
career in an adult setting.
Retired a few years ago after COVID. All
through COVID, I was
(09:00):
working full time in the hospital most of
the time in the ICU.
Working through those times of not only illness
but separation.
If you recall, you know, families were not
even able to come into the ICU and
hold their loved one's hands and Right. Be
there through that. So I was
working all through,
(09:21):
that situation.
But we moved up here after that a
few years back, about three years ago, about
when I got involved with, with hospice up
here,
as we had scoped this area out as
where we wanted to retire when the time
came. Mhmm. But once here, I was looking
for opportunities to stay involved in the in
the community, and someone had told me about
(09:42):
hospice, and that resonated with me. Mhmm. Both
my mom and dad were on hospice care
when they passed away.
It was as those things
can be a good experience
for our family in that we,
you know, you're
you're dealing with the medical situation, but hospice
was very helpful in getting us focused on
(10:03):
the quality time that mom and dad had,
remaining and that we would stay focused on
them. And you talked about relationship
and that was the focus. You know, when
you're engaged in medical
situations, you can focus on the medical aspects
and forget about, you know, what's really important.
(10:23):
Right. Right. So one of my activities up
here, getting to your question, you know, as
a hospice,
volunteer
chaplain
was to facilitate the grief and loss support
group, something I did when I was in
the hospital settings where I was a chaplain,
being no stranger to loss and the grieving
process
over the years,
being blessed to encounter many folks going through
(10:47):
loss and pain and suffering.
And as you said, that's how we met.
You were attending the group when I joined
as facilitator, and
I'll tell you, you were such a healing
presence as well. I I appreciate your compliments
to me, but quite honestly,
many times my role would just be to
kinda
step back and let the group support one
another.
(11:08):
That's that's where
the the real
opportunity
for healing occurred was when you shared your
stories.
And
your story,
your journey with Carol was very healing for
the group, I would say. And what a
blessing it was for me to hear that
story and to come alongside you at that
(11:29):
point in your journey.
It's just amazing how God works. Oh, absolutely.
And and thank you for saying that because
at the time when when I was in
that grief as well as a whole group
of us,
sometimes it's hard to hear
other people because you're
so down, and that pain is so raw.
(11:50):
It's it's like my body died as well.
My spirit died as well. And it was
wonderful to have you facilitate
that listening and empathy and compassion
and yet still instill in people
that the joy and the faith and the
hope that it's not the end of the
world. No. No. It's not the end of
(12:10):
the story. And I think we're gonna get
into to Go for it. Go for it.
Tell me more. Well, you'd asked, you know,
with with our subject here, what I wanted
to share, at least from some of my
experiences of coming alongside folks who have experienced
loss,
who have experienced
grief that accompanies the loss of a loving
(12:30):
relationship,
and that's just it. You know, the you
know,
I love hot dogs, but I don't grieve
when I can't have a hot dog.
That's a great example.
Different
when we're we're talking about
the the love
in a relationship, especially, you know, a two
way connection with another human soul being and
(12:53):
at the soul level. It's just so so
special.
And I think what we wanna
address is how hope
can lead us from the depths of grief
back to joy where meaning and purpose reunites
us, and you touched on this,
with the rest of our story Yeah. And
the future stories that are still within us
(13:14):
waiting to break out and be told.
So one thing I came to appreciate
as a chaplain is that grief is inevitable.
If you love, if you dare to love,
at some point, you will grieve.
Now that doesn't mean
you go through a life avoiding love. Heck,
you'd miss all the fun. Right? And you
(13:35):
miss those those special connections.
But that's why a deep and profound love
requires taking risks.
And and and,
I think about you and Carol's story,
when I say that in your book, None
Better.
As I, read your story, the the world
was telling you one thing,
(13:56):
but your heart was saying something very different.
Very good, Carol. Take the risk. It's worth
it. You didn't see that at the time,
but
it sure played out over time that God
was walking ahead, right? Yeah.
Yeah. So in my studies,
becoming a chaplain, I came across the writings
of Have you ever heard of Rumi?
(14:17):
Yes. Rumi is a wonderful thirteenth century,
poet and Sufi mystic.
Mhmm.
For me, what all all of what that
means, he said some pretty profound things that
here, you know,
eight hundred years later,
they still resonated
with me when encountering grief.
(14:37):
And one thing he said, I'm gonna read
it here,
grief can be the garden of compassion.
If you keep your heart open through everything,
your pain can become your greatest ally in
your life's search for love and wisdom.
And Wow.
(14:58):
And he went on to say
that well,
on that, what it tells me, what it
says to me is our pain informs us,
that pain becomes a part of us. And
what we do with that
driven
can create a compassionate
soul
because it starts with compassion for yourself.
(15:22):
Mhmm. And he went on to say, may
the beauty of what you love
be what you do.
And again, Joni, I I I had your
picture when I I read that, I saw
that. It made me, you know, think of
you. That love
is not just a part of our past,
(15:43):
but our lives.
But it it
lives within
us within us.
And we do,
in in what we do and what we
choose to do and how we approach. So
we can let that grief
weigh us down,
or we can take it, have it inform
us,
and through compassion starting with for ourselves,
(16:06):
find ways to share that with others through
story,
through, the lives that we live and the
things that we do
as we get our life moving again, you
know, in that,
you know, on that journey onto that next
chapter, so to speak. Yes.
Have you found, you know, in in doing
your work as a as a grief chaplain,
(16:28):
that timing for everybody is so different on
how they find that compassion,
that kindness to be to be kind to
themselves
and to move forward, Rick? Well, absolutely, Joni.
Everybody
you know, I I think of it in
terms of,
the story of our life.
(16:49):
You know.
It's
it's
it's written by us. I mean, you know,
we're we're we're, you know, it can be,
you know, dictated
by outside events,
but our choices in how we we deal
with that and address that are gonna be
very different.
You know, when I reflect on my own
life, I mean, I realize my existence, you
(17:10):
know, the evidence,
that I exist here on Earth,
is the narrative of my life. Mhmm. The
collection of stories I've been a part of
over the years.
And, you know, from that experience, my own
experience, that sense of self is not just
the collection of
the past experience along with my present stories
(17:31):
in progress, you
you know, that make up,
our our, you know, conscious continuity of our
identity.
That selfhood is also formed by our future
stories. Mhmm. Those aspects of one sense of
self growing out of that hopeful projection into
the future.
And so as we develop those stories and
(17:51):
and grief can kinda wallow us down. Uh-huh.
But as
we kinda take that and and and use
that
to
express our
foundation to hope,
which is the driving force for finding meaning
and purpose. Mhmm. So not everybody comes to
(18:11):
that,
you know, at the same time. You know,
they're gonna use their their
their worldly experiences.
They're going to use the
experience of the loss to inform them.
But in order to move forward,
they
will find
(18:31):
that to be a very personal process.
Absolutely. So there's, you know
I I remember one of the the attendees
when I attended the grief group
was there was a woman there
and her beloved I don't remember
husband, wife. I don't remember that part of
it. But, she had been in grief
heavy duty grief for five years, and she
(18:54):
was still attending
the grief support group. And I thought to
myself,
oh my gosh.
In five
years, do I still want to be attending
grief group,
in grief mode? And I said to myself,
Joni,
no. You don't. You need to move forward.
You promised that you would live every day
(19:15):
to the max.
You know? And that's the hope. And it's
so hard
to find your way out of that grief.
And but like you said, to share this
with other people, to have a leader, a
facilitator like you that would listen and guide
us was phenomenal, Rick. Mhmm. Talk a little
bit about the,
when you meet for our local group
(19:38):
and who can come,
how often can you come? Can you give
us some details about that? Sure. Sure.
Well, here in town, we meet the first
and third Tuesday of each month. Coastal Home
Health and Hospice, their location, 585
Fifth Street, across from the hospital there, where
we meet at 03:00, the first and third
(20:00):
Tuesdays of each month. We have an hour
session.
Anybody is welcome. Anybody
experiencing,
grief and loss of in any form.
Not just death. Not just death. Death. Loss
of a job or a loss of a
house. You know, we absolutely.
We've had folks
who
(20:21):
are caring for a loved one who is
suffering with
Alzheimer's,
you know, dementia,
and there is a pre grieving. I mean,
the person is still very much alive, but
the person they knew,
as their their memory fades,
they begin to lose that
connection with
in with those memories. And so,
(20:44):
you know, we've we've I have found sometimes
the the folks
have found that getting together and sharing that
story to be helpful.
To to that end, we have a caregiver
support group that we do on the second
Tuesday of each month, same location.
So And who would qualify as a caregiver?
You know, anybody who
is is, you know, providing,
(21:06):
that,
care for a loved one. You know? It
it could be,
you know,
a professional
caregiver and you know, but in the community,
or it could be someone and more most
of the folks that do attend
are providing care for a spouse,
a sibling,
a loved a child,
(21:27):
that's chronically ill, a loved one. Yeah. Wow.
Wow. You know, you know, and related to
that, I remember going thinking, do I really
wanna go to grief group? I thought, oh,
I don't need to do this. And then
it hit me and it said, maybe I'll
meet one of my best friends in my
life. Mhmm. You know? And and thanks be
to god, a a lady by the name
of Jenny Leffler, who lived in the town
(21:47):
at the time, she went to the meeting
thinking she wanted to find a best friend,
and her husband had died five days after
my carol. But I guess what I'm getting
at is you never know who might be
a part of your future, a part of
your hope that you meet at grief group.
That's just it. That's, you know, the the
beauty of
you know, we we think of our lives,
(22:08):
you know, the process of our, you know,
existing
through the metaphor of journey. You know, we're
travelers in the pilgrimage of, you know, trying
to uncover life's mysteries, find our place in
it,
and then loss happens. You know, we think
of that journey,
it implies movement towards a destination
with a starting point, a projected end point,
(22:29):
stops along the way, and potholes too.
And and, you know, that's where,
you know, you and Jenny, your story, you
know, you had you you were kinda in
that pothole. You know? Yeah. And you find
someone to be able to Our whole group,
there were seven of us that that somehow
we were connected all within a two week
period of losing our spouses. Yes. And we
(22:50):
went to lunches together, and we went to
movies together. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. So when
you when you think about that in terms
of the pilgrimage,
where we're at
is not necessarily
where we are going. Oh. You know, the
destination must be imagined as future story. What
gives us the energy for that journey, the
driving
force is
(23:12):
hope. Yes. And that's the one of our
themes here, that profound belief that there is
still more to our story, more life to
be experienced.
And we take that next step informed by
our loss,
keep them profound as it is, but we
learn to move with our grief.
The love we experienced and still have for
(23:32):
the one we lost can weigh us down
or it can energize us. Mhmm. Despair and
depression can set in,
and, you know, where we cannot connect with
that story
and we lose purpose.
And that's where I never like to hear,
when someone's asking for giving advice about dealing
with grief is, oh, you just need to
move on.
(23:53):
I mean, that's never been helpful. I've never
seen where that's helpful.
We need to learn to move with,
which is very What a great tip. Real.
That is such a great tip. And it's
now part of who we are. I mean,
you know, my
realization, I had a,
you call it,
you know, a joyously free moment
(24:13):
happened, at a very low point in my
life. Oh. And I found myself,
you know, slowly working my way back to
the faith and was sitting in a chapel.
And in our Catholic tradition, we have this
image of Christ called the divine mercy. Mhmm.
And our
Lord, in that picture has the wounds
(24:35):
of the cross.
And and his hands and his feet and
in his side, you know, and from his
side
flows the red
symbolizing the blood of our renewal, you know,
the baptism
the the the water from, you know, renewal
of life through baptism.
And what hit me, that day I'm sitting
in the chapel
(24:56):
and there's these words at the bottom of
the painting called Jesus, I trust in you.
Those words
shone
out at me.
And I realized that that moment, the revelation
for me, that joyously free moment was we're
all wounded.
When we meet our lord,
(25:17):
god willing,
he's gonna have the wounds of the cross.
Yeah. We're all wounded. We carry those wounds
with us. It's what we do with them
and how we allow that to inform us
that give us hope going forward.
Right on. Right on. You are so wise.
You are so spiritual. You never jam anything
down anybody's throats.
(25:39):
We're down to, like, a minute and a
half. Mhmm. Rick, we could keep going for
hours. How would
you finalize your last comments besides roomies?
How about giving us your final comments, please?
Sure. Well, Joni, again, thank you so much
for the opportunity to be here. I've enjoyed
this time and
our conversation. Amazing how quickly time flies.
(26:00):
You are a living witness to the things
we've been talking about.
We get we
get to choose
our attitude in any given sense of circumstance.
You know, that whatever life throws at us,
the pain, the suffering,
we get to choose how we respond to
that.
That is the ultimate human freedom
(26:23):
that cannot be taken away from us.
Whatever the circumstances,
you know, that spiritual freedom is what gives
life meaning and purpose.
And, again, you're a living witness to that.
And so are you. And there are listeners
out there, I bet you some of you
are fitting into that category if we have
a category of that as well. You know?
But if you're if you're hurting out there,
(26:44):
I would say get a hold of Home
Health Hospice, and we know it's
the second First and third. First and third
Thursdays. Brief support. The second Tuesday,
is for caregiver support. Fantastic. Fantastic.
Oh, listeners, thank you for being with us
today on Joyously Free. Thank you, Rick, big
time chaplain Rick, for for giving us your
(27:05):
words of wisdom, your joy, your your hopes,
your your special your special tips for the
day. I thank you from the top of
my heart, and I really, really mean that.
Thank you. Yes. We're blowing air kisses back
and forth here. So, also, of course, we
always need to thank KCIW one hundred point
seven FM LP, Brookings, Oregon. We have Mike
Gorse helping out today, Tom Bozak, Candice, and
(27:26):
Rose. You can find more information on kciw.org
for the future podcast if you don't have
time to listen, as well as my books,
2sisterswriting.com,
has all of them. So we wish you
a blessed day and a happy, happy day.
Hang in there and love big with big
colors and smiles that rock the world. Amen.
Amen.
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