Visitor impressions of the chapel and web site

"Everyone believes in something," said the man from his hospital bed this past week. "Everyone!" I saw those dark, expressive eyes light up his gaunt face. He explained that a few weeks back, he was still able to do everything, and now here he was in bed, hardly able to do anything at all. The church hadn't satisfied his spiritual needs for years now, but when he took bike rides out into the country and saw the birds and flowers, then he knew, he said, that there was a secret – a great secret – that sustained him. "I believe in life and in people," he said. "I think everyone needs something like that."

And what if you find yourself confined to a hospital or a nursing home, and those weekend bike rides are no longer an option? What if you cannot get out among the flowers or the people to experience that secret of life? What if your world has shrunk to the confines of your room, the patient lift, your wheelchair and the physical therapy gym? What if, since your stroke, you can no longer express yourself? What if your daily routine is determined by when you take your medicine or when caregivers have time to assist you in the bathroom? What if everything and everyone around you reminds you of the fact that you now find yourself in a health care facility, and your life revolves around all those things you cannot do yourself? Where does that leave you? What's left of who you were? Is there a place somewhere where you can leave it all behind? Where you can be reminded that life holds a secret, something that perhaps now, amid your troubles and pain, you need more than ever? Because what touches the body touches the soul. In times of crises, those age-old questions come up about the meaning of life, the reason we are here. How wonderful it can then be to have a place to go that takes you away from the world of health care and leads you back to that secret of life. And that secret – some call it God or Jesus, others Allah or the All, while some simply see it reflected in the eyes of their grandchildren – that secret sustains us. Whatever it may be, people need to draw strength from the secret in order to face life again, renewed. Where people by and large used to turn to the church as a source of strength and renewal, with its fixed rituals and fellowship, many today have developed their own personal ways of reaching the secret. We have become more individualized and look for strength in our own private ways.

That is why it is so fantastic that this chapel has been built at Delfshaven Nursing Home. Here is a place to go to find the strength and inspiration we need to help and sustain us – a place designed to allow the visitor to go beyond the walls of medicine and this facility and to find peace within themselves or with the Other. In plain English, it is a place to pray, meditate, light a candle, sit quietly, cry, smile, be with others, be alone, or whatever helps you and brings you peace. It is a place for everyone: non-believer, Catholic, Muslim, Hindu, Jew, Protestant, Humanist, something other-ist – however you see yourself. A place where we can, in all our differences, experience what we have in common: that we are all human, living at this time and in this place.