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Celebrate Pastoral Care Week Oct. 22 - 26 by George M. Rossi Chaplain, MUSC Medical Center Have you ever walked into an intensive care unit, nursing station or doctor’s station and found everyone laughing out loud and wondered, “What’s so funny?” This is a common experience for me in my daily chaplain work. Many times I wish I would have been able to hear what was said before my arrival. It is always nice to see staff laughing and enjoying themselves as they go about their very intense and serious work of caring for injured and critically ill patients.   Television commercials do a great job of using humor to sell or promote a product or event. One of my all-time favorite commercials is an ESPN commercial. It is the one where the university mascots (Cocky from South Carolina, Hairy Dawg from Georgia and Brutus Buckeye from Ohio State) are all together showcasing their talents and jockeying for the spotlight as mascot of the year. At the end of the commercial the Georgia bulldog mascot comes out of one of those portable outhouses and to everyone’s astonishment he has some toilet paper hanging from his backside!   One wise writer said, “A merry heart does good like medicine.” This speaks to our emotional and spiritual needs more than physical. It is clear that humor is good for our souls. One of my most important roles is to bless both the mundane and the sacred. Blessing the sacred is easy. Blessing the earthly and even funny things in life and ourselves can be a little challenging and risky. Our common humanness can easily become the point of connection in our serious work of healing the sick.   One may ask the difference between mundane humor and healing humor, but I am not sure the distinction between both is worth addressing. Healing humor might be as simple as something that a person finds funny, touches their mind, heart, and soul in a funny way.  Healing humor is in the “ear of the hearer,” so to speak. My goal is to bless those who find humor in their work as I visit and do my rounds. I need that same blessing from co-workers. Almost all of us need someone to laugh with when we find humor in our work.   It is not uncommon for medical staff to both cry and laugh with family members at the bedside of a person who is dying or who has died. It is one of the paradoxical moments in life where both crying and laughing happen at the same time.   I was with a patient’s husband recently at the time of his wife’s death. During our emotional meeting, he cracked a joke and asked me if it was OK. I smiled, and appreciated his humor and honesty at such a raw time. His humorous comment was definitely unexpected, which seems to be more the norm rather than exception.   May your work and life be filled with vignettes of healing humor.     Friday, Oct. 27, 2006 Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at 792-4107 or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to Catalyst Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Island Publications at 849-1778, ext. 201.