Today I was in a meeting in which some clips from an old M.A.S.H. episode were used as discussion starters. In this episode, chaplain Father Mulcahey is wondering if he is making any significant contribution to the life and death struggles of the hospital camp in the war zone. His internal questioning compares his daily activities of prayer, worship services, and gofer tasks in the OR to the obviously essential work of the surgeons and nurses. He regards himself as "hanging around the edges of effectiveness."
Most of us in the group could relate to his feelings. Often the official representatives of Christianity seem to be on the periphery of today's task-oriented culture. Society seems to question the relevance of our message and ministry, and at times we ourselves succumb to the kind of self-doubt that plagued the chaplain of the M.A.S.H. unit. But in that episode of the show, Hawkeye points out that the good Father makes a contribution simply by being there, by representing the ideas and values that lift the human spirit, by being an encourager and spiritual/ethical compass.
The most straightforward definition of a witness is one who was there, one who saw the event, one who could report the facts. By being there, and being there with his spiritual eyes open, even from the fringe of effectiveness, Mulcahey was a witness. What about us?
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