Lessons at the Bedside: Experiences of a Hospice Chaplain

Located at Covenant Church 4949 Caroline St, Houston, TX

Lessons at the Bedside: Experiences of a Hospice Chaplain
After fifty years of serving as a music therapist, Ginger now volunteers as a hospice chaplain at Omega House in the Montrose area of Houston, Texas. To bring compassionate presence to the bedside of terminal patients, she draws on decades of practicing various forms of meditation and the Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music (GIM), which uses carefully chosen selections of classical music to elicit inner imagery. In Ginger’s experience, at the threshold between life and death, people enter numinous realms that offer mysterious teachings to those of us who are fortunate to be witnesses. When words fail, the resonance of music can assist terminal patients during their process of dying. Meditation practice gives Ginger a profound respect for the value of silence during transcendent moments that can occur right before death.
Bio
Ginger trained in Buddhist Chaplaincy at the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care and serves as chaplain at Omega House hospice in Houston. She is a Board-Certified Music Therapist, a Primary Trainer of Guided Imagery and Music (GIM), and Community Dharma Leader Emerita of Insight Meditation Houston. Her publications include Spiritual Dimensions of Guided Imagery and Music; Poems from the Heart of Silence; A Silent Cure: Transforming Preverbal Trauma Through Meditation; and I Dreamed I Was Normal: A Music Therapist’s Journey into the Realms of Autism.