Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”
I’m Meghan E. Janssen (she/her/hers), an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and a hospital chaplain serving the Palliative Care Service of a large medical center in the Bronx, NY. At the intersections of life and death, illness and healing, hope and loss, I offer spiritual and emotional support to people of all faiths and no faith.
I once imagined that being an effective minister meant having answers, rendering the impossible possible, and always knowing the right thing to say. In my work as a chaplain, I keep learning to think otherwise, to make more space for uncertainty, ambiguity, and my own unresolved doubts.
A few other things I’m working on each day:
- making more art
- practicing antiracism
- parenting two little ones
- speaking my truth
- listening for God in the questions