Laura Simmons

 Laura Simmons, a member of West Hills Friends Meeting, is currently serving as a palliative-care chaplain fellow at the VA medical center in Portland. She began her chaplaincy training during a 2007 sabbatical from George Fox Seminary, where she taught for 17 years.

Laura volunteered and worked as an on-call chaplain for about a decade, responding to what she calls the “sacrament of the late-night phone call.” Laura’s mother lived in Oregon for the last 10 months of her life, and Laura notes, “Whenever the phone rang in the middle of the night, something awful had happened: ‘Your mother’s in the hospital.’ ‘She fell again.’ When I was doing on-call chaplaincy and the phone rang in the middle of the night, I got to go help the people who were receiving one of those awful calls. Not everybody experiences the phone ringing in the night as a holy thing—I’m glad I get to.”

Laura’s favorite class to teach at the seminary was a course on reconciliation. “I got to watch God move in the classroom, which was an amazing thing to experience over and over again each year.” Laura’s primary metaphor for teaching was ‘hospitality,’ following Parker Palmer’s contention that “to teach is to create a space for the community of truth to be practiced.” She sees her work in chaplaincy as another form of creating and holding space in which God moves—in hearts and hurts, through whispers and wonder.

Laura spent many years engaged in a back-and-forth with God about leaving the seminary: “Is it time for me to leave?” “No—I need you back there.” When she finally departed in 2018, she found herself moving from a vocation focused on doing to one centered around being. “In the academic world, it’s all about what tools you have in your toolbox—and believe me, with my broad assortment of classes, I left with a rich and complex set of tools. In the chaplaincy-training world, I am the tool being developed and honed for God’s purposes.” Laura came to the Quakers because she felt led to be part of a more contemplative community, and also one in which her now former vocation was not the primary way in which people knew her.

2020 has been a year of uncertainty for all of us. Laura is unsure what the conclusion of her fellowship in August of this year will bring, but trusts that will become clear in time. Until then, she watches to see how God will use her in another kind of battle, at a hospital during a pandemic. Your prayers and friendship are appreciated!