Overview

Pondering death and the (im)possibility of a life-after-death is as old as the Epic of Gilgamesh. It is also part of the awkward encounters between hospice caregivers and the recipients of their care. Some of the unsettled beliefs and dark emotions, however, become glossed over as irrelevant to the clinical contexts. Moreover, to the extent chaplains are largely presumed to be Christian, offering solace and compassion from a particular and often proselytizing point of view, those coping with terminal illness may find their feelings inhibited or, in some cases, streamlined or censored. Hospice Chaplain, Interrupted enters this fray by acknowledging that chaplains, charged with care for patients at the end-of-life (as well as their grieving survivors), are never unbiased observers; philosophy and poetry therefore are proffered as those surprising fissures in the topography from which a healthy self-awareness and more permeable boundaries may arise. Is death itself the most consequential interruption known to the self-conscious human being? Are beliefs about life-after-death often naive and treated as trite or as ornamental to what's really happening beneath the surface? If so, might the spiritual caregiver offer a unique service to believers and non-believers alike by interrupting their seemingly comfortable certainties? Not all interruptions are rude, uncouth, or insensitive; some hold space for thoughts that cannot ultimately be thought and for feelings that seem too unfaithful to express.

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Reviews

""Scott Kinder-Pyle has been an apprentice in his pastoral vocation, a bold and prophetic church planter--which is not exactly like being a high-wire acrobat but contains comparisons--and a university professor; the accumulated experiences have been perceived through the eyes of a poet. In this work, due to the poetic vision of the hospice chaplain, we see into those liminal spaces, mundane moments, and aching nostalgia experienced and awaiting us all. A compelling and perspicacious read!"" --Michael J. Gehring, Visiting Professor of the History of Christianity, Hood Theological Seminary ""Encounters with hospice chaplains are often interruptions--hopefully meaningful, yet by design both distinctive and short-lived. The best encounters involve storytelling, times of silence, and ideally a degree of comfort offered from one child of God to another. Scott Kinder-Pyle's poetry well captures these events, doing so with an honesty and vivacity that prompts us to think deeply about what we feel. It invites us to stay alert for hints of the divine amid the mundane and mortal. If this is also an interruption, it is a very welcome one indeed."" --Randall Bush, Interim Pastor, Immanuel Presbyterian Church, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Author Information

C. Scott Kinder-Pyle was raised amid the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the youngest of five children, born to Robert and Avanell Pyle. A graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary (1988), where he met his spouse, Sheryl Lynn Kinder, he became an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and has served in a variety of settings as pastor, adjunctive professor and chaplain. Scott and Sheryl have launched two children, Ian and Philip, into adulthood and pray for their continued journeys into the wondrous love of God imbued in all things, seen and unseen. For Scott, writing poems has always been a haven... as well as a haunt for jackals. His Doctor of Ministry thesis (from Columbia Theological Seminary in 2008) was entitled Pastor as Struggling Poet, and in 2013, he received his Master of Fine Arts degree from Eastern Washington University. Kinder-Pyle's essays and poems have been published in Sojourners, Theology Today and various other literary journals. In 2018, his collection, There's No I in Debris, and subtitled, Except This One, included verse describing his complex relationship with the institutional church and its witness to Jesus of Nazareth. In 2025, following his certification as a chaplain in the Association of Professional Chaplains, he published Hospice Chaplain, Interrupted, which contemplates end-of-life scenarios as grief-laden interruptions to our all-too-certain and trivialized understandings of the Mystery of the Divine Presence. Chaplain Scott still strives to serve as a hospice chaplain, an interim pastor in the P.C. (USA), a spouse, a father, a Philadelphia sports fan, a lazy fisher for trout, a water-color artist, a friend to the vulnerable, a poet and child of God.

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