An Uninvited, Unexpected, Understudy

They finger Death at their gloves' end where they piece and repiece the living wires. 

He rears against the gates they tend: they feed him hungry behind their fires.

Early at dawn, ere men see clear, they stumble into his terrible stall, 

And hale him forth like a haltered steer, and goad and turn him till evenfall.

Rudyard Kipling - The Sons' of Martha 

Kipling's "The Sons' of Martha" is one of my favorite poems.  It divides the world into simplistic pairs, and spares no one. Whether Mary or Martha, the lash of Kipling's wit is visited upon your shoulders by the end of the last stanza. 

Chaplains have always fascinated me. Whether they are roaming the floors of a hospital in search of hurting and haunted patients who are hovering on the cusp of departure, or weaving among hale and healthy soldiers who hover just as closely to the Event Horizon of this Mortal Coil, they seem other-worldly in their otherness. Emissaries of another existence, sent forth to check the passports of potential immigrants.

For eons death has been proceeded by the Spiritual Guides of every religion or spiritual expression Humanity has known. The strangeness of the Priest in clerical clothing surrounded by uniformed humanity who in moments must face Death's dull blade. To offer "Holy Unction" to uniformed men who in moments will enter battle to die or deal death, or to offer the uniformed sick a "Holy Unction" to ease their passage to another realm. 

Yet unction has gained other meanings as time has past and language evolves:

• UNCTION (noun)
  The noun UNCTION has 4 senses:

1. excessive but superficial compliments given with affected charm
2. smug self-serving earnestness
3. semisolid preparation (usually containing a medicine) applied externally as a remedy or for soothing an irritation
4. anointing as part of a religious ceremony or healing ritual

  

I have been curious about these Collared Clerics who appear as heralds of heaven or hell and bring both peace and purgatory to deathly dormitories. 

Now I find myself studying the steps of a collared cleric and I'm intrigued to discover the subtle steps of these uninvited counselors. 

A ten week class in a Seminary called "Pastor as Counselor" may help me understand the robes and roles my pastoral friends wear so often. I feel like the understudy, who learns all the lines, with the understanding that I'll only be called to perform if the leading man fails to show up. 

I've always seen Chaplains as representing the first three of the definitions for unction. Now I get to see what exactly the fourth definition means....