c. 2004 Religion News Service

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. _ As 98-year-old Viola Garfield looked up from her bed at Faush Manor Apartments, she could have thought she was in heaven.

On either side of her bed were two women wearing red sweaters and strumming small harps. As they played, she recognized the words from “Amazing Grace” and began to sing along, her voice quaking as the song ended.

“Amen,” she said.

Chaplains Lynn Bledsoe and Mary Porter then began strumming another song, “Silent Night.”

Bledsoe and Porter started a ministry this year called Ruth & Naomi, an outreach of First Presbyterian Church of Birmingham. They provide spiritual care to the elderly, playing harps and singing, praying and talking with patients.

“We try to make a healing environment,” Porter said.

They have a contract to provide care for New Beacon Hospice patients for 20 hours a week.

Usually one or the other of them will arrive with harp in hand to play for hospice patients of the Baptist and St. Vincent’s health systems. They have already visited more than 100 patients.

“They have played for several patients at the time of death,” said Zelma Pattillo, coordinator of spiritual care for New Beacon Hospice.

The chaplains try to match the moods of the patients. “If they’re actively dying, we get very quiet,” Bledsoe said.

The ordained Presbyterian chaplains believe that the harp music remains very meaningful, up to the moment of death. “The hearing is the last sense to go,” Porter said. “Music can get through.”

Many people have strong emotions and memories stirred by familiar music, even when they have lost the power of speech, the chaplains said. Harp music has become a national trend in treating hospice patients, they said.

“Harps are therapeutic because of the vibrations,” Bledsoe said. “There are all sorts of claims about harps and healing.”

They have even watched blood pressure decline on monitors as patients relaxed and heart rates slowed. “It’s very soothing,” Porter said.

“They are a quiet, comforting presence,” Pattillo said.

Not everyone wants to feel escorted to heaven by angelic harps, though.

“I’ve had some say, `I’m not dead yet!”’ Bledsoe said. “They want jazzier things.”

Some have even requested country music, she said. “I guess I need to learn a country song.”

The harps are often a window to their ministry, the chaplains say. “Often, we’ll put the harp down, talk, sing and pray,” Bledsoe said.

As Bledsoe and Porter strummed “Silent Night,” Garfield lit up with recognition. On her wall, she has a plaque from Jackson Street Baptist Church, recognizing her as a “Mother of the Church.” She also sang in the choir for many years.

“Holy infant, so tender and mild,” she sang.

As the song ended, a smile crossed her face.

“That’s beautiful,” she said.

KRE/PH END RNS