Trading Life On The Stage For The Robes Of A Cleric Works For Hospital Priest

PORTLAND, Ore. - Sometimes your child's heart knows what your life's work must be.

Jon Buffington knew at 5 that he wanted to be a priest. His mother discouraged the serious little "church rat," urging him to play football when he'd rather read about St. Ignatius or sing in the boys' choir.

So he became a stage actor, doing a TV series and print and television commercials.

Now, Shakespeare knew that all the world's a stage, especially a drama-filled hospital.

Which is why the Rev. Jon Buffington, a priest at last, is so at home as he moves from bed to bed at Providence Portland Medical Center in Northeast Portland.

"I'm still center stage. I get to dress up funny, and people have to listen to me," jokes the boyish 48-year-old. "Plus I have better scripts, although the hero (Jesus) dies in the middle."

You may remember him as the red-haired firefighter on "Emergency" in 1980-81, but Buffington has been a hospital chaplain for 12 years, the last 5 1/2 at Providence.

Buffington's shtick is a quick, crazy humor tempered with a lover's tenderness. Both seem to soothe his patients.

"All right, this is a stick-up!" he booms as he bounces into a patient's room. In another, he holds a middle-aged double-amputee's hand, strokes her brow, calls her "sweetheart" and "punkin."

Sporting corduroys and a black-and-gray argyle sweater over his clerical collar, the priest appears to have all the time in the world as he teases, comforts and offers communion. Yet he sits with up to 30 people a day, sometimes conducts televised daily Mass and is on emergency call two to five nights weekly at Providence Portland and Providence St. Vincent hospital and medical centers.

The rewards of his hands-on ministry are many: "I get to be there in people's need. I see them through their illness, do funerals and help families come to terms with it."

Joanne Woodruff is sitting with her hospitalized father, Floyd Woodruff, 74, who fell at home, breaking his ankle and tearing tendons.

"Jon was here for us with mother when she died of cancer," the daughter says. "Mom loved him. He really perked her up and kept her going."

And yet the priest with all the punch lines misses his old life. He's a ham who loves the camera. Show biz gave him what his childhood did not: knowing he's loved, knowing where he stands.

Buffington's dad was a stern man in charge of military prisons; his mother was a nurse and practicing alcoholic. For years Buffington felt "like an outcast in my own skin."

"Theater's how I proved I was alive. It gave me a sense of self-worth, approval, joy. I was doing a lot of healing," he says of his career from age 23 to 33.

Melinda Tanner, a New York actress, performed with him in the musical "Godspell" in the mid-'70s, touring small towns in Italy.

"Jon was absolutely in his element in that show. And when everybody else was out partying, he'd be planning the trip for the next day, an explanation of every fresco on every church. I think I had an honorary sisterhood by the time I left."

Buffington's dream came true when he was ordained at 33: "God has a long arm and a vicious sense of humor. I didn't decide it was time. God got tired of me shilly-shallying around and said, `Now.' "

He was ordained to the Chaldean Rite one of the oldest branches of the Catholic Church and widespread in Asia.

Buffington began chaplain work in 1984 at St. Mary's Hospital in San Francisco. Hospitals suit him where a parish wouldn't.

"I can't ask for money and I don't care if the roof leaks," he said, "but I'm good in a crisis. When someone needs, I'm in my element. People who are sick are very honest; it's a good place for me."

The priest contends that acting's a perfect way to prepare for the ministry: "You learn that words aren't just words, they have a meaning, and you need to express that meaning so people understand.

"I try to make Christ alive for people, make the experience of Jesus real, immediate. With the sick, I need to make people feel they've experienced the healing touch of Jesus.

"They might not have a physical healing, but they need to hear those words: `I do will to be with you in your sickness.' "