Journal of Sacred Work

Days 115-119 - Creating the Sacred

    Wherever Love arrives, that place becomes sacred. 

     There is no such thing as sacred space (or a healing hospital) without Love.

    Whenever Love enters a relationship it brings with it the blessing of the sacred. 

    Love thrives when it encounters a receiving soul (symbolized at left as the woman honors the entry of the clouded sun.)

   The first appreciation of Beauty was the signal event in our higher evolution and laid the groundwork for our worship of God's Love. 

   This recognition probably came when the first people enjoyed flowers not for any "use" but as an expression of Beauty.

   The same epiphany occured when the classic female form was perceived not only as sexual but as Beauty speaking the language of the spirit (photograph below.)

   Sex is appetite. Beauty is spiritual. When joined they express true marriage in this world.  

   Great art only appears when an artist allows Love to move through him or her. An image of a nude is sacred or profane based on whether Love is present in both the creation and in the heart of the viewer. 

   There is no justice without Love. Love's presence makes the delivery of justice sacred. 

   Places classified as sacred: churches, temples, mosques, hospitals, courtrooms, museums lose their sacredness when Love's entry is blocked. For Jesus the money-changers in the temple were interferring with God's presence. 

   God does not live in a "holy" structure. God lives in our hearts.

   An excessive focus on "money-changing" crowds out the sacred. Such an obsessive "transaction focus" converts hospitals to little more than brothels where "love" is faked in exchange for money.

   Both settings are obscene because in both such places humanity is degraded. 

   No place becomes sacred merely by its physical location. Any place where Love meets need becomes clothed with holiness.

   When a housekeeper enters a room to comfort a man in pain, that space immediately glows with the holy. When a nurse ignores policy to stroke the back of a dying three-day-old being that bassinet becomes sacred.

   What about flowers, sky, forest, and sea? Nature wears Love's raiment. We encounter this sacredness the moment we extend our hand to meet God's.

   If we want our work to matter, if we want to bring quality into our encounters, compassion must be present.

   Shallow thinking causes us to believe that we can sustain quality care without Love - that only we can bring skill. God is excluded from this way of thinking.

   It is Love that transforms everyday caregiving into healing encounters. Quality care programs are doomed to failure when they are grounded in fear and rely on rote performance. 

   Caregivers are not called to fix widgets but to meet human need. 

   Their charge is to allow God to create sacred space through them in every encounter, in every place, all the time.

-Reverend Erie Chapman

*Photographs:

1. Madrid, 2012

2. "Figure Study - Afternoon Light" - copyright dane dakota 2009

Days 111-112 - How Childhood Stories Become Life

   Recently, our family of eight was reassembled on vacation. At bedtime, I walked down the darkened back hallway and overheard my adult children putting their small children to sleep.

   Behind one door,my grandson laughed as my son told him stories derived from tales I told him gleaned from ones my father told me. I recalled an image of him speaking at a camp chapel gathering twenty-five years ago (left) reciting parables. Today, as a trial lawyer, he knows the power of storytelling. 

   Behind the next door, I heard my daughter quiet-voicing her two to sleep with lullabys my wife and I used to sing to her.  

   Stories can bespeak Grace.  

   What my grandchildren heard was Love. The stories they listened to weren't coming from a television set or a video game but from the voices of their parents.

   We pass down caring with our stories. Through them, we teach without instructing. 

   Stories matter because, like a good joke, the listener gets to appreciate what the story means to them personally.

   There's usually not much Love in instructions. Rules often call for obedience, not caring. Regulations are put in place not because we trust each other but because we don't. 

  Nurses are told that visiting hours are over at 8:30 p.m. and may enforce that rule, not necessarily because they care about patients and families but because it's their duty to enforce policies. 

   There's nothing inherently wrong with rules and instructions. We all need them.

   What matters is the intention behind our decisions to carry out a set of rules.

   If I live Love my choice to follow guidelines helps caring. If I enforce laws unthinkingly, I am no more than a Nazi soldier obeying by rote, not by Love. 

   Better than either is what happens when I hear a story that illuminates Love.

   The stories my grandchildren hear from their parents are a way they learn how to live. 

   One day, beyond my knowing, they will pass this caring onto their children. Thus, they will bring light into the world.

   Right now, we can do the same. If I choose to communicate through orders, I may signal I don't trust the listener.

   When I decide to share a guideline through a parable, I act in the fashion of Jesus and the prophets of other faiths. I show that I can count on the listener to appreciate what happens when the chance arrives to figure out how the stories apply in everyday life. 

   If you want mere obedience, shout out rules. If you want to live Love, live Love's example - and tell stories that prove it.

-Erie Chapman

Days 108-110 - How Do Stories Change Us?

   Our stories define our lives. Particular stories can change the direction of our journey - the ones told by family and friends, the ones described in books, movies and on television and  the stories we tell each other.

   Most crucial of all, of course, are the stories we tell ourselves.

   Here are three books that have changed my life over the last several years: David Whyte's masterpiece, The Heart Aroused, John O'Donohue's Beauty and Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth.

   Along with this is the writing and speaking of storyteller Minton Sparks and my own book upon which this work is based, Radical Loving Care. 

   "...all our demons rise to meet us at the prospect of a fall," David Whyte writes. [There is] "the deep physical shame that we can never measure up.

   This is the plight of all sincere caregivers - the worry that we "can never measure up." We seek, we pursue and we often succeed. But we seem unable to accept that we have, in fact, done the best that we could.

   In other words, the demon-fire of shame burns us into a tragic corner. 

   This demon crumbles if we absorb what Eckhard Tolle writes: "The ego takes everything personally."  Obvious as it is, these five words struck me like a lightning bolt. 

   Tolle's path away from ego is, first,  to notice that the pain-body of our ego is shouting the wrong messages at us.

   We are not our ego. We are spiritual beings who can live well on this earth when our intention and actions arise out of Spirit, not out of ego. 

   We, as caregivers, are not what we do. We are grounded in Being, not in ego. 

   Only when we act in this world out of the Love rather than ego can we  practice the art of healing. 

   To escape the insatiable appetite of the ego, we move towards our spiritual Being and allow our lives, as healers, to be directed from The Source within us that is God.

   God is Love. 

   Where are Love's images? "The words sea and ocean are too small to image such wild divinity," John O'Donohue writes. 

   This is the world of loving caregivers. There are no words to describe the "wild divinity" that illuminates healing. 

   This is language that can send us beyond language - the knowing that it is powerful to pursue the art of description and to know, ultimately, that we may touch the hem but not the center.

   God will not accede to description. For this, we can only accept a "knowing" that is as personal, deep and sacred as the "flow of the ocean."

   Minton Sparks writes,  "Riding together but all alone/ Time sings/ 'Nothing but dust in the wind, child./ Why did you even get in?"

   We are "in" for now, living our story of the world moment by moment in eternity.

   Sparks responds to her own question:  

   "I'll answer:/ Cause I mighta missed,/ Cause I mighta missed/ Cause I mighta missed this ride."

   How rich "this ride" becomes when our story moves beyond the clatter of ego to become the song of our Being. 

-Reverend Erie Chapman 

Days 244-246 - Just You

 As of September 4, 2011 at 2:33 P.M. (C.S.T.) the world held 6,959,939,818 people.  -World Population Clock

   Soon, there will be seven billion.

   And just you.

   You are the performer. You are the audience.

   You are the caregiver. You are the patient.

   In the beginning God welcomed you into the house of your body. You have made your house a home.

   You are the daughter of the sun. You are the son of the earth. You are God's only child.

   Unnumbered scars map your heart. Veins of gold illuminate your spirit and there is no doubt that you are the only one who can touch those veins, read the life of the leaf, know love's throbbing dance. 

   The chapters of your being are written by the sounds that have entered you and the scents that have breezed your memory. Your skin recalls sacred touch and angry slap. Warm zephyrs and the breath of winter know just you. 

   Your eyes have seen the world's prism, felt's pain's spasms, watched beauty curve, been cut by the serrated saw of the ugly. You have noticed the texture of tree bark, heard your feet touch the forest path, felt your body pierce the lake.

   Your tongue remembers bread. Rain has healed your throat.

   You are the only person who knows how you feel, thinks what you think.

   Yours are the words that matter. There is nothing more important then your presence.

   In your rooms live the only people you have ever known. Your hands alone know the feel of this moment's air.

    Just you know the glories of your day. Only you know the agonies of your night. 

    You are the single one who knows your hardest truth. You are the only one who can tell your story.

    [On September 4, 2011 at 2:36 p.m. the world held 6,959,941,211 people.]

    During the minutes you read this essay, Love welcomed another thousand into this world and received hundreds who left it.

   Soon, there will be seven billion.

   And just you.

  -Reverend Erie Chapman  

 

Days 179-180 For Love Knows Us

                                                                         

                                                                                   Mandala: (colored pencils) by ~liz

In the Mind of God

    We catch intimate glimpses

of shadows and light

Your radiance illuminates

my thoughts

in fleeting  moments

that can only be held

in colors of gratitude

For each spoke

of wheel’s turning

balances the spoken

with your unseen nature

The crowning thorns

we no longer  need

for  Love knows us

 as Holy

                                              ~liz

 

 

 

Day 271 - Love In The Presence of "Ugly."

   My colleague, Cathy Self, returned from working with one of our client hospitals in Texas with an entertaining story. One of the staff at the hospital had been listening to the CD of my book, Radical Loving Care, in her kitchen. The tape was set on open speaker so that she could cook while listening.  Her ten year old daughter came in, listened to the CD for awhile, and then said to her mom, "Why do adults need to be taught how to love?"
   Why, indeed? 
   Right before I heard that story, Dawn Meadows-Thrasher, another colleague, brought a hard tale about love to my attention. On December 5, 2003, Carolyn Thomas was laughing on the phone with a friend when Kelly, her estranged husband, burst into her room and shot her, the bullet tearing across her face. He then murdered Carolyn's mother. According to police, the motive stemmed from love twisted into insane jealousy.
    Ms. Thomas lingered near death for many days. When she recovered, she could only see out of one eye. What she saw in the mirror must have horrified her. Her once beautiful face was terribly distorted to the point where she became known as "The Woman Without a Face."
    Extensive reconstructive surgery has rebuilt Carolyn's face to the point seen in the image on this page. Much more important, Carolyn has become the face of courage to millions who have seen her on Oprah and through countless appearances across the country. She has become an eloquent spokesperson on the subject of domestic violence, speaking on behalf of countless, mostly anonymous women who have been subjected to the terror of chronic and acute abuse.
   How do we find Love in the presence of what many would describe as an "ugly face?" Caregivers with open hearts help heal people like Carolyn every day. Could we find Love for Ms. Thomas if we saw her in the grocery store and didn't know her heart-rending story? Or would we simply feel that condescending reaction called pity?
   Why do adults need to be taught how to love? Somehow, we forget what we know, or try and twist Love into something it is not. Love does not possess. Possessiveness toward any other human being comes from fear, not Love.
   Meanwhile, Carolyn Thomas says she has found her purpose in life. She says she used to wonder, "Am I here to be a machine operator for the rest of my life?" Now she knows that a big part of her purpose in life is to teach other adults how to love.

-Erie Chapman

Day 256 - God at Work

"What we strive for/ in perfection/ is not what turns us/ into the lit angel/ we desire,// what disturbs/ and then nourishes/has everything/ we need." - David Whyte (from The House of Belonging)

   "We don't want people practicing religion here at work," I heard an executive say recently. "Keep your faith to yourself." I suppose this leader was trying to prevent employees here in the Bible Belt of Tennessee from evangelizing. But his message runs the great risk of being misinterpreted.

   Living God at work does not require that we bring a particular religion into our workplace. Yet, it breaks my heart to think that loving caregivers somehow feel that have to leave God in the car when they begin their job.

   Since God is Love, why would we leave God behind? If we are not living our faith as we labor, what are we living?

   Indeed, as Yale Divinity School Professor David Miller points out in his book, God at Work, the faith at work movement in America has deep roots. We can not only live our faith at work but need to if we are going to preserve the vitality of our souls.

   Fortunately, as Whyte points out, Love does not call us to perform perfectly. Courageous caregivers understand that their best efforts to be present to patients will nourish themselves as well as their patients.

   Whyte writes to all of us in a stanza I have quoted before, here: "Inside everyone/ is a great shout of joy/ waiting to be born."

   This "great shout" is the voice of Love. May we let this voice flow through us and into the hearts of others on this day and every day.

   What does it mean to you to bring God to your work?

-Erie Chapman 

Day 250 - Labor Day's Labor

   Except when I'm meditating, I have lots of trouble sitting still and relaxing the way most people seem to do. I don't think this is good and it is certainly the opposite of what I am recommending to caregivers all the time - to practice good self care.

   On Labor Day morning, I walked a few steps to the high part of our tiny backyard. Chickadees chattered warnings to each other as if I might harm them. The cicadas sounded unusually desperate, perhaps aware that, like all their ancestors, their life's season is brief. Raindrops from a night storm clung to their own last moments as the sun adopted its mid-morning angle.     

    As I sat on the curved concrete bench that is the only piece of furniture in our yard, I thought about all the caregivers that were laboring on Labor Day. As everyone knows, hospitals, nursing homes and hospices never close.

   In the same way, people are always falling ill or falling into acccidents. They need skilled help to raise them back to balance. And they need it from loving caregivers willing to work while others are enjoying a day of rest.

   I've been watching the moon a lot recently. Too often, I miss out on the way he sits up there all white on his navy blanket.

   I wonder how many caregivers, walking to or from their cars in a parking lot drenched by night take a moment to gaze skyward; or whether they do that when they reach home. And I wonder how many caregivers, after working the night shift on Labor Day, will find some rest today.

-Erie Chapman

Days 239-241 - The Real Legacy

   On a sunny summer day in 1967, I encountered a cheerful young Senator as he spoke to other young people who were working, as I was then, on Capitol Hill. My most enduring memory of him was not his speech, which included a stirring appeal for universal health care, but how happy and carefree he seemed.   

   He was only 36 years old then. The world lay before him and it must have looked like his oyster. I saw him as he waved good luck to a few of us outside the Capitol and then watched as he climbed into his green Chevrolet and drove off.

   As we all know, Teddy Kennedy had money, good looks a great name, and many talents. Back then, the traits of his that were most underestimated were his remarkable skill and endurance as a legislator and his passionate commitment to one big issue: health care.  

   With all that has been written and spoken the last few days about the late Senator there is one particular way to honor him that exceeds all others. Teddy said often and eloquently that universal health care was "the cause of my life."

   If our country's leaders really honor the Senator as much as they say they do, a majority of them will see to it that the poor and under-insured will finally receive what Kennedy said was a right, not a privilege: quality health care.

   Can you think of a better way to honor this last of the Kennedy brothers than that?

-Erie Chapman 

Days 236-237 - The Quiet People

"[Emily Dickinson] was not an alcoholic, she was not abusive, she was not neurotic, she did not commit suicide. Neurotic people or alcoholics...make better copy, and people talk about them, tell anecdotes about them. The quiet people just do their work."  - Joyce Carol Oates

   What can we say about people who, as Oates wrote, "just do their work"? We know that these legions of "quiet people" form the foundation of successful caregiving. They come and go to hospitals, nursing homes, hospices, and other charities day after day, shift after shift. They don't demand attention. And they usually don't get it.

   The quiet people are the ones who so often deliver Radical Loving Care behind drawn curtains, in operating rooms, to tiny patients living in bassinets and to clients who come for help to repair their broken souls. They are also the housekeepers who no one notices, the dietary employees who diligently and skillfully prepare meals, the maintenance staff members who fix plumbing, repair broken beds, fix the air conditioning and keep the heating running at the right levels. They look through laboratory micoscopes in search of disease-causing bacteria, they organize medical records so other caregivers can find them when they need them. They are the anonymous healers who answer suicide hotlines.

   The quiet people don't seek medals or prizes. In fact, they don't seek any attention at all from the wider world. What many yearn for is to simply follow their calling with determination, skill, humility and grace. They don't seek recognition. They seek to live Love.

   Perhaps, you are one of these quiet and loving people. I have seen you cleaning floors, transporting patients down the hallway, carrying blood samples to the lab. I have noticed occasional expressions that reflect, perhaps, the monotony of some of the work you do. You know that no one sees you and that your focus is on the job before you. You are the quiet people, the silent heroes, the humble servants of Love.

   I celebrate you today and every day and night.

-Erie Chapman