Change calls us to leave our comfort zone.
The status quo is the comfort zone.
Change happens in the challenge zone.
- Erie Chapman
Meditation so often calls us to contemplate beauty. For many, beauty is a watchword for nature...
Perhaps the first poem you ever heard began: Roses are red, Violets are blue... Poetry, art, literature flow from sensitive observation of the world around us. Poem after poem is grounded in nature. What is happening to nature as we know it? Could roses & violets become endangered flowers? Until Hurricane Katrina, few people imagined that an entire city could be nearly destroyed. New Orleans, the setting for dramas by playwright Tennessee Williams, stories by authors like William Percy, Truman Capote & counteless others, and one of the most cosmopolitan & colorful cities in America, became a victim of nature &, many say, poor planning & clumsy crisis management.
Caregivers are people who care not only for those in pain, but for the world around them. But there's not much we can do, is there? One leader says there's quite a lot we can do, and we need to do it now. Forget politics (if you can) and, like a scientist, review the data. Sound boring? Turns out, a movie on this subject is one of the surprise hits of the summer season and something worth your meditation and deep reflection.
How can a film of a guy giving a speech be one of the most gripping and fascinating movies of the year? The answer appears on the screen of your local theater in "An Inconvenient Truth." About the film, veteran critic Roger Ebert writes in the Chicago Sun-Times: "In 39 years, I have never written these words in a movie review, but here they are: You owe it to yourself to see this film. If you do not, and you have grandchildren, you should explain to them why you decided not to." Hundreds of critics coast-to-coast agree with Ebert. But have you seen the movie yet?
Okay, no one likes to be threatened to see a movie. So let me offer another reason. The film is simply captivating. If your meditations flow towards mountain lakes and flowing streams, there's plenty of footage of these precious sights. If ever there was a message film that manages to make its point in an interesting way, this is it.
As someone who travels the country (and the internet) campaigning for the establishment of cultures of loving care in hospitals and charities, I find myself identifying with the challenge of awakening people to hard truths - to stimulate change. Change calls us to leave our comfort zone. The status quo is the comfort zone.
When leaders summon us to pay attention to global warning, the opponents always have an easy counter: "Nonsense, don't rock the boat." And how seductive the status quo folks can be around the issue of loving care. I see them all the time in hospitals and charities. There message is: "Hey, don't bother us. We're doing okay."
Is "okay" truly the standard you, as a caregiver, want your organization to live by? Do you want a member of your family cared for by someone offering them okay skills rather than the best? If so, my heart breaks for your patients and their family members. People in deep need seek loving care, not superficial politness and half-effort.
The inconvenient truth in health care today is that many of America's hospital and charities are living a lie. Their mission statements are a fraud. They promise loving care and then dispatch patients to packed waiting rooms, leave them lying in patient gowns staring at flourescent lights, and often refer to them by numbers instead of names.
This truth is indeed inconvenient. Accepting it means change. And change means the chances of your mother or other loved one, lying in pain in a hospital, won't lie there long because loving caregivers won't let that happen. A few organizations have taken on the challenge to change. Has yours?
Exercise:
- See the movie: "An Inconvenient Truth" today.
- Click on: www.climatecrisis.net
- Reflect not only on global warming, but on how caring for the enviornment is an act of love.
- What can we learn from this that will help advance the Loving Care Movement?
- Challenge the leaders of your organization to accept The Loving Care Challenge
- You can also blog a comment at http://www.climatecrisis.net/blog (I already did!)
