Journal of Sacred Work

Clothing Ourselves With Love

Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.  - Colossians 3:14
The highest aim of healthcare is not to fix but to heal. - Erie Chapman

   What does it mean to "heal?" So many Christians make the error of thinking that the main thing Jesus did prior to his crucifixion and resurrection was to perform his healing miracles - returning health to lepers, restoring sight to the blind, ressurecting the dead. Jesus himself seems to have felt otherwise. His goal was not to fix bodies but to heal our souls. The more we focus on his physical healing skills, the more we risk denigrating the true healing he brought to the world...

Guest Column - Hands

(It's Friday and time for another wonderful column from the Trust's Senior Consultant, Catherine Self - Erie) 

   Her hands once picked daisies and wove a chain to wear in her auburn hair. Her little fingers lovingly dressed her dolls and set her tiny table with dishes of leaves and acorn-top cups for pretend tea.
   Her hands were soft and tender when they held the hands of her new husband, and later as they cradled the fingers of their newborn son. At times, her hands turned red and scratched from picking the best berries from the vines to make the sweetest pie for her family.
    Her hands are dry now from the frequent hand washing needed to do her work. They’ve grown strong from lifting and holding and carrying loads of linens, trays of food, and carts of bandages. Her hands are wrinkled now and somewhat contorted, and they ache at night with the memories of so many moments of sacred encounter...

Facing The Primitive - Our Reptilian Brain

We have a predator that came from the depths of the cosmos and took over the rule of our lives. Human beings are its prisoners. - Carlos Castaneda (1925-1998)

The highest form of cognitive thinking is our decision to love others. - Erie Chapman

   When actor/director Mel Gibson (with Diane Sawyer, left) recently erupted with his ugly barrage of slurs against Jews he claimed that alcohol made him do it. When white comedian Michael Richards (Kramer on "Seinfeld") launched a terrible tirade against a pair of black hecklers at one of his shows, he offered his tense mood as a defense. When surgeons throw scalpels in fits of anger, they often blame nurses instead of taking personal responsbility.
   In these cases, and in countless other mis-steps that happen each day, human beings are experiencing the dark power of Castaneda's "predator." They are victims of a short-circuiting in their brains that gets them in trouble with society. These occurrences may also reveal something important about how our minds function. Awhile back, I learned about some of the research about what may be going on for these people - and for most of the rest of us when we "lose it"...

What Changes Us

If we can make loving care the norm instead of the exception, health care will undergo a revolution!.  - Erie Chapman
 
   About fifteen years ago, talk show host Larry King told me on my nationally syndicated T.V. show, Life Choices with Erie Chapman (1987-1995), that his first heart attack wasn't enough to get him to quit smoking. Instead, he continued his four-pack-a-day habit that included his practice of smoking in the shower (he rested the cigarette in the soap dish!) It took a second heart attack, impending by-pass surgery, and a deal with God for King to finally give up his beloved smoking habit. (former President Clinton, pictured with King, had his own challenges with behavior change as did numerous American President's before him.)
   Changing core behaviors its astonishingly difficult. Educational psychologists tell us that, on average, we remember 10% of what we hear, 20% of what we read, 70% of what we do, and 90% of what we teach. If this is true, it would seem that the way for us to learn, and to change, is to spend more of our time teaching and less time trying to learn in the usual way education is offered - through lectures...

Want & Need

The time/cracks into furious flower. Lifts its face/all unashamed. And sways in wicked grace.  - Gwendolyn Brooks.

It's not things that count, it's people. it's not presents that matter. It's the present. - Erie Chapman

   Yesterday, we awoke to Christmas. This morning, a different reality entered our consciousness. Today you may end up returning presents that didn't fit, didn't work, or didn't match your taste. I have such an aversion to returning things that I would rather keep the wrong present than face the flat expression of a tired store clerk.

  Each year, I wish people would give to charity instead of to me, because, although I still may want things, there is nothing I need - except for the things that you can't wrap up: time, wisdom, love. No one can give me the first two and I'm always grateful for any expression of the last one. Surprisingly, though, there are two professions that offer to their practitioners, more time on earth...

Merry Christmas!

               

God's Grace

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all. - Titus 2:11

   My eyes shot open at the sound of a crackling noise. Did I hear a shuffling of feet, a cracking of the walnuts by the fireplace? Someone had intruded into the darkness of our home. I was sure of it. My heart raced.
   It was December 24. In the midst of growing doubts in my seven-year-old mind, I suddenly had proof. Santa Claus was in the next room! This was the moment I had waited for - to catch Santa Claus in the act of delivering presents to our family. But I was too terrified to actually peek into the room. As if somehow I knew that a direct confrontation might make Santa Claus mad or, worse, make him vanish before he had time to deliver all my presents.
   That was the last Christmas of my childhood dream and the beginning of my pathway to another kind of belief...

Guest Meditation - the Beloved

Guest Meditation by Catherine Self

   Henri Nouwen writes of the life of the Beloved and of the sacred voice that first called us by our true name – Beloved. What a powerful word! What an amazing name to be called – Beloved! A quick search into the meaning of a word we don’t often hear (or use) in everyday conversations reveals a journey to find something for which many of us spend a lifetime of effort and intent. The word beloved means to be much-loved, dearly loved, adored.
   I revel in the depth of those words by getting lost in the eyes of my now 3-month old granddaughter. This child of my child has eyes that are large and deep pools of unadulterated love...

The Stories That Change Our Lives

   One man's life touches so many others, when he's not there it leaves an awfully big hole.
- Henry Travers (Clarence, Angel 2nd Class) in Frank Capra's "It's A Wonderful Life."

   About seventy years ago, Phillip Van Doren Stern had a dream which ended up transforming our lives. All of us dream, but Stern decided to do something with the images that danced through his head on that morning in the 1930s after he awoke. He began to pen a short story. He put it aside for awhile, then finished the story at the height of World War II in 1943. He called his 4000-word effort "The Greatest Gift."
   No publisher would buy it, so Stern (photo at left) made 200 copies at his own expense and gave them to friends as Christmas gifts.  His story ended up become one of the most popular films ever...   

Guest Reflection - Holiday Humor

Editor's Note: In a complete departure from our usual meditations, we share, today, a column by the talented Seattle writer, Julie Quiring. I have never met Julie, but I find her writing so entertaining I wanted to share a column of hers with you as today's meditation. Julie works for the renown poet David Whyte, whose work is frequently quoted in the Journal. Her columns also appear regularly in the National Literary Review, which I also edit - Erie Chapman
 

The New Black - By Julie Quiring

   Yesterday I decided to make my new cell phone ring with John Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things.” It was hard to choose between that and the theme song from The Pink Panther, and I nearly lost my head and joined Jamster, where for $5.99 a month I could choose two new ring tones, three graphics and a game every month. That way, during the holidays I could have my phone play “Angels We Have Heard On High” by the Philadelphia Brass Ensemble, followed by Brian Wilson crooning “Auld Lang Syne.” When the New Year was under way and I got bored with Mr. Coltrane and Mr. Mancini, the first bar of each of the Brandenburg Concertos would be patiently waiting, along with the catchy opening to The Addams Family and Bobby McFerrin doing “Ave Maria.” Feeling faint and slightly ashamed, I closed my computer. I was no longer a cell phone virgin...

The Private Christmas

Somewhere back home again
she picks up the dish towel,
crushes it against her mouth.
-Karen Updike

And there you are, in the final days before the special holiday, doing your best to prepare for hours when nothing should be called for but rest, knowing you won't get much, wishing that people would stop asking, "Are you ready for Christmas?" - the question buzzing up your spine like a trapped bee.

You want to take a dish towel and crush it against your mouth. Anything to hold back the flood that waits behind your eyes - the one you know no one wants to see...

Blessing Way

To be separated from beauty to is lose touch with our humanity. 
To know beauty is to know pain.
To know neither is to linger in the flat half-light of indifference.
- Erie Chapman

   For a few moments, leave your current reality and enter the mystical world of the Navajo. Among the most moving of the many fine Navajo traditions is a special ritual called the Blessing Way. A person who is sick or deeply unhappy is thought to have lost their sense of beauty. The goal of the ceremony is to restore this gift to the individual and thus to return them to life's balance. Accordingly, the chanting ceremony involves very beautiful things including plants, songs and paintings.
   To associate dis-ease with a loss of beauty is one of the most powerful understandings of the human conditions I have ever encountered. It reinforces the fact that we can each be physically well but not healed and the parallel truth that we can be physically injured, but spiritually well. The Navajo understand the role of beauty in all of this. Do the rest of us?...

Three Good Things - A Practice of Gratitude

4:5 Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. 4:6 Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 4:7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  Philippians 4:5-7

  Paul wrote his letter to the Philippians from prison. In it, he offered a sort of formula for the nascent Christian church in Philippi. He believed that following this formula was part of  experiencing the joy of God's glory and could bring joy to anyone wise enough to absorb its meaning into practice. His words are about joy and gratitude, not about happiness. But they can be a guide for those who are often confused by Thomas Jefferson's proclamation in the Declaration of Independence of our right to "the pursuit of happiness ."... 

Guest Meditation - The Mystery of Love & The Park Center

    (Editor's note: We are pleased to present another guest meditation from Catherine Self, Senior Consultant to the Baptist Healing Trust.- Erie Chapman)
   A recent airing of The Mystery of Love, a PBS documentary produced with support from the Fetzer Institute (http://www.pbs.org/mysteryoflove/)  began with the words “every life is a love story.” Pictures of couples holding hands, parents embracing children, friends walking arm in arm and worshippers bathed in the light of divine love seemingly reinforce the possibility that, indeed, every life could be a love story.
  Of course, we know that not every life reflects images of beauty and peace. In fact, for many, the quest for love has been responded to by the cruelest teachers of the soul – betrayal, dismissal, abandonment, or rejection...

What the Human Heart Needs

We build the human heart
   and lock it in its chest
   and hope that what we have made can save us.
                 -Campbell McGrath

   It's an old story and it's one that has always fascinated me. Three men are laying bricks. Each is asked what they are doing. The first bricklayer says, "I'm laying bricks." The second says, "I'm building a wall." The third stands back, looks at the partially done wall, and proclaims, "I'm building a cathedral."
   To be saved, the human heart needs hope. To live our lives using our highest energies, we need to feel that our work serves a purpose greater than ourselves. The caregiver who thinks of her work as mopping the floor or giving patients shots or "pushing pills" is probably less likely to offer loving care than the person who thinks of his work as a calling...

Victory in Titusville!

   If you want to know what makes Parrish Medical Center in Titusville, Florida, America's #1 Healing Hospital, spend some time talking with Parrish CEO George Mikitarian. The changes at this hospital over the last three years are a stunning illustration of the power of the Healing Hospital model.
   For starters, check the December 11, 2006 edition of Modern Healthcare Magazine. In it, you'll discover that Parrish has been selected for The Spirit of Excellence Award for Service.
   How did a medium-sized hospital on the Space Coast of Florida garner such a victory? This award is just the latest addition to the string of pearls strung by the committed staff of this organization. And there success is not simply due to a new facility.
   Years ago, this hospital could fairly be categorized as ordinary. Back in 1996, they may not even have met this standard since, in that year, the hospital picked up eighteen Type 1 violations from the JCAHO. As Mr. Mikitarian says, "back then, the hospital seemed to be satisfied to meet minimum standards..."

What We Fear

What we are really afraid of is facing the ugly darkness in ourselves that limits our ability to love freely.   - Karen York

   In the December 8 "Comment" section of the Journal, Karen York, a Vice President with Alive Hospice of Nashville, wrote lines of such direct eloquence that I wanted to lift them up again for your consideration.
  What kind of inner darkness blocks our love? My thirty-five month old grandson (every month counts when you're that age) doesn't know that darkness yet. Miles expresses his love freely to anyone he encounters. Their race, religion, country of origin or age are not things to which he attaches judgment (although their size may intrigue him.) He hugs strangers (if they get close enough) and will share his latest activities with anyone he meets....

Scent of Winter

We are in a patient's life for a season.  - Lorraine Eaton, R.N. CCRN

   As a longtime critical care nurse, Lorraine has cared for countless patients during their season of suffering. She has been with some, and their families, in their final hours. She has nursed numerous others through their recovery and back to health. Many of them, semi-conscious while she cared for them, don't remember her after they recover. But she doesn't mind. She doesn't do her work for praise or to get rich. She does it because she is a lover. She cares for people in need, giving them the skills of her hands and the gifts of her heart.
   I learned that Lorraine Eaton is careful to look after herself, resting and taking long walks through the countryside around her rural home. With Lorraine's inspiration in mind, I took a walk on Sunday afternoon through the rolling hills around our home. I found, there, gifts unavailable in the finest shopping malls and department stores in the world. And they were all free...

Being Lovers

Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem, and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God. Baruch 5:1

78 By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us 79 to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. Luke 1:78-79

Our humanity is rescued when we live love in the presence of hatred.
- Erie Chapman

   How nice it would be if sorrow could be shed as easily as the verse from Baruch commands. We simply take off the garment of our afflictions & replace it with the glory of God. Is that what we say to the grieving woman in Liberia (left)? Can anyone convince her, in the middle of her loss, that the time has come to put on forever the glory of God?
   And what of those who work in hospitals around the world? What are they to say to those who have been pierced by the arrow of loss?...

Saturday Offering

The older I become, the harder it is to indulge a ritual I've enjoyed for decades: Sleeping late on Saturdays. So I rose reluctantly this morning in search of soul gifts. The first one I found is a painting by prize winning poet Claire Bateman* (click to enlarge). The second is a prose poem I've been fussing with for awhile. It may only be ready for eyes that are very forgiving. 
   Saturday's have always been the best days because, for people like me, they hold the least requirements. In the Saturdays of my youth, I leaped from bed excited for the day, wrestled with my dad in his bed, and then road with him through the California sun to the Hollywood YMCA. I didn't worry about much back then. I had already collected a couple of scars on my skin. I had very few beneath it...