Journal of Sacred Work

Day 91 - Tasting Sacredness

Something opens our wings./Something makes boredom and hurt disappear./Someone fills the cup in front of us./We taste only sacredness.  - Rumi

   What a sweet opportunity each of us has to offer sacredness to those nearby and far away. Because of the weight of our egos, it takes a conscious effort to find what would fill the cup of in front of another.
   I know what feels like a sacred gift for me, though I'm not always sure what it is for others. Recently, I received a note from a kind-hearted leader at a Midwestern hospital who took the trouble to write me to say how vividly he recalled a speech I gave four years ago and how he continues to practice some of the things he learned in that hour and a half.
   Of course, my ego was pleased. Beyond that, this man offered testimony to the way we may awaken sacredness for another without our knowing...   

Days 88-90 - Open Forum

The Journal is one way caregivers throughout this country and Canada have of sharing their thoughts on loving care. To offer a story or thought, click on Comments, below.
Thank you and have a good weekend.
-Erie

Day 87 - Mad Love

This meditation was written by Cathy Self, Senior Vice-President for the Baptist Healing Trust

If all you need and want is compliance with rules and regulations, then using fear in your leadership will probably do the job. Stand in front of your people and simply demand adherence - "or else." Sound a bit dramatic? Sadly this is the reality for far too many organizations professing to be caring and compassionate. Rules and regulations are what drive decision-making, change management, and even visioning for some of our "best" hospitals and charities. It becomes a point of pride that the organization is deemed the "safest," the "most technologically advanced," or "among the top scorers" according to this or that accrediting agency. Walk through the halls of many of these organizations and you see grim faces, hear pat answers, and get responses to expressed needs that sound something like "I'm sorry but that is against our rules..."

Day 86 - The Human Heart

"...the salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and in human responsibility." - Vaclav Havel, former President of Czechoslovakia in a speech to the U.S. Congress

   President Havel spoke to our Congress from a position of powerful experience and seering pain. The country he represented at the time of his speech had experienced years of oppression under Soviet rule. "A person who cannot move...because he is pinned under a boulder," he said, "has more time to think about his hopes than someone who is note trapped that way." How many of us allow ourselves to feel trapped under the oppression of a tyrannical boss or a bad work environment?...

Day 85 - The Power of "Climate"

Unless we are prepared to create the climate, the law can never bring victory. - Rev. James Lawson, (In 1960, after being expelled from Vanderbilt Divinity School for advising sit-in students to continue to protest.)

   So often, I've heard people in leadership roles complain that, "you can't change people." To a limited extent, they are correct. But, there is a larger truth. We are all influenced by the climate of our culture. A climate of justice exposes injustice. A climate of hate brings out the worst of our humanity. A climate of apathy drags down excellence.  A climate of Love awakens the best energy that lives within us.
   Caregivers can create cultures of Love within the encounters they experience each day...

Day 84 - Skin Deep

    The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for...destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.    - President Lyndon Johnson

   We all want to think that we make key decisions based on Love. If this is so, why do the polls on voter's preferences in the presidential race reflect otherwise?
   News surveys are clear. The white female in this year's race wins women's votes. The mixed-race male candidate (perhaps we are all "mixed-race" and of the same soul) wins minority votes. The white male wins white male voters.
   Obviously, there are many exceptions (including me.) But, why are so many of our choices based on data that go only skin deep? Why do so many find comfort with people who look generally like us and feel discomfort with those who don't? It's a challenge every caregiver must face...

Days 80-83 - Open Forum

Holy Week is a time during which Christians and others may celebrate the entire range of feelings through the experience of the enduring Christian narrative. Our hope is that caregivers will share their thoughts in this space by clicking on Comments (below.)

Happy Easter!
Erie

Day 79 - Reflections

[Note: Today's meditation was written by Cathy Self, Senior Vice-President for the Baptist Healing Trust.]

Each day we choose to traverse a physically, emotionally, and spiritually demanding territory called care giving. When I think back on the years I spent at the bedside, I see reflections of what was, memories  that are heart-warming, others that are still heart-breaking. Reflections of my past carry both the demands that have been made of me as well as the gifts I received as a caregiver. Some days were admittedly lived in that semi-comatose state that Erie Chapman has referred to in a post earlier this week. In that meditation, Erie asked what it takes to challenge the routine of the everyday, to become fully present to our life events. Stopping to look at a piece of art (living or otherwise) is certainly one way to challenge our awareness and the habits of our patterns. I find that any kind of reflection opens a doorway into a potentially different way of being.

Day 78 - Glimmers

“Through some moment of beauty or pain, some sudden turning of our lives, we catch glimmers of at least what the saints are blinded by…” (Frederick Buechner, Listening To Your Life) 

    My friend, Rev. Jerald Smith, a hospital chaplain in Florida, writes a weekly essay called Glimmers that he sends to friends. He begins each writing with the quote from theologian Buechner, above.
   As a hospital chaplain, Jerald has a unique opportunity to observe moments of beauty or pain and the sudden turnings of our lives where we see lightning flashes of God's Love. The remarkable photo at left  (click to enlarge) was picked as one of the best from National Geographic this past year...

Day 77 - How Art Awakens us to be Human

   In an effort to connect and create community, Americans send each other tens of millions of emails each day. Among them are the ones that share some "amazing" story or image. Some stories are apocryphal, made up just to spread some kind of rumor. Others are sappy. Still others, like this Journal, are meant to inspire.
   Every so often, something fascinating comes along. Such an example was forwarded to me by my younger sister. It takes two minutes, fifteen seconds to watch. Here is the video link: http://www.maniacworld.com/frozen-in-grand-central-station.html...

Day 76 - Soul Friends on St. Patrick's Day

[The following meditation is from Liz Wessel, Mission Director for Home Care at St. Joseph Health System in Orange, California]

   What better day to reflect on beliefs and Irish customs than on St. Patrick’s Day! The late Irish poet and philosopher John O’Donohue wrote, "In the Celtic tradition, there is a beautiful understanding of love and friendship. One of the fascinating ideas here is the idea of soul-love; the old Gaelic term for this is anam cara. Anam is the Gaelic word for soul and cara is the word for friend. So anam cara in the Celtic world was the "soul friend."
  Personally, I hold a vivid soul feeling, a memory of early childhood. I was in first grade and my little classmate Maria and became friends. Suddenly, one day mid-year, Maria was gone without warning...

Days 73-75 - Open Forum

As regular readers know, the Journal is always dedicated to caregivers. Fridays and the weekend are a special chance for sharing via this Journal. Click on Comments, below, to post your thoughts.
Thank you

Day 72 - Love's Calling to Leaders

Today's meditation is written by Cathy Self, Senior Vice-President for the Baptist Healing Trust.

Why is this work so hard? We hold a high standard and some days I, too, wonder if the standard is too high? Is it really possible to consistently live Love, especially in the bright light of leadership? Parker Palmer, a highly respected writer and teacher, speaks of the power of leading from within. From his perspective, we can choose to ignore the inner life (although it will continue to influence and often control us) or we can choose to get into it and live through it. The scary thing for most of us is that the inner life is full of shadows and what some might even call monsters.

Day 71 - A Clinic Called Hope

  We all find energy and courage in different places. The best energy comes from the same sacred source.
  A fascinating little band of eight women (and one man) gathered at the Baptist Healing Trust recently for a retreat and a well-deserved day of rest. They call themselves the Hope Clinic and they began their ministry about three years ago. They give mostly free care to mostly poor people in a mostly poor rural county.
   Most of them are financially stressed themselves. They take care of people without insurance and many of them also have no insurance.
   Their Tennessee county, Macon, became famous recently for the wrong reason...

Day 70 - The Box

  There's a concept psychologists and organizational analysts have understood for a long time that can help all of us. It's the idea that when we become angry or exceptionally emotional, our cognitive abilities are altered. In other words, our usual reasoning skills may "shut down."
   I'm told that the folks from a place called the Arbinger Institute call this phenomenon "being in the box." When we get angry in an exchange with someone, we become wrapped in the box. The box is perhaps like a hall of mirrors. Our view looking out of the box becomes distorted. While in the box, we see everything through the lens of our anger. We may become excessively defensive, take everything personally, and respond with vicious attacks in an effort to defend ourselves....

Day 69 - Wondering

   So often I wonder why someone like me who writes about Love all the time has so much trouble living it. For example, I find this political campaign very frustrating when I should be simply reveling in the glory of living in this gorgeous democracy - no matter who gets elected. I also find myself trying to browbeat dear friends into supporting the candidate of my choice. What has my choice got to do with Love and caregiving? I think it has a lot to do with that. But, who am I to say?
   For one thing, it appears that the time has finally come for national health insurance. The goal of the Journal is not to take political positions. But, can anyone justify the horror of fifty million people uninsured? I don't even know if a single-payer system is the best idea. I just know that we've got to provide better coverage for all Americans.
   Mother Theresa was questioned once about why God allows suffering and starvation...

Days 66-68 - Open Forum

The end of the week provides an opportunity for caregivers to share thoughts with each other through this space on whatever subject they wish. Just click on Comments, below, and type your message.
Thank you.

Day 65 - Courage and Choice

"Use the force, Luke. Let go." Obi Wan Kenobi in Star Wars

   Every example of human courage I can envision involves choice. The hardest choice of all may be to surrender our ego so that our true humanity may shine through.
   George Lucas' concept of "the Force" is an interesting one for caregivers to consider. A patient lying ill with cancer is not automatically courageous. The typical role of the caregiver is to seek to cure and to relieve pain. Beyond that, however, is the sophisticated challenge to caregivers to help support patients as they search for courage. This choice requires courage for both caregiver and patient...

Day 65 - The Courage to Love

"Doesn’t gentle beauty, such as the sound of harp music, sometimes make the heart ache?" - Claire Bateman (left) in Disorientations - False Ecstasy in a Red Car

   The above quote appears in Claire Bateman's short story in the National Literary Review (www.nationalliteraryreview.org) Throughout her remarkable tale, the issue of beauty and how we encounter it comes up constantly. So many of us are surprised to discover that the rainbow of deep beauty is always shadowed by a cloud of pain. Perhaps the reverse is just as true. Beauty also shines through pain.
   Caregivers know the beauty that can appear in the midst of the painful labor of childbirth. And this phenomenon is what gave rise to some of Emily Dickinson's most exquisite poetry...

Day 64 - The Challenge of Creating a Loving Culture

Nothing comes easy and when it does, its lousy – Cole Porter's character in the movie De-Lovely (2004)

   Everyone knows that important accomplishments never come easy. "Easy" is the status quo. Breaking the status quo means overcoming inertia. Cole Porter did that with his music.
   The irony is the way in which the thing that is so hard to create looks easy when it's performed successfully.
   After a lifetime of work, Tiger Woods swing, plus his string of victories, looks easy. After years of training, a good nurse can make a tough IV placement look as easy as a fish jumping back into the water. And whether you agree with him or not, after years of hard work, Senator Barack Obama can make an inspiring speech in a fashion that looks as easy as walking down the street...