Journal of Sacred Work

Day 365 - The Last Day - Creating Forts of Love

Childhood is the world of miracle or of magic: it is as if creation rose luminously out of the night, all new and fresh and astonishing.  -Playwright Eugene Ionesco, Present Past/Past Present


   Yes. It's the very last day of the year. And tomorrow, of course, will be the first. In the spirit of staying the present, how have you felt about these last days? Have you gazed into the glass of these three hundred sixty-five days and reflected on what they have meant to your life and the life of those around you?
   These kinds of questions can be helpful, or they can feel tiresome. On this last day of the year, my temptation is to dive back into the world my grandson occupies in this photo. He is living the early months of the human journey. Still four years old (although fast closing in on five) he clings to a belief in magic and miracles. Coins still appear magically from behind his ears. Superman and Batman live.
   The experiences we express with the word "cozy" are happy things for little Miles. He created his fort over this holiday vacation time by constructing the kind of thing I remember happily from my childhood. He pushed the backs of four chairs against each other and established his own fort. Inside this fort, I saw him looking happy, comfortable, and cozy - the way he does in the photo, above.
   When I played this game, all I did was drape a blanket over a card table. Instantly, I was enclosed in what seemed to me like a safe place. The world, for that time, was held at bay. In a much scarier way, the power of these card table forts was portrayed in the movie The Sixth Sense. The child in that film, frightened of the ghostly images he sees, hides his little tent surrounded by religious icons.
   Where do caregivers go to feel safe and cozy? Exposed to the endless agonies the body can bring, loving caregivers seek to relieve pain and anxiety, to dissolve the toxins of disease, and to introduce into the lives of their patients the unique comfort that only Love can bring.
   For adults, Love is the only pathway to miracles. Caregivers can ring their patients and co-workers with Love's energy so that they feel, at least for a time, as happy and protected as a little four-year-old in a makeshift fort in the middle of his grandparents living room.
   As we celebrate the last day of the year, I wonder how you create "forts" of Love for yourself and others? Happy New Year!

-Erie Chapman
   

Day 364 - The Risk to Charities

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.  Arthur Schopenhauer

   Through the magic power of the retroscope, it is easy to see why Wall Street was struck by disaster. In a stunning display of the power of greed, the "money people" pursued a seemingly endless series of short term targets. "Share holder value" became such an obsession that other fundamental values were abandoned with abandon.
   The same kind of risk confronts hospitals and charities. Hospital organizations once run by dedicated caregivers have, for the most part, been taken over by executives just as obsessed with the bottom line as have been so many of American corporations.
   In the rush for fat profits and high bond ratings, America's hospital executives have routinely shoved the role of mission to the background. They have replaced the goal of charity with a terrible mantra: "No margin, no mission." This mantra, innocent enough at first reading, has been used to justify a dangerous pre-occupation with financial performance at the expense of staff morale and the crucial role of loving care.
   As a long time hospital and health system CEO, I have seen this issue up close. I have also been apart of it. The temptation of high salaries, free cars and big offices has overtaken me at certain points in my career. Finally, I adopted a guideline: "No executive, including the CEO, should be paid more than ten times the average pay of a first line nurse." Ten years ago, I began following the rule myself.
   This rule was helpful. Unfortunately, few executives around the nation pay any attention. Today, leaders of large, non-profit health systems are paid as much as $2 million annually, more than forty times a first line nurse who may be lucky to make $45-50,000. CEOs may have lots of overall responsibility. But if they view their job as a calling, one forth of the above amount should be more than enough. After all, it's the first line staff who are doing the hardest work.  
   So why does this matter? The problem is that high salaries and plush benefits tend to insulate executives from the core mission of charitable work. Upon promotion to executive status, nurses doff their scrubs and don business suits. This signals their difference, their "higher status" than first line nurses. It's a short step from "higher status" to the belief by executives that they are more important than first line staff. Loving caregiving suffers.
   I don't mean to sound self righteous about this. It was a mistake for me to occupy a large office when I was head of the OhioHealth system. In part, I counteracted it by working alongside first line staff each month. But, this does not justify the wretched excess I promoted by occupying my "imperial" office. 

   Now, I argue for balance.
   It's time for executives to learn from the grave errors of Wall Street. Obsessive focus on bottom line targets and "beating the competition" can result in short term success for some talented executives. Talent can hit targets. Only genius can hit the target others may not even see. It is the goal of creating a loving culture.
   The great Mozart understood that "Love, love, love is the soul of genius." That is a secret each person may discover. Meanwhile, charities are vulnerable to destruction by leaders who treat their mission of Love as a meaningless slogan.

   What do you think?

-Erie Chapman

Day 363/4 - The Stages of Our Truth

Every truth passes through three stages before it is recognized. In the first, it is ridiculed. In the second, it is opposed. In the third, it is regarded as self-evident. - Arthur Schopenhauer (above)

   If there was ever a self-evident truth, it is that Love is the most important energy in caregiving. Therefore, it is surprising to see how much ridicule is heaped on this word in the healthcare community. Recently, I engaged the leadership of one of the most important health care organizations in the world in a discussion of Love. The group included top physician leaders. "We can't use the word 'love' in our organization." one physician said, "The other doctors would make fun of it." The others in the group immediately agreed.
   "What word would work?" I asked.
   "How about 'compassion," one offered.
   Compassion is, of course, a terrific word. It is often confused with pity. As one little saying goes, "Pity stops and stares. Compassion stoops and cares."
   The only problem with the word 'compassion' is that it is limiting. Compassion calls us to kindness and empathy. Love goes beyond compassion to include skill, discipline and integrity. We want compassion for our mothers and other loved ones. But we also want them to be treated with skill and the highest competence.
   If we are successful at introducing the word Love into the dialogue at this major health care center, we are sure to encounter, just as Schopenhauer predicted, a great deal of ridicule. If "Love" gains some traction, then we will encounter opposition. After all, people, especially professionals, are suspicious of anyone seeking to introduce Love into work settings.

   There are several reasons including, 1) Love threatens the 'control' some professionals covet. Love sees equality. Fear thrives on hierarchy. 2) Many have been fooled by false prophets of Love. When they hear the word introduced, they imagine that it must be a trick, 3) Love is misunderstood as "non-substantive" and "not consistent with evidence-based medicine." 4) There is a concern that Love will compromise professional distance.
   So long as genuine Love is present, none of the concerns about her appearance are valid. Meanwhile, the forces of fear, control, and narrow thinking will continue to block Love's light from shining into most of  Americas hospitals and charities.
   How can we change our environments so that loving care becomes not only self-evident but common culture? With the doctors from the major center, I found myself compromising around the use of the word compassion. Later, I regretted my retreat and intend to reassert engaging Love.
   What do you think? What is the best way to introduce and advance the concept of Radical Loving Care into settings where technology and money reign as twin kings?

-Erie Chapman

"Whatever the question, Love is the answer."

Days 360-362 - 1929 and 2008 - A Tale of Twin Times

    In the wake of Christmas, we can see the end of this historic year. 360 days ago, very few foresaw the economic disaster of the past twelve months. The real stories,of loss, as we know, are not on Wall Street but in the many neighborhoods of the world where families have lost jobs, homes and cars. We don't want to see the similarities between the two pictures, above. It seems too frightening to think that somehow the mistakes of the late 1920s have been repeated eighty years later. How could we let greed get such a grip on so many of us? Yet, all the evidence shows that we are sinking into a depression.

   The two pictures tell a story of twin times. Now, yet again, we see a story of loss, worry and, most of all, the need for Love. Love is never more important than in times of high fear.
   Caregiving will take on added meeting as the new year arrives. We'd all like to think that the rising lack of material riches will remind us of the precious nature of the intangible. This may feel like cold comfort to those who have seen cherished homesteads vanish into foreclosure.
   The Depression of the 1930s is receiving renewed attention as we face a 21st century version of our own economic trouble. Some will dig deeper to help. Still others will despair. And a rising number will pull down the blinds and try to hide.

   The most disturbing image I came across in searching pictures from the Depression was this one:

   The image suggests a story in which a community is turning away others in favor of "their own." Who do we "own" and whom do we choose to forsake? Those that erected the sign no doubt thought of themselves as good Christians as they turned their backs on strangers.

  In which category will we find ourselves and those we see as "strangers" as the new year dawns? Need calls out for Love. Will we find the strength to discover the Radical Love introduced to the world two thousand years ago?
   How do you see your own life of caregiving as this year draws to a close and a new one dawns?

-Erie Chapman

Day 360 - Christmas Present

Today's meditation was contributed by Cathy Self, Senior Vice President at the Baptist Healing Trust.

     Today I held for the first time my new grandson William on his first day in this world (yes, that's him in the picture held by his grandfather). Yet in the midst of that unspeakable joy, news came to me of the death of my close friend's father. Christmas Present seems to bring our greatest joys and sometimes our deepest fears together into the one time and space we only and always have to experience. The past is gone and the future may never be, but today, this present moment, this precious present, this Christmas we have and is ours to embrace.

     As I watched little William cradled securely in the hands of his "Papa" I couldn't help but wonder what another Papa felt so many years ago. It is the story many of us have known and heard for years. It is the story of Love come down to us at Christmas time. I can think of no story more appropriate for this Christmas day than the story told by Saint Luke 2,000 years ago:

 "Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. And everyone was on his way to register for the census, each to his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, in order to register along with Mary, who was engaged to him, and was with child.

 While they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth.And she gave birth to her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. In the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened.

But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 'This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.'

 And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, 
   'Glory to God in the highest,
         And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.'"

This is our prayer and hope for you, dear caregivers - may you know and feel Love's peace and presence. Love came down at Christmas time...may we carry it us with us as the most precious present of all.

Day 359 - Christmas Future

"Ghost of the Future," he exclaimed, "I fear you more than any spectre I have seen. But as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company, and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to me?" - Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

   Dickens' timeless character, Ebenezer Scrooge, had plenty of reason to fear the ghosts that appeared to him in his Christmas Eve dream. Having spent so much of his life making things miserable for others, it would take an epiphany for him to change his heart and his ways. That is, of course, what happened to him on the night before Christmas. His transformation to a life of goodness was as startling to those around him as it would be for a mean supervisor to suddenly choose the path of Love after years of creating fear.
   That is one thing I hope and pray for this Christmas, that leaders who live by seeking to generate fear may experience a Scrooge-like transformation. Such epiphanies are rare. But, I have seen them happen. Sometimes, what it takes is the simple discovery that there are other ways to lead. Amazingly, some supervisors have been taught that high control leadership is the only way. They use fear because they have never learned that Love is what draws the best from others as well as from ourselves.
   What we celebrate Christmas Day is the birth of Love's child. Jesus is the personification of hope in the world. His example shines bright for all of us.
   As for Scrooge, Dickens has him say, toward the end of his story, "I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!"
   We cannot erase the errors of our past any more than Scrooge can "sponge away his." Yet, we can resolve, each day and night, to live the Love that exists to enlighten caregivers and patient's alike.
   How do you deal with the fear-based people who threaten the bring darkness to your life?

-Erie Chapman

Day 358 - Christmas Past

   All our memories of Christmas past come flooding in at exactly this time of year. We all have both our known and secret memories of this time of year. Some celebrate their recollections. Some, mimicking Dickens' Scrooge (above) may mutter, "Bah, humbug." For them, Christmas is a big disappointment or, perhaps, more bitterly, a fraud.
   I was blessed to grow up in a happy-seeming family with a father who relished Christmas as if he created the American version of its celebration. Dad started building the excitement as soon as November gave way to December. Day after day, he would ask us to guess about particular presents he had created. Of course, he designed the game so that no one could select successfully and everyone would be surprised on Christmas Day.
   On Christmas Eve, presents stored in a special closet would be brought out one by one by my two sisters and me (before my younger brother was born) and placed carefully under the tree. We would be prodded to go to bed early. And in our beds, we would lie sleeplessly until at least midnight, listening carefully for signs of Santa's arrival.
   One night, when I was about eight, I heard Santa. It was a crunching sound. He was crushing the walnuts we had left for him by the fireplace. There was no doubt about it. Of course, my father's injunctions forbade me from entering the living room to check for sure. But, I knew.
   This Christmas, millions of children will pay homage to the same Santa I worshiped as a child. In their imaginations, they will see Santa flying overhead drawn forward across the moon by Rudolph and friends Dasher, Dancer, Donner and Blitzen,Comet, Cupid,and..., who were the rest?
   In hospitals and charities across the nation, Christmas will be a much more poignant occasion. The homeless, often preoccupied with alcohol, may seek to anesthetize themselves from the beauty of this event. Battered spouses may spend another night in fear. Those awaiting surgery or diagnosed as terminally ill may wonder if this Christmas will be their last.
   Living near the vulnerable, caregivers will attend to the needs of those whose lives have been weakened by illness or injury. Most Americans, growing up in a country where the majority celebrate Christmas, will experience a time of remembering Christmas past as well as celebrating Christmas present. Some will recall the epiphany of Scrooge and will discover that now is the time for open hearts, for embracing compassion, and for living Love.

   How does Christmas appear to you, as a caregiver, this year?

Days 354-357 - Caregiver Ideas For Holiday Love - Open Forum

If God is Love, why are we afraid?  - Erie Chapman

   The above statement is what I try to remember to say to myself when I feel afraid. Simple irritation can be harder for me to handle. You and I know that the holidays generate their own version of stress.
   By definition, holidays are a different time of year. Whatever patterns we normally have are changed by the arrival of these times. Expectations soar. We want everyone around us to display holiday spirit, be even more forgiving, be even more understanding.
   Simultaneously, we are often cast closer to family and friends. We want this. Yet, meaningful relationships are always challenging.
   For caregivers, these days can be especially hard. Anyone who can make it out of the hospital wants to be home. Those that remain are especially sick. Caregivers become surrogate family members while they, themselves, may feel more isolated and alone.
   What are your suggestions to other caregivers for dealing with the challenges of the holidays? The only one I know, beyond what I've written above, is to focus on my favorite stress reliever: Laughter. I don't know the baby in the photo above. But as soon as I saw the picture, I started to chuckle. In those moments, worries were replaced with joy. 
   How about you?

Day 353 - Circles of Relationship

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

     "We're all lovers, and we're all destroyers. We're all frightened and at the same time we all want terribly to trust. This is part of our struggle. We have to help what is most beautiful to emerge in us and to divert the powers of darkness and violence. I must learn to be able to say, 'This is my fragility. I must learn about it and use it in a constructive way.'" - Jean Vanier

      A practice seems to be re-emerging around the world for creating intentional sacred space among people - a set-apart-from-the-ordinary space of community and relationship in circle. Community circles, sometimes known as peacemaking cirlces, have been traced back to Native American and First Nations members. The philosophy of Circles acknowledges that we are all in need of help and that helping others helps us at the same time. The collective wisdom that rises from Circle is understood to draw from the wisdom of everyone in the circle. Circle brings together the ancient wisdom of community and the value of respect for individual gifts, needs, and differences in a process that honors the presence and dignity of every participant, that values the contribution of every participant, that emphasizes the connectedness of all things, that supports emotional and spiritual expression, and that gives equal voice to all.

     The principles of Circle are often lived and expressed through the lives of the most gracious of caregivers such as Irene Sendler, profiled earlier in this journal by Erie Chapman. Healing that finds expression through a sacred encounter seems well described in the principles of Circle - honoring and respect, valuing, connectedness emotionally and spiritually, equal voice and participation. Circle seems representative of the potential of every sacred encounter, engaging all aspects of our human experience - spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical. Circle, whether among two or twenty, offers the promise of shared joy and pain, struggle and triumph, vulnerability and strength.

     In this season set apart from the ordinary, we each hold the promise of Love. We are all in need of Love and in that sharing of Love we may discover that we, too, are loved. Each day holds gifts for those who give care - gifts of joy, sometimes of sadness, often of shared pain. As you work, look closely under the tree or at the table - look deeply into the eyes of those you serve...look carefully and you may find your own image. You may find Love.   

Day 352 - Closing the Circle?

We are each incomplete. We are drawn towards the other in search of completeness. We sense the potential closing of a circle. - Theater Director Anne Bogart (foreground, below)

   What draws caregivers to their work? For some, it's the money. Even though you can never get rich entering nursing, I have had burned-out nurses tell me they chose their work because "it's an okay job and a way to earn a living."
   Some are drawn to caregiving because of power and the need for adulation. Caregivers can exert great control over patients. To sick people, doctors and nurse and other health care professionals are very strong beings. They may even seem, at some moments, omnipotent. After all, why do some doctors develop the "God" complex?
   Loving caregivers understand that money and power can not complete them. Money and power hold no potential to "close the circle." Only Love offers the potential for completeness.
   The chance caregivers have to meet the deep needs of others lies at the heart of what draws the best caregivers to their calling. Life is relationships. This is true whether we are talking about people or things. All perception and all human value rises out of relationships.
   As Bogart writes, "We are each incomplete." This means that we are each, by our nature, seeking to complete that which feels unfinished. This desire with which we are born creates our drive for meaning in our lives.
   Loving caregivers always have a sense of peace about them. You can see it in the photos of Irene Sendler, who I profiled earlier this week. Irene clearly and absolutely saved the lives of others by risking her own. No wonder she bears the face of a saint.
   What do you think? Does caregiving complete your life circle?

-Erie Chapman

Days 350-351 - Does it Matter if WE Matter?

"I kept silent. I preferred to die rather than to reveal our activity." Irene Sendler( below) who helped rescue thousands of children from the Warsaw ghetto during World War II.

   While suffering the hell of a Nazi concentration camp, Dr. Victor Frankl found himself face to face with the hardest existential question there is: Do our lives matter?

     Within Frankl's immediate gaze, lives were being snuffed out by the hundreds each day. And these were not just the lives of adults. Innocent children were murdered as if they had done something wrong. If babies were born to prisoners, they were put to death within moments of arriving in the earth.
   How could life matter when it was treated so cheaply? How could any one life have any meaning if it only lasted a few seconds?
   Dr. Frankl found his answer. He wrote about it in the seminal book, Mans Search for Meaning. What Frankl proposed was that whether life actually matters or not, we need to believe that it does.
   In the concentration camp, where all prisoners were on starvation diets, Frankl observed that those who gave up on life would die within twenty-four hours. On the other hand, those in the same physical condition who sustained hope (including Frankl) were also the ones who were much more likely to survive.

   One person who also found meaning in the midst of horror was Irene Sendler. I found out about her from a blog written by a man identified, simply, as "Peter." [His blog is called Bayou Renaissance Man.] Sendler may never have asked herself the "meaning" question. Instead, as a social worker granted access to the Warsaw ghetto in 1940 to check for typhus, she constantly risked her well-being not only with her caregiving, but by smuggling Jewish children out of the ghetto. She gave them fake, Catholic identities so that they might survive outside the ghetto. Sendler was arrested by the Nazis in 1943. In the face of torture, she refused to reveal the names of any children or anyone who had helped her. She was sentenced to death, but escaped when a bribed guard dumped her into the woods after her arms and legs had been broken. 

   Perhaps the core question of existentialism is wrong. Maybe it does not matter if we matter. Maybe all we need is to believe, like Frankl, that our lives find their meaning, for us, through living as if our actions, however small, are important.
   Hope rises from the belief that we are all special beings. Whether a baby lives only a few seconds or an adult lives one hundred years, our lives can always be reflections of God's Love. With Love, everything matters. Without Love, nothing matters. As for Irene Sendler, she died just this year, on May 12, 2008, at the age of 98. To her dying day, her question was not whether she mattered, but why she hadn't saved even more children.
   What do you, as a caregiver, think? Is there anything that matters without Love?

-Erie Chapman   

Days 346-349 - Sacred Vocation

"A successful life is one that is lived through understanding and pursuing one's own path, not chasing after the dreams of others."  Chin-Ning Chu

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

     Tracy Roberts, a colleague who is devoted to helping create space for relationship and peace, once told me he hoped his profession was a profession of his life. His words are challenging and create the opportunity to ask of ourselves, what is my profession? Is what I do as "work" an accurate reflection of who I am as a person or have I created different personas for different aspects of my life - is the one who shows up "at work" the same person that shows up with family and friends?

     The words vocation and avocation sometimes seem to be tossed around almost too casually. Vocation is my job, I have heard some say, but my avocation is what I get to do with my "own" time.  Author Gordon T. Smith suggests vocation is not primarily an occupation or line of work, but rather an engagement with the world in response to the call of Love. All vocation, then, is potentially sacred. Such a perspective invites us to move away from the compartmentalization of our lives into spouse, friend, parent, employee, neighbor, son, or daughter, or even the artificial distinctions that some ascribe to secular vs. religious work.

     We are whole, complex individuals who each seek to find ways to fulfill a sense of purpose and meaning in our lives through relationships - regardless of the context, circumstance, or dimension. Consider the joy that may be experienced in living as described by Robert Frost in his poem titled "Two Tramps in Mud Time:"

My object in living is to unite

My avocation and my vocation

As my two eyes make one in sight

Only where love and need are one

And the work is play for mortal stakes

Is the deed ever really done

For heaven and the future’s sakes.

    Love invites us into the places of care and compassion whether as a nurse, administrator, parent, friend, environmental specialist, or electrician. Our challenge is to show up with all of who we are, all the time. When life is experienced with that integrity and congruency, there is a deep abiding joy in all that we do. Frederick Buechner wrote "the place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."  I hope today finds you in that place of sacredness, where your deep gladness and joy gather to meet the need of the world's deep hunger. Peace.

Day 345 - December Meditation

Today's saying: Grace is letting go of anger that is justified and offering forgiveness that is not. (author unknown.)

[The following reflection was written by Karen York, Executive Vice President of Nashville-based Alive Hospice.]

December – The year nearly gone, holiday cheer in full swing.

I’m making plans already for engagements in

March, April, May

I plan my life down to the moment, the second. Planning,

preparing for what - to enjoy the now? 

I know of people who schedule elaborate vacations,

then can’t wait to get home.

What about making the vacation

while in the middle of now?

 

I plan, plan, plan, - yet still no time

for me

for you

for us.

 

Yet there is time.

It’s right here in my center, right where it belongs.

And I can’t find it.

Hidden beneath calendars, and deadlines and

plans, it remains there until I stop.

Stop. 

 

We don’t honor quiet.

We don’t honor stillness.

We must fill the “empty” space with noise.

So we talk, talk, talk without saying anything.

We jabber on and the truth remains hidden.

 

What is that truth? What secrets rest there

beneath the hard shells and scars from past hurts

and future worry? Who am I in that secret,

quiet space where I am afraid to enter? 

 

I’ll go there now and reacquaint myself with the

me who is lost in the shuffle. 

May will be here soon enough.  

 

Today is here. Today is now.

Today is mine.

 

Days 343-344 - Live Like You Were Dying?

What do we think we are gaining by not forgiving someone?  - John Fischer

   A friend of mine sent me an email expressing outrage and resentment toward a former co-worker.  "I have never EVER had such negative feeling about anyone in my life," he wrote. "Just [thinking] about her activates my gag reflex."
   Because I am both human and often a fool, I have allowed myself similar kinds of reactions toward people with whom I have been angry. Usually, what rises up in me is a sense of injustice, that I have been "mistreated" by someone. Injustice can be healthy. We need to be outraged at the continuing genocide in Darfur and the plight of the uninsured in America. But personal grudges can also arise from an imaginary hurt. We want to strike back. Even worse, we refuse to forgive, the seeds of revenge grow in our hearts and can strangle our ability to live Love.
   "What do we think we are gaining by not forgiving someone?" Mr. Fischer writes. It's a strange question, isn't it? Why won't we let go? Do we think our refusal to forgive actually makes things better?   

   Love is not interested in grudges. Those of us who live with them feel their weight as a kind of darkness, a pain in the heart that may express itself physically, as it did with my friend who literally "gags" when he thinks of this person his heart will not forgive.
   I believe grudges weigh on us because God is both Love and Light. When we refuse to forgive, we find ourselves moving away from the Light and into the shadows. It's cold there.
   The value of this is that if we can raise up these grudges into our highest consciousness, we may be able to let them float away. Gradually, we return to the Light and feel her warmth.
   A friend and Grammy Award winning songwriter, Craig Wiseman, and a partner of his, Tim Nichols, wrote a lovely song called "Live Like You Were Dying." You may have heard it because it was recorded by Tim McGraw. It includes these words:  

Live like you were dying
Speak sweeter
Love deeper
Give forgiveness you've been denying.
May we live like we were dying.

   Does it help you to raise your consciousness of grudges you may be carrying? Does this improve your ability to forgive? How does your heart feel when you have forgiven someone?

-Erie Chapman

Days 340-342 - Open Forum on Being a "Moment-Maker"

   In a comment posted today, Karen York, Executive Vice President of Nashville-based Alive Hospice, talked about the things she does to brighten the days of strangers she encounters in various transactions. What struck me as particularly loving is that she continues to offer kind gestures whether or not she receives a kind response in return.
   Many of the jobs people do in America can seem repetitive and mind-dulling. Those doing this kind of work may appear, sometimes, to be in a trance - as far from presence to life as they can be. They are doing a difficult kind of work. How do you help brighten the days of others?
   To share your thoughts, click on Comment, below.

-Erie Chapman

Day 339 - We are All Travelers

       Today's mediatation was written by Cathy Self, Senior Vice President for the Baptist Healing Trust.

     The story of the traveler has been told and re-told for generations in West Africa. There was once an elderly and wise gentleman who lived in a village. He would often spend his days sitting under the shade of a tree in the center of his village, reading and talking to those who passed by. One day, a traveler came upon his village and stopped to speak to the gentleman. "Old man," he said, "I have been traveling across the countryside, and I have seen many things and met many people. Can you tell me what kind of people I will find in your village?"

     The elderly gentleman looked up at him and replied, "Certainly I can, but first tell me what kind of people you  have found in your travels." The traveler scowled and said, "Old man, I have met people who cheat, steal, and aren't kind to strangers, and people who don't look out for one another." The elderly gentleman looked up and, with a faint look of sadness in his eyes, said, "Oh my friend, those are the people you will find in my village." The traveler kicked the dirt under his feet, scoffed, and marched towards the village.

     By and by, as the elderly gentleman continued to enjoy his day, another traveler came walking through the village. Once again, the traveler, stopped and asked, "Please kind sir, I have been traveling across the countryside, and I have seen many things and met many people. Can you tell me what kind of people I will find in your village?"

     The elderly gentleman said, "Certainly I can, but first tell me what kind of people you have found in your travels." The traveler replied, "I have found people who are kind and welcoming of strangers, people who care for one another, and people who love. These are the people I have met in my travels.

     The elderly gentleman looked up and, with the faintest smile in his eyes, said, "My friend, those are the people you will find in my village."

     Although the story above is a West African folk tale, I wonder at (and am in awe of) the truth in its words. Are we not all travelers in this journey to bring Healing to those in need? Attitude is so critical. Some have suggested that we can see only that for which we look. If I expect and look for difference, that is what I will see. As caregivers we are called to carry the lens of Love in all of our encounters. How do you choose Love in your travels?

Day 338 - How Journal Readers Move Mountains

   Following yesterday's essay on the challenges of change, two readers shared lovely images as comments. From Florida, Edwin Lofton spoke of the image taught to him by his father of how crops respond to loving care. From California, Liz Wessel followed by sharing the marvelous story reprinted below. We, as readers, have the chance to plant seeds about us every day by the actions we take and the stories we tell. The following story may plant such a seed in your heart.

Changing the Face of the Mountain

   Once upon a time, in a remote, unfriendly village that clung to the side of a mountain, there lived an old woman whose habits seemed strange to her neighbors. Since the harsh winters kept most villagers huddled near their fireplaces, they did not cultivate the art of hospitality, and rarely spoke to anyone outside their immediate families.

The mountainside, itself bleak and barren, beckoned no one toward its slopes, even in the less harsh seasons of the year. Only the children ventured to climb, ever so stealthily, partway up its side; a daring feat that they were cautioned not to do by their parents.

During such furtive forays, they inevitably met the old woman. Most of the time she was bending over, digging a little hole in the ground, and dropping a tiny something into it. The braver children asked: “what are you doing, old woman?” Her reply was always the same: “I am changing the face of the mountain.”

The children grew into adulthood, and most left the village for the world of cities. It came to pass, however, after several decades, one grown child returned to show her husband and children the harsh environment of her youth that she had often described to them. She came back but she did not recognize it.
The mountainside was ablaze with a dazzling array of colorful flowers gently swaying in the breeze. Clusters of bushes and young trees lent their foliage as shade to the myriads of children and adults gathered along the base of the mountain. All spoke to each other, laughed and played games. Families and neighbors picnicked together.

The woman who had returned stopped one of the villagers to ask: “When did all of this come about? What happened to the bleak and barren mountainside of my childhood?” The villager replied: “Do you remember the strange old woman who lived here, the one who would wander up and down the mountainside?” It was she who planted these seeds. She went out every day, intent on her sowing; believing all the while the results would fruit.”

The woman did recall the image of this old and bent figure from her childhood. At last, she understood the meaning of these words: “I am changing the face of the mountain.”

May you carry this image of mountain flowers with you across your day and night.

-Erie Chapman

Day 337 - Can We "Change" Other People?

Personality must be accepted for what it is. You musn't mind that a poet is a drunk.  - Oscar Wilde

   More than a century after the great Oscar Wilde wrote the above line have we yet learned that he was wrong? Educated people know, intellectually, that we are all changeable.
   Now, science offers further proof that we are not doomed to be victims of our genetic programming - especially when it comes to personality.
   When Cathy Self, Mark Evans and I go about the country speaking to hospitals about creating cultures of loving care, we often encounter leaders and doctors who are stuck in Wilde's 19th century thinking. "You can't change people," they say with a disdain born of ignorance.
   What we often advise is that human beings have highly changeable behaviors based upon their environment. Leaders can create loving cultures by how they hire, orient, train, and reward staff members. The culture of our country is changing at this very moment as we anticipate the arrival of a new President. Economic conditions affect our daily behavior and attitude. How we are treated in various setting affects our responses.
   Can people change? Of course. The truth is that we change and adapt every day.
   An article by Sharon Begley (above, left) in the December 1 edition of Newsweek magazine ("When DNA is Not Destiny") offers additional proof that our personalities are no longer stuck in genetic programing. Small children who appear shy "by nature" can be gently and effectively encouraged to encounter other children on the playground. As they do, they begin to leave some of their shyness behind. They may still need more quiet time, but they are able to live in society in a way that is more open and trusting. On the other hand, if they are branded as "shy" and parents do nothing to attempt to alter this, they will remain shy.
   Furthermore, and this is instructive for healthcare leaders, if parents attempt to bully their children out of shyness, they may create the opposite effect.
   What about personal decisions to change? Programs like Alcoholics Anonymous teach that personal change is difficult but possible. Genetic sensitivity to alcohol need not doom these individuals. Change will happen given 1) a personal decision to change, 2) a culture and setting that support change.
   Science now reinforces what we have sensed for a long time. Loving leadership can create a culture in which staff members actually change their behavior as well as some of the thinking that underlies that behavior. In this behavior change, loving behavior will emerge from people who may previously have seemed burned out and cynical. Individuals who refuse to adapt to this change are likely to leave the organization. Gradually, change emerges as Love finds a setting where she can flourish.
   Each of us has the power to nurture Loving cultures in all of the settings we inhabit - whether they involve a short encounter in a store or the extended encounters of family or work setting. Underneath all of this is the core question: Should we try to change others? I believe the answer is no. Instead, the best we can do is to open ourselves to Love's energy. Each day, we face this challenge anew. Each moment, we face the temptation to take easier paths that end up leading to worse places. As Maya Angelou writes: "Love costs all we are and will ever be. But, it is only love that sets us free."
   What do you think?

-Erie Chapman

Days 335-336 - Salvation and the Art of Caregiving

   How are we "saved?" Every religion offers its own answer to this and its own definition of what it means to be "saved." What intrigues me is how most people give up reflecting on this question early in life. When I ask people about the path to salvation, the most common answers I get are "my faith answers that for me" or, amazingly, "I haven't thought about that."
   Of course, my assumption is that everyone wants to be "saved" and is reaching up from this place of our humanity to find grace. But, I may be mistaken. If lots of people have never thought about it or have given up considering the subject, does this mean they have their answer or that they no longer care? Or have they chosen a higher reason? Have they decided that a personal pursuit of salvation, is, perhaps, too selfish a concern?
   Here are a few thoughts that have occurred to me about this perplexing subject. 1) Most people who think about salvation imagine it as a state of grace. 2) Many "religious" people believe that the path to salvation travels through the church to which they belong. Part of the reason they attend their church is because they believe it increases their chance of salvation. 3) Some people believe salvation comes through how we live our lives. For example, the more "good" we do, the better our chance of salvation. Others believe that salvation is a gift of grace that comes to us independent of anything we do.
   This last set of ideas causes me to wonder if artists see their art as a pathway to salvation and if caregivers see their work the same way? Caregiving from a place of Love means we are engaging God's light. But, there may be a trap here. If we choose caregiving only because we see it as a pathway to our personal salvation, have we, ironically, destroyed our goal? Does selfish intention defeat salvation even if good to others results?
   What do you think?