Journal of Sacred Work

Days 32-33 - Changing and Staying the Same

   Effective today, February 1, my retirement as President & CEO of the Baptist Healing Trust is official. For Journal readers, I will continue to offer this blog from my new role as president of my family foundation and of Chapman Health International, Inc. and as a recently ordained minister. 

   Since my co-author, Cathy Self, has been named Interim President of the Trust, I have been looking for a new co-author to cover at least one post a week. I am pleased that Liz Wessel, R.N., M.S., perhaps the most devoted follower of this work, has agreed to help from her west coast hospital location. Regular readers of the Journal will know of Liz's passion for caregiving and I am grateful to her for her willingness to write the Saturday edition of our publication.

   My previous post was about the Monarch butterfly which, as we all know, makes a marvelous transition through remarkable stages to become one of the most gorgeous of God's creatures. The idea that we are the same person we were a year, five years or twenty years ago is, of course, a myth.

   We are always changing even though we may look about the same to others. It may be interesting for you, as a caregiver, to reflect across this week on what has changed about you and what has remained the same.

With love,

-Erie Chapman

Days 27-31 - The Miracle of the Monarch

 
  Of all God's creations, the Monarch butterfly is among the most astonishing and miraculous. When these gorgeous creatures emerge from their chrysalises and mature, they engage in a complex, two thousand mile journey that defies scientific explanation.

    The Monarchs of the Western hemisphere all depart from the same sacred space high up in the Sierra Madre mountains of Mexico. Their home base is only fifty square miles. Launching from this spot, millions of them fan out across vast areas of America ending up in Canada. They return, a season later, to exactly the same spot in Mexico.

   Scientists have made efforts to throw the Monarch off course. The butterflies always re-engage their precise flight path back to their mountain home.

   Their bodies are small, their brains are not much bigger than the head of a pin. How do they accomplish their magic? No scientist has been able to figure this out. 

   The Miracle of the Monarch provides wonderful insight for all of us - a chance to watch, to marvel and, at least in this case, to let go of our obsessive desire to try and figure everything out. So often, the urge to analyze everything goes beyond being useful to the point where beauty and grace are lost.

   Caregivers encounter this problem all the time. Modern medical science has an extraordinary ability to fix the mechanical breakdowns that afflict our bodies.

   The strengths of medical science sometimes dazzle us to the point where we forget to honor the mysteries that transcend science. 

   Curing has a strong scientific focus. Healing, on the other hand, requires both scientific and spiritual energy. We can analyze the orange-winged motion of the Monarch butterfly. Yet, if all we do is analyze, we will miss the transcendent beauty of these soaring expressions of God's Love. As they sail the blue air like scatterings of fall leaves we begin to appreciate why these majestic creatures carry the name Monarch.

- Rev. Erie Chapman

NOTE: PBS aired a stunning documentary on Monarch Butterflies Tuesday evening on Nova (go to www.pbs.org) Wednesday morning's T.V. ratings reflected that the vast majority of television viewers were watching "American Idol" and "America's Biggest Loser." Only a tiny fraction of the viewing public watched Nova's masterpiece on the butterflies.

Days 25-26- The Inner Life of Caregivers

"Outwardly, my life has passed calmly and uneventfully and can be covered by a few dates." Dr. Sigmund Freud

   Dr. Freud,(left) arguably one of the greatest minds of the last two centuries, says that his outer life passed "uneventfully." From his extensive writings, we know that Freud's inward journey must have been as remarkable and eventful as that of any great explorer who discovered new lands.

   Freud was the Columbus of the ego (he even created the word') He was the man who helped us learn to sail alongside our own dreams so that we might better understand what our subconscious might be trying to tell us. He literally tried to tell us why we do what we do.

   When Freud tells us his outer life passed calmly, he was signaling the enormous importance of our journey inward.

   First line caregivers do so many things each day that one wonders how they have time to reflect. Yet, you know how rich your own inner travels are. You are the one who understands the personal thought processes that inform your caregiving. You are the one who appreciates that it is your spiritual life that enables you to live Love in the outer world - or not. 

   In job interviews, questions typically circle on what we have done. It's hard to describe our inner thoughts on a resume.

   At funerals, our lives are so often described with a list of our accomplishments in the outer world. But, it is our inner journey that may matter most.

   God's Love lives within each of us. As we reflect on our inner journey, we may come to discover that there are three commandments of Love: The first is that we love God; the second is that we love other; the final commandment is that we love ourselves.

   As you engage your own inner journey may you know that without loving and honoring yourself, you will be unable to love God or your patients and colleagues.

   If you are wondering if it's okay to love yourself, consider the reverse. We are all created by God. If we don't love ourselves, then we are betraying the Love of our creator.

   When we truly love ourselves, we are not engaging in the indulgence of our egos. Instead, we are accepting, with humility, the gift of the life we have been given by God.

   As we our inner journey opens us to God, Love shines through us. It is God's Love that enables us to be a healing presence for patients.

-Erie Chapman

Days 21-24 - "A Blessing of Angels"

[Note: Erie Chapman is retiring from the Baptist Healing Trust. The Journal will continue as an independent publication with Rev. Chapman as editor.]

May the Angels in their beauty bless you,/ May they turn toward you streams of blessings.   - John O'Donohue

   John O'Donohue's prayers read like poems and his poems read like prayers. His book of blessings, called To Bless the Space Between Us, is now something I turn to often.

   I recommend this book to all caregivers because this man's words can be so very healing to those whose gifts of Love may have temporarily exhausted them. Self-care is such an crucial aspect of caregiving. O'Donohue offers relief that flows like this: "May the Angel of Healing turn your wounds/into sources of refreshment."

   How can wounds be "sources of refreshment?" The very idea provokes a wave of reflection. Haven't we all, to our surprise, found that so much of our pain can ultimately be a blessing that refreshes?

   "May the Angel of Wildness disturb the places/ Where your life is domesticated and safe," O'Donohue writes. This is the kind of provocative prayer that can wake us from our slumber in the status quo, open our hearts.

   O'Donohue's words, if we can hear them with our hearts, can give us the courage to enter exotic lands of Love we may have once thought too much for us.  This is what Mother Theresa did. This is what Martin Luther King did.

   In fact, it is the Angel of Wildness that calls to me each day, warning me to use all of my gifts before the Christmas of my life is over. Is it possible to be a loving caregiver without risking our hearts? I don't think so. Love calls us not so much to wildness as to courageous love.

   What the world offers is the appearance of safe pathways that are marked with signs and rules. What God offers is a pathway to helping others that may call us to sometimes break the rules as Jesus did - to love others no matter what the Romans commanded. 

-Rev. Erie Chapman

                                                                                        

Days 20-21 - Being Seen

"'I see you.' These words were music to my ears." -Sarah Chand, describing her rescue from the rubble in Haiti.

    Sarah Chand, an aid worker from New Jersey, was trapped for fifty hours beneath concrete. She spent most of this time searching for daylight. Finally, she was able to reach toward a small opening. When a nearby rescuer told here she had been seen, hope flooded through her. She was rescured a short time later.

   As I listened to Ms. Chand on CNN, I saw her joy over the moment of her discovery recreated. What a gift it was for her physical body to be seen. What happiness to be saved from the brink of death.

   Each day and night in America's hospitals and hospices, so many sick patients are waiting to be seen. They lie inside weakened bodies hoping to be rescued. Sometimes they are seen and healed. Sometimes they are not.

   What a gift it is to patients when caregivers are able to to be present enough to "see" the pain of others and to reach out from their hearts with healing grace. It is so much easier to focus in on a task than it is to open out to the needs of others.

   Being seen. We all hope for that, whether we are trapped with physical injury or isolated emotionally. Reaching out with Love. That is the gift that heals the healer as well as the injured.

-Erie Chapman

Days 18-19 - American Hero

[In the days after the celebration of Martin Luther King's birthday, how well are we remembering, and living from, the example he set?]

   Who is the man in the picture (left) with the prison number around his neck and the word "dead" written across the image by someone involved in updating information on former inmates of the Montgomery Jail? Schools, streets and important buildings bear his name. Parents name their children after him. Each year around this time, his birthday is celebrated as a national holiday (his actual birthday was January 15.)

   There can be no doubt that the late Martin Luther King, Jr. is an American hero. Some consider him to be the greatest American of the twentieth century.

   Perhaps, many would think this means that King must have been very close to perfect. But, much as we try to saint some people and assign to them perfection, there is no such thing as perfect.

   King was, however, an almost superhuman carrier of God's Love. He was doomed with the burden all lovers carry. Like Jesus, King was reviled, spit at, imprisoned and hated with a ferocity that finally sent a fatal bullet into to him at the age of thirty-nine.

   To this day, people try to diminsh King's accomplishments by pointing to his womanizing and his plagiarism of his doctoral thesis. Serious as these mistakes may have been, they have little to do with his message of Love or his titanic accomplishments.

   This is because those who dedicate themselves to Love have aligned themselves with an energy which transcends any personal mistakes in judgment. Love doesn't care about human flaws. Love seeks only the fullest possible expression in this world.

   As I have often pointed out in the Journal, the ancient Greeks made sure to implant flaws into each and every one of their heroes. Thus, the famous Achilles, who was perfect and invulnerable except for a fatal weakness in his heel, the only part of his body not covered by the magic water into which his mother dipped him at birth.

   We all have our Achilles' heels, and yet we are reviled when our flaws are suddenly exposed - attacked by people whose own flaws may be covered at the moment.

   As caregivers celebrate King's birthday and his life, not only today but throughout the year, it is comforting to know that history has focused on King's great successes. It would be even more gratifying if King had lived to see this.

-Rev. Erie Chapman 

Days 14-17 - Caregiving Amid Chaos

"I saw a woman calling for help. She was buried up to her neck with only her head showing. The hands of children reached out from between huge pieces of concrete." - An eyewitness in Port-au-Prince, Haiti speaking on CNN.

   Tragedy falls unevenly and never fairly across the face of this world.

   The  surreal images from Haiti are beyond tragic. There's no point in trying to make sense of them. But, it's hard not to try.

   What a cruel irony. One of the biggest earthquakes to strike this hemisphere in more than two centuries chose the poorest country on this side of the world as its target. The quake cracked open the capital city drowning tens of thousands in its jaws. 

   No one needs to create pictures of hell. All anyone need do is to take a look at life on this island nation before this disaster. Haiti is a frequent location for mission trips. Caregivers from around the world come to the country bringing medical help with loving care. Yet, the mostly illiterate population often lack the means to sustain any long term benefits after the mission team departs. 

   In the wake of this new nightmare, teams of caregivers are flooding into Port-au-Prince as fast as the over-taxed airport will allow. Once they arrive, they are confronted with the enormity of caring for critically injured people in a setting where one of the hospitals has already collapsed (as has a prison.) Even the presidential palace is in ruins.

   Caregiving in a setting like this can dwarf, at least temporarily, the stresses of working in a typical, well-equipped, well organized American hospital. How do you care for a woman who is trapped up to her head? How do you care for a child whose hand reaches out from a place he may never escape? How many people are still, at this moment, calling faintly for help from beneath the rubble?    

   Wide-ranging emergencies challenge the best abilities of the most capable caregivers - not just doctors and nurses and chaplains but firefighters and police and construction workers manning bulldozers. Beyond the trained, however, are the legions of other people who step forward to lift, to encourage, and to love.

   Amid the panic, Love calls all who are able to reach out to all who are suddenly disabled. Some will ignore this call and run, perhaps understandably, to save their own lives. Others will risk personal safety to bring what healing they can to the newly vulnerable. 

   What is the value of prayer amid all of this? Perhaps, one benefit for all of us is that prayer can help us transcend the terror of any tragedy. God's Love is always present, even during death and destruction.

   As Mother Theresa once observed, the question is not, Why would God allow tragedy? The question is, Why don't more people step forward to help?

   After the rubble is cleared away, this question will remain.

-Erie Chapman  

Day 13 - Judge Not? Judging vs. Deciding

[Note: As the horror in Haiti continues to unfold, I know you will join me in praying for all those who are suffering beneath fallen buildings, their families, and their courageous caregivers.]

The definition of "forgive" is to "stop feeling angry or resentful toward someone for an offense, flaw or mistake." - Joe Posnanski writing in Sports Illustrated about recent admissions of steroid use by home run king Mark McGwire

   Every day, a new scandal about one of our heroes appears in the paper and on television. Most recently, it was the news that home run king Mark Maguire (left) admitted using steroids and also admitted lying about it for years. The report set off the expected wave of condemnation, anger and judgment. For whatever it's worth, McGwire, in the middle of a tearful apology, seemed to agree that he deserved all the calumny. It's also true that steroid use was so common in McGwire's era that one wonders which players were not using performance enhancing drugs.

   But most people don't want to hear much about that. It gets in the way of their hair-trigger desire to pass judgment and to condemn. After all, when we attack the indiscretions of others, doesn't that make us seem all the more upright and moral? We would never be indiscreet, would we?

   I was with a dear family member recently who was experiencing excruciating back pain. For decades, this person has steadfastly refused any kind of prescription pain relievers whenever doctors offered them. This time, in the midst of her agony, she finally relented, agreeing to a low dose of a codeine-style pill. As soon as relief flowed through her she said, "I will never again pass judgment on an addict again."

   In her sixties, this person has no chance of becoming an addict. The point was not about drugs, it was about judging others. It was not about approving drug addiction or any other kind of moral indiscretion, it was about understanding, forgiveness and God's Love.

   Clearly, we all need to take responsibility for our own actions. We have seen countless politicians, sports stars, and movie stars (not to mention others we know personally) break society's rules and then lie to cover the mistake.

   Whether it's Tiger Woods, former Senator John Edwards, the Governor of South Carolina, or actor Charlie Sheen, we love imagining that our human heroes are super-human. When we discover they're mere mortals, we are shocked.

   Each of us must take accountability. But, what's the point of trying to shame someone?

   The real question becomes: How do we make judgments without being judgmental? How do we protect organizational integrity without using the burning weapons of shame to degrade a remorseful wrongdoer?  How do we act fairly and decently toward someone we think has been unfair to us or to our organization?

   These questions and considerations are often lost. Instead, when someone - a fellow caregiver, a leader, or a friend we have trusted - does someone we think is wrong we often rush to righteous indignation at lightning speed. Who cares what the other side of the story might be, right? In our moralistic horror, we frequently try, convict and sentence the accused without consideration to what might be another side to the story. Perhaps, we even think that in passing judgment, we will somehow escape judgment ourselves.

   Jesus, of course, tells us not to judge. Yet, we know that wrongdoing cannot be tolerated. How can we live Love and still protect organizational and individual integrity?

   Love's answer to this dilemma, through Jesus, is to guide us to make fair and reasonable decisions without the use of shame and waggling fingers. Jesus' was not trying to keep us from deciding, he was warning us not to look down on others since we are all wrong-doers. Anger-driven condemnation is sometimes as wrong as the offense that triggered it.

   Anger can blind us to fairness. Anger can also place us in a position of arrogance and superiority.

   One of the most common escape paths for all of us when we've made a mistake is the old cliche: "Well, I guess we're all human."  Everyone agrees with this.

   So why is it so difficult for us to engage God's Love every time we think we've caught someone making a mistake? As Mr. Posnanski writes, above, "the definition of forgive is to stop feeling angry toward someone..." But, well, I guess we're all human.

-Erie Chapman

Days 11-12 - The Statue of Healthcare

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free... I lift my lamp beside the golden door." - Words on the Statue of Liberty

 
  With her crowned head and raised torch, The Statue of Liberty has welcomed millions to come through "the golden door" of hope. The statue offers a great promise: come here and you will "breathe free."

   If a Statue of Healthcare were erected before America's hospitals and charities, it might read: "Give me your sick, your injured, your suffering, and I will treat their maladies with competence and compassion."

   Would such a line ring true? We know the answer. We know that some hospitals offer competence but very little compassion. We know that others offer compassion, but may be short on competence. And we know that some offer neither. Their mission statements are nothing more than lies.

   What is rarest of all are the hospitals and charities that offer both competence and compassion consistently. We are always searching for these hospitals - the ones whose performance matches mission. Where are they? The healthcare organization that most people believe represents the gold standard is the Mayo Clinic. It is neither faith-based nor a hospital, nor a non-profit.  

   Perhaps, this means that it is time for us to hold the rest of America's hospitals accountable - to challenge them to either live their mission statement of to change it. Meanwhile, each of us can take the chance, today, to raise the torch of hope to the suffering who appear before us and to offer them the grace of God's Love.

-Erie Chapman

Days 6-10 - Why is Love Punished?

"I feel your pain." - former President Bill Clinton speaking to victims of a natural disaster 

   When former President Clinton made the above comment he was ridiculed in the press and by every talk show host. I happen to have heard the comment at the time and I believe the President was sincere. We've all experienced pain in our lives and the President, growing up with an alcoholic stepfather, has seen his share. 

   The truth is, the general public becomes uncomfortable when a prominent figure, especially a male, expresses sensitivity in a loving way. Prince Charles (left) in a very easy-to-ridicule comment, once spoke of how he loved his garden so much, he "spoke to the vegetables." Apparently, the prince had been warned against making such an open statement but he labored under the illusion that people would understand. They didn't.

   I am often confronted with this challenge when I speak about loving care with male hospital CEOs. "Could we use some other word than Love?" they ask me.

   Why is Love, which is the most important energy in the world, such a subject for ridicule and discomfort? Naturally, if leaders use the language of Love and don't live it, they aren't involved in Love's expression. More likely, loving caregivers and leaders are punished because the rest of the world feels uncomfortable that others are living what they are not. 

   Men can be strong, but loving references to males are usually limited to fathers and grandfathers. (He is a "loving father.") But, I'm not sure I've ever heard of a male leader referred to as a loving leader. 

   Imagine what the world of healthcare would be like if leaders actively and sincerely embraced the love that is contained in so many hospital mission statements. Meanwhile, caregivers are often punished if they step outside their job descriptions to live Love by helping others. Sadly, I have often seen and heard of this.  

   Hospitals are, by nature, rule-conscious. Sometimes, leaders forget that the rules of charitable organizations must always be guided by God's Love. 

   We remember who was punished so long ago for the way he carryied God's message of Love into this world. We just finished celebrating his birthday on December 25. 

-Rev. Erie Chapman

Days 4 & 5 - God's Work

   A year-end article published in USA Today offered a series of comic New Year's resolutions by various leaders. Among them was one attributed to Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of financial giant Goldman Sachs: "I resolve to keep doing 'God's work.' Wait, did I really say that's what we do here?"

   The natural follow-up question is, if Goldman Sachs is not doing God's work, whose work are they doing? Most would answer that they are doing worldly work, primarily focused on money and what is chronically and painfully referred to as providing "shareholder value."

   Part of the basis for the recent, world-wide financial collapse was that so many bankers became so obsessed with "shareholder value" and personal greed that they completely turned their back on any reasonable person's idea of ethical behavior in favor of serving the god of money.

   The same risk exists for hospitals, especially faith-based hospitals who specifically present themselves to the public as doing God's work. People may not expect Goldman Sachs to do God's work, but they have a right to expect faith-based hospitals will practice God's Love.

   Fortunately, there is abundant evidence that first line caregivers are doing God's work (living God's Love) every day and night.

   There is clear and worrisome evidence that many of America's healthcare leaders have either forgotten or chosen to ignore the spiritual, patient-focused mission of the organizations they lead. For proof, consider the amount of time in staff and board meetings dedicated to financial performance (and ways to enhance it) as opposed to the amount of time spent on God's loving care (and how to advance it.)

   The crucial question facing every hospital and charity in America is whether they are practicing the mission they preach. If there are doubts about this, these issues need to be honestly and conscientiously addressed.

   Those who believe in a God who looks down on us know one thing for certain, God is watching.  Those who think of God as Love know that when they are practicing it, they can feel God's energy. Are we living God's Love? If not, how can we begin to do so in ways which are continuous, consistent, and healing toward all?

-Rev. Erie Chapman

Days 1-3 - New Year's Actions

   We all know that New Year's resolutions don't mean much. It's New Year's actions that count. 

   As I watched Dick Clark countdown the final seconds of 2009, I thought about the Dick Clark I watched on American Bandstand in the 1950s. Today's he's referred to as America's oldest teenager. A stroke has changed his speech but his energy remains bright. Clearly, after his stroke, he resolved to recover and to continue hosting his ritual New Year's eve event (his 37th.)

   Whenever I see someone famous like Dick Clark, I always think of the vast legions of America's caregivers who draw so little attention and even less thanks for their great work. Many of us are taking this opportunity to pledge new actions - to do more right things and fewer wrong things. 

   It takes a change of mind and heart to truly change our lives. It's remarkable how ineffective to-do lists are when it comes to the important things in our lives. 

   This year, each of us are certain to experience significant changes. You work near people who will come to you with critical needs. You are likely to experience critical needs of your own.

   I never get tired of being reminded that it's not what happens to us in life that counts but how we react to life's events - whether good or disastrous. What single thing could we choose to do this year that would make the biggest difference in the lives of the people who come to us in need?

   The heart language that always matters most amounts to aligning all our actions with Love's energy. Each of us, as caregivers, decides each day what that means in our lives.

   Happy New Year.

-Erie Chapman