Journal of Sacred Work

Day 306-308 The Invitation

[Note: Liz Wessel wrote such a kind essay yesterday that I decided to let it run one more day. Thank you,Liz. And thanks to all of you. - erie]

He is a lawyer, a distinguished healthcare leader, a retired CEO and an inspiration to thousands of caregivers around the world. He is a composer, a poet, an artist, photographer, prolific writer, and filmmaker. He is a Reverend, a father, grandfather, husband, dear friend, author, seeker of light, and lover of beauty. He encourages caregivers to awaken their hearts while affirming their courage to persevere and give exceptional compassionate care. He is willing to risk all for the sake of Love. Committed to social justice, he is an advocate for the most vulnerable, serving the homeless and ministering to prisoners on death row. He has known ecstasy, deep despair, and the pain of loss. His has lived a passion-filled life, complete with wisdom and foibles. He is Erie Chapman and he sees with sacred eyes. 

Dear Anam Cara,

Wishing you wonderfully well on this the day of your miraculous birth! Do you hear the angels on high singing blessings of Love? This is your day to receive glad tidings and a song of praise for all that is good, may peace be with you. Namaste.

Today, we dedicate this poem to you because it reflects your essence, your radiant Light and generous spirit. With gratitude, for your thought provoking questions and unending invitation to Live, Love.

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.

I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty, even when it's not pretty, every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

~By Oriah Mountain Dreamer

  

Days 305 The Way of a Saint

“Never see a need without doing something about it.”  ~Mary Mackillop

  As All Saint’s Day approaches, I wish to honor Mary Helen MacKillop ( January 18, 1842–August 8, 1909)  a nineteenth century nun who was canonized as Australia's first saint in October, 2010 at the Vatican. I first heard about this remarkable woman by a kindrid spirit,  Sr. Maureen McDermott who is a vibrant Sister of Saint Joseph living a life of Loving service  in Australia.

Sr. Mary was the oldest of eight children. Her parents immigrated from Scotland to Melbourne, Australia and her family experienced a life of poverty.  At an early age Mary became a governess to help support her family. At age18, she moved from Melbourne to a farming town in Penola. It was there she met Fr. Tennison Woods who was troubled by  the lack of education for children.

Sr. Mary felt called by God to serve others and on March 19, 1866, on the feast of  St. Joseph, she and Father Tennison Woods founded the Sisters of  St.  Joseph of the Sacred Heart. This was the first religious order in Australia, whose primary goal was to serve the poor,  sick, elderly and disadvantaged through education. By 1869, over 70 sisters had joined the order and 21 schools were established. The congregation continued to grow as they built schools and taught children throughout Australia and New Zealand. The good works of the Sister’s of  St. Joseph continue to this day. Many are inspired to work in partnership with the Sisters (myself included) to carry on the healing mission of Jesus. This spirit of Love continues to thrive in the hearts, minds and loving hands of caregivers throughout our world.

Also known as Mary of the Cross,  Sr. Mackillop experienced many hardships in life. This included her failing health and resistance from those who opposed her. She faced all adversity with  determined perseverance. However difficult her journey,  Sr. Mary was  in union with God and she offered continual prayers.  Attuned with the Devine,  miracles unfolded in her presence.  Once,  Sr. Mary went to visit a man in jail who was condemned for murder.  This prisoner  was known to act vehemently towards anyone who approached him. Yet,  in Sr.  Mary’s presence he calmed him down, which allowed him to die with dignity and in peace.  In 1961,  a tribunal was set up to examine a dying woman’s claim that she was healed by  Sr.  Mary.  According to Fr.  Renato Simeone,  evidence was examined by medical and legal experts, and by the Consulta Medica of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. The verdict was unanimous,  the woman was diagnosed  correctly,  she had a poor prognosis and an incurable disease.  Her full recovery defied medical science and 30 years later she was alive and well.

 “The official Vatican Decree for her canonization sums up the meaning of Mother Mary's life: Mary's public achievement is a historical fact in Australia, but for those who knew her personally the most striking thing about her was her kindness. She was a great believer in encouragement, urging people to be kind and united. In everything she said or did,  she showed respect and love for those around her,  making no distinction between the rich, the high-born,  and the influential on the one hand,  and the lowly,  the jailed,  and the outcasts of society on the other.” (Encyclopedia of World Biography)

This reflection is dedicated to another soul of great Love, my brother, John Edward Sorensen born into eternal life on 11/01/2008.

~liz Sorensen Wessel

 

Days 303-304 - The Turning In

    While walking through autumn, I came across a lone leaf caught at the intersection of two vines. Though moribund, it remained gorgeous in its yellow-green skin and serrated edges. Then, I saw how it had begun to turn in upon itself.

   Leaves connected to their mother tree remain vibrant so long as the core of their being breathes the sun and drinks the rains of the warmer seasons. As they die into autumn, they turn inward, dry out, and gradually lose their color.

   Over forty years, I have watched many caregivers turn so far in upon themselves that their spirits seem to have died in the midst of their work. They continue going through the motions each day but the energy they felt on their first day of work has ebbed.    

    Why do so many caregivers seal off their hearts? I believe that leaders often carry a heavy part of the responsibility. By instilling fear, by blocking innovation, by failing to nurture, poor leaders begin to force their fellow caregivers to turn inward, thus killing incentive and damaging patient care.

   Caregivers may also turn inward out of sheer fatigue, out of disappointment, or out of the discovery that they have chosen the wrong career path and can't think how to escape. This "turning in" is a way some caregivers turn their backs against the storms their work life can bring.

   There are cures for this malady. Rest, retreat, a way to re-think our work-lives can all be rejuvenating. The weight of a bad boss can sometimes be lifted, occassionally (although all too rarely) by a new, high-level leader who removes the problem supervisor.

   Abused caregivers may also find a new way to encounter a person cast as an enemy. For example, caregivers can choose to take back their right to decide how they feel rather than ceding that decision to a bad boss.

   Though it seems far away now, spring, of course, awaits. In the meantime, perhaps we may all discover something new in the falling leaves of autumn, in the still nights of the winter to come. 

   Love thrives across all seasons. Sometimes when Love's energy seems farthest away, it is near. For Love is always present. All we need is the courage to turn open our hearts to welcome her.

-Reverend Erie Chapman

Days 300-302 - "Tranquil Joy"

"Gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy." - Dietrich Bonhoffer

    The people in front of me, hundreds of them, were all my age. Many had white hair. Some of the men had no hair at all. They all had wrinkles where none had been the last time I saw many of them.

   That's what you see at a college or high school reunion when it's been decades since you graduated. Suddenly, you are surrounded by people your age sharing increasingly dim memories of school days past.

   What struck me about the 45th college reunion my wife and  I attended at Northwestern University recently was how old everyone looked. Of course, they were gazing back at me and thinking the same thing.

   As we age, we all like to imagine we're still young - especially when our health is good and we feel younger than we may look. But, there's no escaping the truth of older age and the "pangs of memory" when hundreds of your ancient-looking classmates are in the same room with you.

   Dismayed for awhile by this experience, I finally remembered my daughter's wise counsel when she heard me complaining on my sixtieth birthday. "Dad, you should be grateful for your age. Think of all the people who never had the chance to live as long as you have."

   Gratitude is a healing ointment for wounded souls.  

   One of the many privileges I enjoyed while serving as the president of three different hospital systems was the honor of handing out service awards for caregivers. It can be a magical thing to be able to work in the same place for a long time and to be honored for that.

   Think of the vast crowd of people you have helped as a caregiver. If you've worked long enough, the crowd of those whose lives you've touched could fill many auditoriums. 

   Retirement can be a melancholy occasion. I've seen so many retiring caregivers standing by the punch bowl receiving polite thanks and listening to brief little speeches about their entire life's career.      

   Gratitude for a life of caregiving, can never be expressed in any farewell event. Instead, it exists in this happy truth: Caregivers touch the lives of so many across their careers. Thousands of  patients, family and friends have been affected, not to mention the experiences of co-workers. How lucky to have taken the chance to bring light and Love into their lives. What a "tranquil joy."

-Reverend Erie Chapman

*Photo of nurse and patient taken at Yale New Haven Hospital by Tia Ann Chapman -Courtesy of The Hartford Courant

Days 298-299 The Gift of the Legendary Woman

“Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.” - RUMI

 As a single mom, Maria had raised a family, had a great job in the biotech industry, and was living a good life. In her dream world, Maria had a fantastic vision. Little did she know she was about to embark on one of the greatest spiritual quests of her life.

Photo at left  Artist,  Maria Doglio 

 

"She found herself paddling a canoe down a turquoise river.  A sandy shore was in the distance framed by a mix of trees, shrubs, wild flowers.  The sun was bright overhead and the air was warm with hardly a breeze.  Spirit birds where circling overhead and red, rocky spires rose in the distance.  As the river brought her closer to the sandy shore, a figure appeared.  Her arms were outstretched and in one hand, she held a large faceted citrine crystal.  On her skirt, were stars in a rainbow of colors, woven into the fabric.  Her jacket was a turquoise color that spread out from golden shoulders.  In her hair was a blue star with feathers attached that hung down on her flowing auburn hair.  She was a wise woman and held the wisdom of rainbow medicine.”

“Rainbow Star gratefully took the crystal and placed it in a special pouch.  The woman spoke softly to her, “You already know me, as I am your Legendary Self.  You are called to remember me so that the gifts of your creativity and healing work will manifest into the world with truth and purity.  Together we will have many adventures and learn the power of the colors that you paint on your canvas.  If ever you feel lost, remember I have never left you—just close your eyes and dream.  You will find me in your visions for all the answers are within you.” ~Maria Doglio. (Acrylic painting above by Maria Doglio).

 Maria experienced a mysterious pull that she could not explain. It was too powerful a call to ignore. “This is the path where it all begins. Along it you must learn the meanings of all the colors and honor them in your life.”  Maria chose to listen and to walk an exciting new path of self-discovery and transformation. She quit her secure job and with a giant leap of faith moved to Sedona, Arizona. During the next two years she reconnected with a part of herself  she had long forgotten. Maria’s creativity flourished and after 25 years, she began to paint again.

 Currently, Maria is living in N.CA working as an Office Administrator. Maria is a certified Reiki Master healer and a gifted artist. I have the good fortune to work with Maria and I have been a recipient of her warm hospitality. When describing the creative process Maria shared the following thoughts with me. “When I paint energy flows through me from some other Source. If any judgment enters, I stop painting because it interrupts the flow of energy. I take time to clear my mind before I can return to paint, free of any voice of self criticism or doubt.” Recently Maria and her daughter, Kate Langlois, completed a six-month art course led by three talented artists, Shiloh Sophia McCloud, Sue Hoya Sellars and Mary MacDonald.

Everyone has a story to tell

A painting to paint

A poem to write

An adventure to take

A dream to unfold

Everyone is leading a legendary life

Design and write the chronicles of your own

Legendary journey

Awaken your heart

Visioning using your imagination

Imagine a heart of gold at the center of your body

Extend that into your life

Radiating out

Listen

                                                             ~By Shiloh Sophia McCloud

The link below provides a glimpse of Maria and fellow students’ marvelous journey of self-discovery and creative expression in the world of art. (Cut and paste link  into your browser.)

http://www.cosmiccowgirlsuniversity.com/studentwork/

 

~Liz Sorensen Wessel 

Days 296-297 - Love & "love"

   A few days ago, I fell in love with a flower. Romantic fool that I am, I told her I thought she was beautiful which, of course, she is. With her tacit consent, I photographed her so you could see one of my newest passions. How could one not fall in love with such beauty?

   Real Love, as Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians, "never ends." This is because Love is God's eternal energy.

   Romantic love, because it is born from life, will always end just our lives themselves will end, for life is the cause of death. At the same time, romance may remain so long as either partner survives.  

   Romance is the fire that fuels intimacy. At its height, fires seem eternal. But, fires, of course, burn out - even in the longest of marriages. What we hope is that living underneath this fire is an enduring and deeper Love which will sustain the energy of lover's after the fire of romantic passion has dimmed.

   As an old man, I still celebrate the great passion that rises when we have finally meet our love. It is one of the greatest gifts of our being to be blessed with a true love - to find someone who fills our hearts to the brim and who reciprocates our deepest affections. This is the love born from meeting our so-called "soul-mate" (a  once-beautiful phrase worn down by over-use.)   

   Artists are forever falling in love - even with people they don't know or with beings like trees with which they have the briefest of encounters. They see a flower in the form of another human & are swept away by this beauty. A few hours later, another wave of beauty crests.

   Finally, perhaps, one of these beloveds is taken at the flood and the couple are carried as long as the wave endures. Their love will continue only if, underneath, there is enduring Love.

   Lest this assessment sound too grim, I hope you are, like me, one who "would rather have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."

    Caregivers are called to "love" patients every day. What is the difference between this Love and romance? The answer may seem obvious. But, romantic love and God's Love may sometimes feel the same. We may form attachments with patients that are so close we feel the sting of betrayal when the patient dies.

   Doctors and nurses are at risk for this phenomena. They form deep attachments with patients only to see their patient taken by death. I have heard nurses often tell me, "My patient died on me this morning." It is as if the patient had betrayed them in the same way a lover might - leaving without so much as a good-bye.

   The kinds of love we experience are often hard to sort. One word, Love, stands for so many different things for each of us.

   If there is anything more important in life than Love, please let me know.  No one has ever been able to name for me anything more crucial to humanity than love - in whatever form.

   Love is the best and highest energy life has to offer. It is the gift of a flower, the beauty of a woman or man we love, the joy of helping a patient heal. It is loving in the face of knowing that all living things must die. 

-Reverend Erie Chapman

Days 293-295 - The Holy Kiss

"There is some kiss we want with our whole lives, the touch of Spirit on the body."  Rumi

    It may come as a surprise for many to discover that members of the early Christian church routinely kissed each other as part of their celebration of God's Love in community. This may also have been true of early practices in Judaism.

   The kisses, of course, were intended as expressions of God's Love among the brothers and sisters of the church - among the children of God - not as something erotic. "Greet one another with a holy kiss," the Apostle Paul offers in Romans 16:16. This instruction is repeated in Corinthians, Thessalonians, and in the first letter of Peter.

   American churches have, in general, long since abandoned this display of kissing - too many worries about erotic overtones no doubt. This seems a shame for, as Rumi wrote centuries ago, "There is some kiss we want with our whole lives..." The holy kiss affirms our humanity, not our sexuality.

   Hugs and kisses are exchanged among friends, almost always female, in American society. American men, on the other hand, are tacitly forbidden such expressions.

   Consider, on the other hand, the cultures of Europe, Russia, the Middle East, and many other parts of the world where hugs and kisses on the cheek are common ways of greeting. Paul wanted to encourage "holy kisses" because he understood that congregations needed to create a sense of unity.

   Some of he most beautiful kisses I have seen occur when a nurse caregiver leans to kiss a dying patient. As babies, we experience an immediate need to be held and kissed. As we age, or become sick and infirm, the young are less and less likely to want any physical contact. How tragic.

   I have see some caregivers offer kisses to old men and women in ways that are, oddly, condescending instead of holy. "I'm just going to give that sweet little old man a peck on the cheek" I heard a nurse say once. It was as if  the "little old man" were once again a four-year-old.

   The old and the sick are often physically shunned. This happens just at the moment they are most in need of being touched, of being loved, of an experience something like "a holy kiss." By avoiding contact with the old and sick, we signal that they have somehow fallen to the edges of humanity and are no longer "touchable" except for the purpose of a medical procedure.

   The question before every caregiver every day is: How may I bring healing to the sick patient in my care. Great caregivers listen for what the patient needs. A small number of patients want no contact at all and something like a kiss may seem intrusive.

   But for most patients, kind-hearted contact can be remarkably healing. It is not an actual "kiss" that matters. It is the holiness of touching with Love, of reaching out to another being who has fallen so deeply ill that they may feel they are no longer a part of the human race, no longer a child of God, no longer worth human contact. 

   "There is some kiss we want with our whole lives...." It is the kiss of the holy. It is the touch that helps heal our isolation and relieves us, for a moment, of the sense we have that we are alone in this world.  It is a gift that can heal beyond words.  

-Reverend Erie Chapman

Note: The painting above is by Alonzo Rodriguez

Days 291-292 She Sweeps with Many Colored Brooms By ~Emily Dickinson

 

                                                                                                                                                            Watercolor by ~liz

   She Sweeps with Many Colored Brooms 

 

SHE sweeps with many-colored brooms,
And leaves the shreds behind;
Oh, housewife in the evening west,
Come back, and dust the pond!

You dropped a purple ravelling in,
You dropped an amber thread;
And now you ’ve littered all the East
With duds of emerald!

And still she plies her spotted brooms,
And still the aprons fly,
Till brooms fade softly into stars—
And then I come away. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                        ~Emily Dickinson

Days 289-290 - The "Thing With Feathers"

"Hope is the thing with feathers/ That perches in the soul,/ And sings the tune without the words,/ and never stops at all,..."   -Emily Dickinson

   I saw her tonight for the first time in eight years. She and I used to work together until we went in different directions. The last time I looked into her eyes, her pain was visible. "It's just in my back," she smiled, "nothing life threatening."

   Over this past eight years, the pain that was "just in her back" destroyed the quality of almost every one of her waking moments. Tonight, I saw her eyes clear of pain once again.

   The hope that perches in the souls of each of had once again flight in hers. After numerous treatments and several other procedures, the most recent surgery, a fusion, had worked.

   Every day, every large hospital in America awakens to a day of surgery. In every part of the country, patients awake in fear of what will happen to their bodies when they are put to sleep. Will the cancer be removed successfully? Will the heart be repaired so it may beat for many more years? Will blinded eyes once again see the world? Will hope take flight?

   "Hope is the things with feathers," Dickinson wrote in the first stanza of one of her more famous poems. There it is is "perching" within the souls of each of us. What helps it take flight? What crushes it?

   "You're going to be fine," a nurse will say to an anxious patient. But, both nurse and patient know that outcomes are never certain.

   It's a remarkable and oft-forgotten truth. Only we can decide if we are "fine." Yet, how can we retain any kind of serenity if the beast of pain continues to claw at us? The dragon of fear will not leave us alone if we simply shout for him to go away. Only Love can replace fear.

   What Emily Dickinson reminds us is that hope is always there. What we know is that hope takes flight whenever Love spreads her wings within us.

   Caregivers have great power to heal. They can open their hearts and hands and offer the Love which is the only antidote to fear.

-Reverend Erie Chapman

  

Days 286-288 - Paradise

"A paradise within thee, happier far." - from John Milton's Paradise Lost (1667)

    Paradise Lost is considered one of the greatest works in English literature. But few, including me, have actually read it.

   Yet, this long, lyric poem suggests not only how paradise was lost in the Garden of Eden, but how paradise may be won. It is by turning to the "paradise within thee."

   This is the paradise, Milton says, that comes with belief in Christ. But, what a surprise that that paradise lives within us, not without.

   These is no garden in this world that can offer anything more wonderful than what grows at this moment somewhere in our hearts. The question is not whether the garden of joy is within, but whether we are allowing God's Love to nurture it.

   Caregivers are so often nearby when others die. What happens when the beating heart of a patient ceases and no amount of medical intervention will enable the heart to resume its life-giving rhythm?

   Chaplains are, of course, part of the caregiving team - sometimes too small a part. It is frequently the chaplain who is called when life-saving efforts are over. Sometimes, at the moment of death, those nearby report seeing a wave of heat leaving the body of the recently deceased. Could this be a sign of the soul's departure?

   Chaplains offer an idea of paradise grounded in the Bible. Who among us does not wish for this elusive "place," this state in which we are not only freed from pain but enter a world of, perhaps, eternal ecstasy?

   Because of my new ministry to prisoners, particularly those on Tennessee's Death Row, I have been particularly intrigued by the spiritual life of those who are locked for the rest of their lives in iron and concrete cages.

   What is the opposite of paradise on earth? Consider the life of the primary inmate I visit. Glenn, is forbidden any kind of contact with any living thing. During his one hour outside each day, he is released like an animal into a completely caged area completely alone. He may not touch the hand of another prisoner through the wire mesh and will be severely punished if he does.

   When I see Glenn, we talk either through a steel door or with a glass partition between us. Of course, he is not allowed plants or anything else that lives. He even has to wear leg irons when he is talking with me through the glass.

   But, we all know that there are millions who suffer far worse than Glenn. They come to us imprisoned by pain, locked up in severe anxiety, or held hostage by terrifying mental illness.

   What can we do to ease the suffering of others?

   In Jesus' final moments on this earth, one of his fellow prisoners, hung on a nearby cross, implored the Savior: "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." Jesus replied, "Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise." (Luke 23:42-43)

   That "today" was two thousand years ago. Yet, we may believe that when that day came, it lasted for eternity.

   Our worldly days are marked by our personal mix of pain and joy. For all our wishes of paradise within, it is a rare human being who seems to have found this.

   Still, there is a pathway to worldly paradise that each of us knows how to find. It is often, an elusive path for we rarely recognize it. Paradise on earth may pass through us each time we offer God's Love completely and selflessly to another in need.

   Perhaps, that is "the paradise within thee, happier far."

-Reverend Erie Chapman

  Note: Painting, Adam and Eve, is by William Blake (1808) 

Days 284-285 The Unseen Sea

 “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” ~Leo Tolstoy

  On the cusp of implementing healthcare reform, we all anticipate change. Change requires us to shift our perspective, to innovate and to adapt. It involves taking risks and often requires that we navigate in uncharted territory without a map. Change is constant and seems to be accelerating, leaving many of us with change fatigue.

 Resistance to change is natural. Change pulls us out of our comfort zone. Healthcare places increasing demands with shrinking resources. As we juggle multiple balls, we can’t imagine adding another for fear that they will all tumble down. When asked to take on a new challenge, we may experience an immediate knee jerk reaction of, “I can’t!”

 In a recent presentation on change, Melinda Bowles encouraged we consider a different response. Rather than, "I can't", to step back and say, “How can we?”  Asking a question rather than imposing a directive on ourselves or others opens a window to possibility. Perhaps, an answer is to let go of balls that are no longer useful to receive more  helpful ones.

Always, change seeks our willingness to see differently.

 Before we can embrace change, it is helpful to honor what is ending. Unfortunately, our tendency is to just move on to the next project at hand. We seldom take time to grieve endings and reverence life's changes. One simple way to do this is with a ceremony or ritual. In an effort to acknowledge changes at my work,  we plan to offer caregivers a blessing of their hands ceremony and a values commissioning affirmation.

 A story comes to mind that was once shared on this Journal. It goes something like this, “An explorer was on an expedition in Africa. He was on a very tight schedule, so he hired a handful of local men to help him carry his equipment. He and his team hurried through the jungle. They raced onward for three days. At the end of the third day, the men sat down and would not move. The explorer urged them to get up, telling them of the time pressure he was under to reach his designation before a certain date. Still, they refused to move. He could not understand this and after much persuasion, one of the native men told him, “We have moved too quickly to reach here; now we need to wait here to give our spirits a chance to catch up with us”. ~Author Unknown

 Rather than take time to let our spirits catch up with us, we rush about hoping to get more done. The faster our pace the greater the probability we will make a mistake. We all know that it takes a great deal more energy to fix a mistake than to do it right the first time. Have you ever heard the saying, “go slow to go fast?”  We owe it to ourselves to notice our patterned behaviors. Increasing self-awareness enables us to grow and to develop our natural gifts. If we make time daily for our spirits to catch up we may find we can accomplish our work with a heightened sense of well being and peacefulness.

 Change soars on the wings of hope. Afer all, “If nothing ever changed, would there be butterflies?” ~Author Unknown

 ~liz Sorensen Wessel

 I share this video below, which illustrates nature's changing beauty.

 

Days 282-283 - The Magic Forest

   Every morning, rain or shine, summer or  snow, she walks the woods at dawn. Perhaps, this is one of the big reasons she is such a terrific therapist and caregiver.

   "I have to do it," she told me at a Wednesday night church supper. "Otherwise, I would not be able to give anything to anyone else."

   We can all talk endlessly about the need for caregivers to engage in self-care. This clinical therapist lives what she preaches. "If we lose touch with nature, we lose touch with ourselves," she told me. Her advice is for all of us.

   I thought of the prisoners I visit on death row. Glenn is locked up twenty-three hours of every day.

   For the one hour he is released every morning, he must wear hand-cuffs & leg shackles &
he is restricted to a square of concrete covered by a cage. "We don't let these inmates touch grass," one of the guards told me. He meant the kind growing just beyond the concrete, not the kind you smoke.

   Our humanity is tied to the earth. The forests of this world hold great magic. Of course, we need to draw near in order to witness his tricks.

   We need to leave the enclosed areas in which so many of us live. We need to taste the smell of autumn, listen to the song of the wind as she travels tree to tree, watch the journey of the sun.

 
   One recent afternoon, I decided to follow my therapist friend's counsel. Of course, I couldn't just walk through the forest, I had to make some photographs for you. 

-Reverend Erie Chapman. 

 
 

  

Days 279-281 - Leviticus & The Rules of Caring

     Last Saturday, I met a man who is scheduled to die. Unless there is a stay of execution, on November 9, 2010, guards will enter Steve's cell, walk him down a hallway, put him on a gurney, and kill him. His executioner will, of course, be following government orders.

    I wonder if Steve will have any caregivers alongside him on his fatal walk? Will anyone who accompanies him recognize that he, too, is a child of God?

   There are many kinds of homicide. In every case, a killing is judged by one of the world's rules. The minority live by God's rules. Loving caregivers know the difference.  

   The writers of Levitcus thought they were articulating God's law when they wrote: "Anyone who kills a human being shall be put to death....Anyone who maims another shall suffer the same injury in return: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; the injury inflicted is the injury suffered." - Leviticus 24:17 & 19-20

      Leviticus is a set of old rules, not the language of Jesus - or of another great Lover, Mahatma Gandhi, who wrote: "If we practice and eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, pretty soon the whole world will be blind and toothless."

      As part of my current efforts at caregiving, I have begun ministering to Steve. Like every inmate on Tennesee's Death Row, he is locked up alone. No one else has been visiting him.

   Contrary to my long-ago career as a prosecutor and judge, my work as a Christian minister is not about guilt or innocence. I am to help this man encounter God, not the courts. My other Death Row inmate tells me the way I can help him best is simply to "show up." He understands another key aspect of caregiving - presence.

   Ever since I began working in hospitals in 1975, I have been startled by the similarity of the rules that govern both prisons and hospitals and have written about this subject often. For in most hospitals, patients are treated, (unintentionally, of course) as hostages.

    We take patients and make them prisoners. Naturally, it's all for their own good.

   Still, consider the process of being admitted. As patients, our clothes are exchanged for a humiliating gown, we are numbered and we are placed in a room that is sometimes not unlike a cell (often with a complete stranger as a roommate.)

   Our freedom is severely restricted. Friends may only visit during hours prescribed by the institution. As sick people, we are too often made to wait endlessly for a bewildering array of tests during which our bodies are stripped, poked, marked and otherwise invaded by people who literally, if not figuratively, look down upon our helpless selves. They intend to be good caregivers. The repetitive nature of their work can, however, deaden their humanity so that they end up treating us like numbered bodies instead of suffering humans.

   But, what about Steve? What does his life have to do with caregiving? After all, doesn't he deserve to die for taking the life of another? Didn't he violate one of the ten commandments?

   The answer to the last question has been answered by the courts. As for the other questions, we need only ask: what happens to our humanity whenever we take the life of another? When Steve is eventually executed, will the state breaking the same commandment as did Steve?

   In even broader terms, terms that apply to all of us, what happens to our humanity when we follow any rule that violates Love, even if that rule is somehow grounded in the Bible?

   Anyone who takes the Bible literally must not have read Leviticus. Here is one of hundreds of examples from this two-thousand-year old book of rules:  "One who blasphemes the name of the Lord shall be put to death; the whole congregation shall stone the blasphemer." Leviticus 24:16.

   According to this verse, God says anyone who swears shall be executed. Even worse, the execution has to be conducted by all of his fellow congregants. If we follow this Biblical rule, would we have to execute half the world's population?  

   The rules of Leviticus sound ridiculous to modern ears. Do you think that if I or swear we should be executed? Of course not. Are we supposed to follow the Old Testament injunction by killing certain animals and offering them as a sacrifice to God? Of course not. Is a divorced woman who remarries an adulterer? Of course not. But Leviticus claims there are are rules straight from God. 

   If we look through the lens of Love we see  that most of Leviticus' is not the word of God. It is simply the dictates of Rabbis and priests seeking to create an orderly society thousands of years ago.   

   "Are you a Christian?" people in Tennessee sometimes ask me. "Yes," I say. "Good," they respond, suggesting that if I had said "No, I'm Jewish," or "No, I'm Muslim," that would not be good - and maybe I wouldn't be either.

   "How are you doing loving your enemies?" I sometimes ask these fellow Christians, quoting the injunction to us from Jesus that he delivered in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5.)

   They laugh, of course. "Love my enemies?" the idea seems preposterous to these Christians, even if they follow the view that the Bible comes to us as a perfect translation of God's word.

   Have you ever read some of Jesus' other "rules" contained in this same, beautiful sermon given by Jesus to his disciples? "Give to anyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you." (Matthew 5:44) How are you doing with this instruction? If following all of the rules in the Bible is a requirement for being either a good Jew or a good Christian, I am done for.

   Here's the truth: God's Love asks us to live by wisdom and compassion. God does not want us to adhere like robots to society's laws no matter what.

   Love calls caregivers to use our heads and our hearts - to follow the rules when that is wise and compassionate and to break them (or stretch them) when following those rules would violate God's truth.

   Good caregivers know when to loosen up on visiting hours in the interest of Love. And the best and most courageous caregivers choose to stand up to overbearing supervisors when rules conflict with God's Love.

   Steve may die on November 9. If he does, I believe that killing will be one more blow to God's Love and to our humanity.

   Each day, caregivers have the chance to lift up humanity by treating the downtrodden - and each other, as children of God. No other rule matters.

-Reverend Erie Chapman, J.D. 

Days 277-278 A Golden Thread

"Let the beauty we love become the good we do." ~Rumi

   She is a woman who is on a mission to serve, globally. She is a kindred spirit. She carries a vision in her heart, one of bringing nurses together to improve practice and ultimately the health and well-being of people in communities from around the world. Her name is Wafa Bennis Bennani RN, BSN and her ideals for a better world compel her to lead courageously. She is realizing her dreams in partnership with clinicians and several community organizations.

It began with Wafa leading an effort to start the Upsilon Beta Chapter of the Nursing Honor Society (NHS) on the campus of California State University Fullerton in 2004. As an active  member in the International Nursing Scholarship Committee, I  recall  Wafa made a pitch for a nursing mission to Morocco. She wanted  to collaborate and help other nurses to help people. Her impassioned plea of compassion remains with me to this day.

Wafa, originally from Morocco came to the United States at age 20. She told me, “I am proud to be a nurse,” and soon you'll understand why! Wafa is a school nurse serving in a community outreach capacity helping children and families.  Previously, she worked in an neonatal intensive care unit and also in home health care.

Since 2005, Wafa has coordinated several mission trips to her native land. She and her nursing colleagues have visited hospitals there to meet with nurses and learn about  their greatest needs and the challenges they face.  St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Foundation has helped sponsor travel costs and has provided resource materials such as infection-control training materials.

Moroccan hospitals are severely understaffed and lack even the most basic of medical supplies such as clean linens, soap and water. Wafa’s team focused their initial education efforts on hand hygiene, surveillance, and prevention and successfully decreased hospital acquired infection rates. Wafa then established a web-based nursing collaborative to foster ongoing mentoring, share evidenced based practices, and use case presentations as a learning method. Additionally, Wafa secured NHS membership scholarships and has plans to provide ongoing support for nursing education in Morocco.

In April of 2011, an annual mission is planned in collaboration with Cedar Sinai Hospital A team of doctors and nurses are scheduled to perform open-heart surgeries. The team will bring an entire surgical set up unit. Volunteer nurses will provide side-by-side teaching and mentoring to Morracan nurses in the post surgical care of patients.

Another promising projectWafa is coordinating is in partnership with a Chicago based City Program, funded by a Bill Gates grant. Their goal is to improve water sanitation in urban and rural communities, provide immunizations, and perform health screenings.

I spoke with Wafa after her most recent summer mission to Morocco. She described her experiences working in an extremely busy neonatal unit. The lack of resources in staffing, education and basic supplies was staggering to comprehend. Infant mortality rates are high; for every 1000 babies born, 36 will die. When I asked Wafa about the highlight of the mission she responded, “Well, I helped a baby who was critically ill  and who required intubation. We safely transported this baby to another facility. I saved that baby’s life!”

Wafa is looking for NICU nurses and ACLS and PALS instructors to volunteer for future missions in April and the summer of 2011 to Marrakech, Morocco. For more information, contact Wafa Bennani at 949/ 228-8360 or e-mail her at [email protected]

                                            

                                                                                                                                          ~liz Sorensen Wessel