Journal of Sacred Work

Days 237-239 - Sacred Friends

   In the mid-1970s, neighbor kids would come to our house to ask our children if they wanted to play "Super-friends." Each wanted to take the part of their favorite superhero - Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman striking out to save the world from evil.

   In the early 1950s, I wrapped the ends of a towel around my neck and, for a few moments, thought I might fly. My disappointment at the lack of lift-off was palpable. But the lift-off I got from friends proved genuine.

      Our fascination with relationships comes early.  If we commit, some of our acquaintances will become sacred-friends, the handful of people to whom we bare our hearts.

   "I know the way you can get/ When you have not had a drink of love..." Hafiz wrote.

   It is not super-friends, but sacred-friends who lift Love's most precious brew to our lips.

   We may also experience a sip of Love from unexpected wells. From the stranger with whom we have a kind exchange. Or from loving encounters with the woods.

   "Something's wrong for these deer to trust us," Stephen Dunn wrote in his poem "This Far Out in the Country."

   "It's murderous/ almost everywhere, and their herd/ is too large and, besides, someone always/ has a reason."

   I left Death Row Sunday morning with an unusually heavy heart - the price of compassion. By its nature, "It's murderous" in there and its dark energy often enshrouds my heart for hours after the last of the eight gates slams behind me. 

   But, of course, we are all on Death Row. The question is: How will we live?

   "I woke this morning from a dream," Dunn writes, "in which my grandparents were holding hands/ in uneventful moonlight,/ city people in a field so large/ they appeared lost, though they didn't/ seem to care." 

   Why bother with fear? "Perhaps this far out/ in the country," Dunn continues, "there's a precinct of the charmed." 

   In such a Love-wrapped "precinct" we need never worry about being lost. Beyond (or within) the dim air of the prison or the operating room, Love's light lives. 

   Perhaps, we can never find the "The Beloved Community" Martin Luther King dreamed. Yet, we may embrace each other as Love's children. Even through virtual villages like the Journal. 

   We can create our own beloved community of sacred-friends, our own "precinct of the charmed." We may already have this in our family: spouses, children, siblings, parents. Can we enrich our experience by bringing more of us to them?

   Sacred eyes reveal a deeper love in one we already know. If we approach others with such eyes, we will find other friends who become holy to us and us to them.

   Love can only be found with Love. 

   There is someone who already lives sun-haloed before us. Someone who will dance with us even on our darkest days and crown our lives with light. Do we see?

- Reverend Erie Chapman

Photograph: "Sun-haloed Model - Study #2" copyright Erie Chapman 2011

Days 235-236 Mother Teresa: For this is Love

In honor of Mother Teresa August 26, 2011 (her birthday) has been designated as International Caregiver's Day.The following poem was written on the wall at Mother Teresa's home for children in Calcutta: 

Do It Anyway 

-By Dr. Kent M. Keith

People are often unreasonable,
illogical and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind,
people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful,
you will win some false friends and true enemies;
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank,
people may cheat you;
Be honest anyway.

What you spend years building,
someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness,
they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today,
people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have,
and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis,
it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.

                                                                                                                                                        Watercolor by ~liz

As we honor Mother Teresa for a life of Loving, may we also affirm the people in our lives who manifest Light in their own unique and irreplaceable way. Whether or not we are in health care, each time we offer a gesture with a Loving Intention we are caregivers of wonder. What matters most is how we journey, not so much what we do.  There is marvelous diversity in how caregivers seek communion and give expression to the Divine.

Who are the people in your life who come to mind for you? Today is your day to offer a loving intention for another. Perhaps just to utter their name is prayer enough, or maybe one word can hint at his or her true essence.  Possibly,  a sweet remembrance will surface that will curl your lips in a smile.  Maybe, you will recall a time of despair, of feeling isolated by pain or fear and a friend showed up to walk along beside you, a spark of the Divine amidst darkness, a lifeline.  Perhaps, Beauty manifests through inspiring caregivers who dance, sing poetry, sprinkle romance, and give voice to what lies hidden. Perchance,  is it one who sees with sacred eyes, the Light however obscure, that is within you?

Take a moment in reverence to remember those with us, or beyond, for this is Love.

~liz Sorensen Wessel

Days 233-234 - Second International Caregivers Day - Recognizing the Highest Self in the Other

  [Note: For our Second Annual International Caregiver's Day, Liz Wessel created some lovely images - one at left and the other is below. Today is a special time to honor caregivers everywhere.]

     On a recent family vacation a friend became irritated with something I said and (uncharacteristically) exploded into anger. I couldn't think how to respond. From my startled defenses, I glimpsed beneath his rage and saw the loving adult within.

   Instead of standing there feeling hurt, I needed to realize what some call "the grief beneath the grievance." To have a loving exchange, I needed to address his highest self, not the briefly fearful-sounding man before me.

   None of us can engage the divine in each other if we engage in combat using courtroom rules.

   A parallel truth lives in illness care settings. A caregiver cannot engage healing energy by quoting policies and rules to a patient in pain.

   Some of the people who entered my office during my decades as a hospital CEO were angry. Doctors arrived offended by some injustice. Family members complained of mistreatment. Employees felt unfairly judged.

   I was often more effective with them than with my family. I never began by arguing. 

   No distressed person wants to hear about the rules or be crushed by authority. Like anyone, they first want to be heard.

   "I'm so sorry for your trouble," I would sometimes say. It was surprising to see how often this diffused initial anger. After that, constructive solutions could emerge.

   I know the Divine lives within you and me. We know the divine lives in the other person.

   How do we address the highest self of the other when they are throwing their "lowest" self in our face? In spite of years of training and praying, I still find that I fail too often.

   I mistakenly think that the angry face before me IS that person. My Vanderbilt Divinity School friend, Diana Gallaher, taught me years ago that the person shouting at you is always "more than" that.

   It was another divinity school friend who expressed this idea in another way to me recently. "What if we speak to the "highest self" in the other? A great notion I lose when I am self-focused on hurt.

   We are certain to experience frustration with others again and again. It is part of the nature of relationships.

   That irritation may rise up as soon as today or tonight. Will we attack from our "lowest" self or will we be able to catch a shaft of light from the Divine and illuminate the highest self of the fearful person before us?

-Reverend Erie Chapman

Further Note: On August 26, 2009, we at the Journal created International Caregivers Day. Liz Wessel has created three beautiful paintings to celebrate our second anniversary. Below is the one of these. Thank you, Liz, for once again conjuring beauty for our readers.

                                   Painting by Liz Wessel, 2011

 

Days 230-232 - Signposts of Our Lives

  "When we have loved someone enough to consider the world empty once they depart it, we have finally come to life ourselves. Don't be afraid to grieve your losses. They are the signposts of our lives, after which we are never the same again." - Joan Chittister

   When renown poet Jane Kenyon died in 1995 at age forty-seven her husband, Donald Hall, was able to write about their life and her death in ways only a poet could accomplish. It's the great writers and speakers and story-tellers who, when they choose to apply themselves to the task, can come the closest to teaching us the richest qualities of our life journey.

   By contrast, it doesn't tell us much about a relationship if a surviving spouse simply says, "My wife was an awesome person." If we are to truly honor the departed, we need to work a little harder to find the words, or songs, or paintings, or gestures rather than to default to the trite. 

   How do we "come to life ourselves" by the way in which we reflect and describe and story-tell to express our experience of the sacredness of a relationship changed by death?

   After his wife died, Hall wrote: "...it helped that I had sat so long beside her. Still, it was long before every cell in my body believed in her death."

   We read these words and begin to experience Hall's grief, how he valued his marriage, and how he valued the one he loved "enough to consider the world empty" once his wife had departed.

   During all of 1977, my wife wrote poetry about the passing of her sister Sonia who had died suddenly at age thirty-six in January of that year. She wore her hair like her sister, wore her clothes and then discovered that her mother and older sister, poet Karen Updike (above, left) had been doing the same thing.

   Together, the three put their poetry into a book and did live readings for audiences around the Midwest. Each time they rose to share, their love deepened, and their departed daughter/sister's life became more honored. Her death became a "signpost" after which they were never the same again.

   What a gift to be remembered in such a way. What a greater gift to find the courage to turn our hearts into the center of grief to mine there the gold of a life.

   Death is among the subjects we fear the most. Yet, each time we brush over the death of someone about whom we cared, our lives are diminished.

   Caregivers confront death more often than anyone does. To face the prospect of truly honoring each departing soul can feel too daunting. 

   The surprise is that to treat departed life with the same respect, awe and celebration as we do an arriving life is to honor all of life. To live Love is to shake off our fear of grief and to embrace life itself. 

-Reverend Erie Chapman

Days 228-229 Finding Grumps

“Think of those still about you before they fade and disappear. How dear is even our least friend when they are no longer there.” -Roger H. Katz

  Roger’s line fills me with tenderness. How precious life becomes when we awaken to our fleeting nature. We can get so caught up in the day to day of work and family responsibilities, and our need to meet the expectations of others, that we can lose touch with being true to ourselves. It can be difficult to break from the confines of our world and we can’t even imagine our lives otherwise.

 Ah, but the imaginings… How might we live if we were mindful daily of our brief time here. To live, in the shadow of death. What grudges might we let go of? Who might we forgive? Could we ever begin to forgive ourselves?

I recently watched a Canadian movie on Netflix called “One Week” and I highly recommend watching this unique film. The main character, Ben Tyler is a young man who has been diagnosed with cancer and is presented with the odds of a 10% survival rate. When given the warning that his days are numbered Ben begins to reevaluate his life choices. He decides to decline chemo and instead, takes off on an adventure.

 Ben’s secret aspiration is to become a writer. As he sets off, he carries with him notes from a children's book he authored. It is about a mythical creature, Grumps. When Ben was little his father liked to tell him stories. It seems that children who sought after the elusive Grumps were granted tremendous capacities. In a way, Ben’s is on his own search for the elusive Grumps, a quest for finding meaning and purpose; for finding his truth.

 I hope you enjoy this short film clip (below) from the movie "One Week." Incidentally, this film also weaves in beautiful Canadian scenery and great music.

 “To strive, to seek to find, and not to yield.” -Michael McGowan

 May we all find the courage to step out and embrace life without yielding.  

~liz Sorensen Wessel

Watercolor mandala by ~liz 

   

Days 226-227 - The Struggle for Truth

   "After the extravagant letter came/ I remembered how praise/ can keep you from belonging to yourself..." - Stephen Dunn, "Heaven"

   Praise and its partner Blame can separate us from self-truth.

   In the fourth grade, my teacher, actually named Miss Croak, gave me a note to take home to my parents. "Mr. And Mrs. Chapman," the note read, "Your son often talks out of turn and disrupts the class." (A prophetic criticism.)

   Why should I hand this damning note to my parents? I asked myself as I walked home. Why hand my own death sentence to my dad?

    Halfway home, I let the note slip from my hand, as if by accident. I walked five steps, then glanced over my shoulder. The piece of blue-lined paper sat wedged in a patch of ivy.

   I felt like Goofy in the Disney cartoon, an angel on one shoulder telling him to do the right thing, the Devil on the other shoulder warning him not to be a fool.

   Choosing the "fool's" option I retrieved the note and delivered it to my parents. My dad did not strike me often. But, that night, he broke a yardstick over my rear end.

   Telling the hardest truths always brings spankings of one kind or another. How much of our notions of truth have been shaped by praise or punishment? It takes deep belief to hang onto honesty when it burns us both within and without.  

   Dunn's lines sear us with the truth of how praise can split us away from "belonging to" ourselves.

   If our sense of self-worth turns too heavily on the judgment of others, then our internal compass cannot find true north.

   Fear tries to promise us that lies will protect our comfort. Calumny drives us to the false safety of cover-ups. 

   And the typical idea of truth is tragically over-simplified. Truth is never black or white. We learn early how to shade it to our own advantage.

   Does the doctor tell the patient his cancer is terminal or limit that news to the family so as to "protect" the patient? How does a first line nurse confess to a supervisor about a medication error - especially if it might not be discovered?

   Somehow, we want truth-telling to be easy. We want to be congratulated for our honesty, not driven into exile (as have been a long list of politicians and celebrities.)

   It's the gray truth we cultivate, tilling the ground for some explanation that will bring us praise or free us from punishment. As a trial lawyer, I was trained in this craft. It is dangerous training.

   Miss Croak was right. I did "talk out of turn and disrupt the class." That truth hasn't changed.

   Truth may have shades, but if we try to bend its light, it may well blind us. 

   The world exiles truth-tellers to a lonely island. The only real company there is God's Love. 

-Reverend Erie Chapman

Days 226-227 The Hidden Treasure in Broken Relationships

"The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones." - Act 3, scene ii, Julius Ceasar by William Shakespeare

   A couple years ago, two dear friends of ours divorced after thirty-five years of marriage and four sons. The all-too-predictable bitterness and recrimination attended the parting. The once vibrant flesh of their marriage rotted like driftwood ignored on some remote island. 

   Much of their anger remains. The lens of memory through which years of intimacy and tender moments were seen is now clouded with hostility. 

   One year ago, another friend of mine lost a hospital job he had held for twenty years. The place he had come each workday for two decades, where he had been welcomed as a colleague, where he had developed meaningful friendships, was suddenly a territory where he was no longer welcome.

   Shakespeare's lines apply to relationships and careers as surely as they do to the lives of disgraced heroes. Former Senator John Edwards, for example, did some good things in his career and their must have been happy moments in his relationship with his wife. But all that is now obscured by his late-career betrayals. The same can be said of a long list of once venerated men and women wounded like Achilles in some vulnerable part of their humanity.

   The more intimate and trusting our relationships have been, the more betrayal can blind us to the many rainbow moments the relationship held.

   This is deeply true of our long-married, now-divorced friends. During the three decades we have known them,  we shared countless laughs, sacred moments connected to the births and childhood of their sons, shared trips to Canada, and beautiful exchanges of poetry, letters, phone calls, as well as good news, and support during personal tragedies. We must now engage them separately.

   Why do we so often insist on burying so many of the treasured moments of our lives under the rubble of acrimony? Can't the accomplishments of a long career be celebrated even if the career ended with some moments of ignominy?

   Why do we let brief "evil" survive as the definition of a broken relationship while the good is interred in the bones of the past?

   Gladly, there are exceptions. Every so often, I encounter a divorced couple who are getting along great together and who do, literally, celebrate the good times they once had. Periodically, I come across a fired caregiver and find they are able to focus on the gifts their work career offered.

   These lucky few have found the answer. When we degrade every moment of a once-valued job or a relationship because of how it ended we have demeaned ourselves perhaps more than we have anyone else.

   Fear traps us in shadows. Love can always light our path to another way of seeing. It is only Love that can help us rediscover and honor the hidden treasure that each of our valued relationships once held.

-Reverend Erie Chapman, M.T.S., J.D. 

Days 224-225 What To Do with a Blank Page?

A blank page lies before me now, undefined, open territory. This white page is open to receive my thoughts and ideas without resistance, questioning, or judgment. A white clay of nothingness that longs for the creative life force to breathe life into existence. A deep yearning for communion between possibility and our human potential. This quest for mutual discovery is what a Journal seeks to offer us.

Ah, but how that blank page can intimidate us. Perhaps, this is because we are quick to listen to the voice of our inner critic that judges and squelches creativity with self-defeating admonishes of caution. On the other hand, our desire for perfection may also prevent some of us from engaging life fully with an adventurous spirit.

  I can recall times in college when I had an assignment that required writing a paper. I would procrastinate, for a sundry of reasons. Suddenly, I could not concentrate because my room was messy. I would clean up my living space; even reorganize a closet, do anything other than my assignment. Finally, the pressure of a deadline would cause me to sit down and begin the process. What seems key for any goal is to begin, or as the old Nike slogan proclaimed to “just do it.”

  A journal page provides a way to spend time with our most private thoughts in an atmosphere of acceptance. In this space we can sail upon the vast sea of unexplored inner landscapes. What is it about the actual process of journaling that is healing, almost magical? This creative act of writing down our thoughts and feelings forges a more intimate relationship, often with the parts of our selves we have long abandoned. Journaling creates a sacred presence with our most precious self. The one we usually don't make time for or see as especially valuable.

   Journaling can provide a meaningful opportunity to reflect and to gain clarity on our life's purpose.  Through journaling, we can explore the intricate patterns of our choices as we dream new weavings to life.

 I am grateful for this sacred Journal, where we can share our thoughts and Love in expansive ways, traveling instantaneously through cyberspace to greet one another as dear friends and lovers of life.

~liz Sorensen Wessel

Note: ink drawing and watercolor by ~liz

Days 222-223 - In Touch

   The jumble of curves I organized in the photographic image at left represents the oldest and most sacred relationship we experience in the early months of our lives.

   We learn love first from our mothers. It is she from whom we emerge and she that holds us against her skin.

   Before we utter words, we speak skin to skin. We will cherish this contact for the rest of our lives. 

   Without skin contact, babies perish, doctors tell us. Far beyond this medical fact is the power of the kind of touch we can offer to others.

   For all of us know that cruelty has always been rampant in our world. Sometimes, I wonder if violence comes most often from the clinched fist of those who were never held lovingly as babies and small children.

   It is no accident that the majority of first line caregivers are women. Most girls grow up in settings that value kindness from females.

   Too many males are raised with the idea that problems are often better resolved by physical strength and power rather then by compassion and respect. Would it be better for America's hospitals if they were run by women instead of men (as is the case in over 80% of hospitals)?

   It is interesting to me that my fellow males, the ones that run most of the countries in our world, are persistently finding ways to launch wars. What would happen if women took over?

   What does any of that have to do with "touch?" It is the open hand that heals, not the closed one.

   We see images of Jesus opening his hands to welcome others into the light of Love. It is Jesus who we see healing with the touch of his sacred hands.

   It is Jesus who set the example of Love for all of us, men and women. Think of the night of his betrayal when he healed a wounded Roman soldier who had come to arrest him. He reached out his hand not to strike an enemy, but to heal the severed ear of a fellow child of God. 

   Caught in our bodies as we are, it is the empathetic touch of another that we seek in the midst of our greatest weakness.

   Our society imposes many boundaries around what is "appropriate" contact. Within these boundaries, the best caregivers know that one of the most powerful tools they have is not a needle or a blood pressure cuff. Their finest gifts often come through hands guided by God's Love.

-Reverend Erie Chapman

*Photograph - "Julie & Ryder" copyright Erie Chapman 2010

 

Days 219-221 - Particular Losses

   Today,  someone will lose a leg. Another will lose their sight,  yet another their ability to hear.

   Perspective helps us understand the relative importance of events in our lives. Tonight, a family will lose one of its members. A town may be lost altogether in an earthquake, a typhoon, or a volcano.  

   Against these kinds of loses, a minor theft is minuscule. But, losses are particular to each of us. How we respond describes our sense of values.

  We have lots of ways of comforting ourselves to buffer pain. Absent this ability, we should surely perish after the death of a child, a spouse, a beloved friend - anyone or anything dear to us.

   We all know you have to experience a loss in order to appreciate its impact. We have felt death rip the fabric of our hearts, the pain of jobs lost, patients vanishing into funeral hearses. If our house hasn't burned down, been blown away by a tornado, or been burglarized, we probably don't know how that feels.

   Here's what surprised me about my reaction after my luggage was stolen recently. It certainly wasn't the loss of clothes, prescriptions or the suitcases themselves, all of which were replaceable.

   It was the loss of my camera, not for the camera, but for the hundreds of pictures I, as a photographer, had been too lazy to download to an album in cyberspace. And it was the loss of my computer with the thousands of ideas I am forever recording there. 

   I was sorry for the distress the theft caused my wife and children. But, once they saw my own calm, their anxieties eased. I was grateful for their concern, and grateful the concern many of you have  shown as well.

   Yes, I should have stored things in cyberspace. Regrets don't solve anything except for their ability to goad us into future carefulness.

   Of course, the mind can choose another path beyond simple buffering to deal with the pain of loss. Our hearts can find a brighter path.

   I was surprised at how little I valued things left on my laptop. Too many of my poems, photographs and script ideas are better re-created.

   I can't always find the energy to "make a plus out of a minus" as my father chronically urged me to do. What I can do is try and figure out, once again, what really matters among the things we create.

   There is too much that means more than the contents on a computer or camera. Still, it's strange to know that work I valued has fallen into alien hands.

   "Like a house fire," my wife sympathized. It was more like a wide ranging robbery of what lawyers call "intellectual" property. What kind of property is that? I've always wondered. What value do our thoughts have?

   Our creations mean a lot. But, they pale in comparison to the meaning of the kind acts caregivers do for others - whether remembered or not.

Reverend Erie Chapman

Days 217-218 There’s a Hole in My Soul

 Parishioner, Steve Smith accepted an invitation to give the Sunday morning homily at our church. The story he told provided a powerful allegory. It seems that a few years ago Steve’s brother gave him an unbelievable gift. He received a rare and exceedingly expensive, 100 year old bottle of French wine.  Steve decided to save his exquisite gift for a very special occasion; his upcoming 25^th wedding anniversary.

 For two years, Steve nurtured his cherished bottle of wine. He lovingly tended it like a garden, rotating it a quarter turn each day  and monitoring it diligently to keep it at just the right temperature. When the day finally arrived,  the couple prepared a special anniversary dinner. Father Peter, who had married the pair,  and his wife were invited to share in their celebration. At the long awaited moment, Steve uncorked the wine only to find the wine had spoiled! Can you imagine Steve’s incredible disappointment when he had to throw it all away?

 However difficult the moment turned out to be, Steve described it as  a “God thing.” He suddenly realized that the wine was similar to his life.The bottle holds no value of it’s own. Precious is what is inside; it is us. The part of us that longs for communion with the Divine. Perhaps, we can't name the unfathomable but it seems that we all have a deep longing for union with our Creator. Often we  seek to fill the hole in shallow, unfulfilling ways. We may try to numb ourselves or gloss over feelings of despair with various remedies.

 Steve offers this insight, that when he feels separate from God it is because he is  mad at God. Mad because of all the terrible things that happen in this world. How could God allow such things to unfold? Tragic events are hard to comprehend.  Natural disasters, illnesses, accidents, or ethnic cleansing, (what an odd term for malevolent genocide) as occurred in the holocaust, Rwanda, Croatia, Armenia, and sadly continues on and on. I appreciate Steve’s honesty and his courage to give voice to doubt and to the age old question of God's role in human suffering.  

 I guess, I see things a little differently. If God intervenes in our lives to do good, then it stands to reason God has the power to control and prevent tragedies. If a natural disaster occurs and a loved one is spared from almost certain death, we see a miracle. Yet, what about the person who perishes? Was it because God deemed them less worthy to live? I don't think so.

 I think random things happen and we humans are fragile in this ever changing, living universe. I don’t believe God intervenes by loving some, or penalizing others. More, that the energy of God’s love is unconditional, expansive, and all forgiving. The God I seek does not give bad things to punish me but rather is there to offer comfort and peace and to carry me in difficult times. I try to make time each day to sit and listen quietly for God's wisdom and guidance. My prayers are less about asking God to give me/you this (as much as I might wish) or for God to change that. Rather,  that I/you might awaken in Grace to find the courage to Be of Love. Perhaps then, the hole in our soul might open into the Light of Love. My prayer is to release fear, yet I know this cannot happen without an us. May we forgive our seemingly unbecoming frailty, which need only be accepted to transform into Beauty.

 There’s a hole in my soul. Steve’s words penetrated my denial and a veil lifted. Disarmed of my defenses, I clearly saw the many ways I try to fill my emptiness with substitutes.  I saw my agenda, my self centered neediness without any judgment or condemnation. What is real can never be lost. I was touched by something real and for a moment, I was home.

~liz Sorensen Wessel

Please note: This essay is a reflection of my own perceptions and interpretations of a small part of Steve's homily. It can not be considered an accurate recounting of the wisdom he shared that day.

Days 213-216 - "Seeing" Jesus

[Note: Apologies to regular readers for my absence from the Journal on Monday's edition. My luggage (including computer) was stolen off my daughter's front porch while on vacation in Boston and thus I was left separated from cyberspace for a bit (until accessing a hotel computer)- and subjected to a test on my own abilities to "let go." Thanks to Liz for covering.]

   A tongue-in-cheek news report on CNN recently focused on the latest experiences some people have reported of "seeing Jesus" through odd images in various locations. Included were people who claimed to see a crucified Jesus in the form of vines hanging from a telephone pole, others who saw Jesus in an outline on a dirty window and still others who reported discerning Jesus's image in a chain store doughnut and in a piece of toast (see photo at left.)

   There are, of course, more serious examples of this, including the perception of images of the Virgin Mary as well as Jesus, in various locations around the world. These are often sacred experiences for the viewers, as they convert ordinary objects into representations of sacred presence.

   But, caregivers don't need such pictures. To see Jesus, they need only look into the eyes of their suffering patients. They need only glance down at their own hands as they tend to the needs of the newly born, the nearly dead, and the deeply ill. Caregivers who are open see Jesus every day and night.

   If we open our sacred eyes we will notice that God's Love is at our side particularly in our times of loss. Jesus delivers the most important presence Christians have in this world. As Love, he brings healing to all people whether or not they choose him as their path.

   We often discover Love's unconditional presence when we feel most alone. For Jesus carries God's Unconditional Love and is with us no matter what. 

-Reverend Erie Chapman