Journal of Sacred Work

Days 122-126 - Night

   Shadows stripe the stories we tell ourselves in the middle of the night. 

   Night's moon and stars can soft-brush harsh daytime images.

   Just as often, stories harmless in daylight can attack at 2 a.m. like hell hounds. 

   When I was seven I dreamt that my father had died and everything was up to me. At the same age, another dream cast me as eighty-four with only a few months to live.

   Awakening from dream's different realities usually brings relief, although this was not so for Dr. Victor Frankl during his years in a concentration camp. When a fellow inmate cried out in the middle of a nightmare, Frankl declined to awaken him because their reality was worse than a nightmare.

   In any case, upon awakening from death dreams, we quickly return to our amnesia about our own passing.

   Caregivers can ease patients night-fed anxieties.

   One dark hour at Parrish Medical Center in Titusville, Florida brought a wife the news that her husband had only moments to live.

   "He always loved 'Amazing Grace,'" his wife told a nurse.

   Disappearing, the nurse gathered every staff member she could recruit.

   A circle that included another nurse, a housekeeper and a unit clerk formed around the patient's bed. Singing Love's music, they comforted him out of this world. 

   The night can be an intruder. The night can also bring amazing grace.

-Erie Chapman 

 

Days 120-121 Living an "Altogether" Life

 “When we were children, we used to think that when we grew up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability. To be alive is to be vulnerable.”  ~Madeleine l’engle

Vulnerability, hmmn…I grew up with fairy tales of knights riding white stallions, of happily ever after and dreams of becoming this “altogether” person living an “altogether” life. Some days, I walk around thinking that everyone around me is living an “altogether” life and I think I need to BE someone else, somewhere other than here and now, living a someplace else “altogether” life.  

Oh, the tales we weave and the stories we think are ours to live.

Once my thoughts begin spinning a yarn, feelings arise. If my story stems from fear I may drift into self-criticism, judgment or perceive that someone is doing something to harm me. The scenario may repeat itself with a different cast of characters but the same dilemma. When this occurs,  I can’t help but wonder what wounding lies beneath the story?

Human life is fragile, we want to be invincible and in control.  Yet, I believe we each experience a core wounding that influences our life story and colors how we see...issues of trust, abandonment, being violated and betrayal, describe a few.

  I’ve heard it said, that our life purpose is to forgive; ourselves and others. If we avoid and push away unwanted parts of ourselves they stubbornly revisit us, again and again in unhealthy patterns.

 Just as a seed lies dormant in soil, Love naturally seeks light. Our spirit continually guides us towards wholeness and healing. Forgiveness is a gift of Grace that enables us to see Light in all, or as Jesus described, the mote in our eye is removed and our sight is restored.

 During times of change and uncertainty, our stories can arise from fear with uncomfortable feelings raging within us. It can be harder still to keep up the pretense of an “altogether” life. What I am learning, and what my colleagues and friends are teaching me, is that we can create safe havens for one another. When we trust each other enough to freely express our fears and to reveal our vulnerabilities, Love begins to transforms us.

  When we open in mutual vulnerability, something subtle but profound happens; we connect one heart to another and we no longer feel all alone or alienated. For when Love enters in, I suddenly find that I am right where I am needed, right where I want to be, right in this moment, and as difficult as that may sometimes be, I am loving and living my own un “altogether” life .

“Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, 'I will try again tomorrow.” ~ Mary Anne Radmacher

Contributed by ~liz Sorensen Wessel

Note: above photo of my enchanting prince of grandson, Cyrus Wessel, watercolor mandala by ~liz

Days 115-119 - Creating the Sacred

    Wherever Love arrives, that place becomes sacred. 

     There is no such thing as sacred space (or a healing hospital) without Love.

    Whenever Love enters a relationship it brings with it the blessing of the sacred. 

    Love thrives when it encounters a receiving soul (symbolized at left as the woman honors the entry of the clouded sun.)

   The first appreciation of Beauty was the signal event in our higher evolution and laid the groundwork for our worship of God's Love. 

   This recognition probably came when the first people enjoyed flowers not for any "use" but as an expression of Beauty.

   The same epiphany occured when the classic female form was perceived not only as sexual but as Beauty speaking the language of the spirit (photograph below.)

   Sex is appetite. Beauty is spiritual. When joined they express true marriage in this world.  

   Great art only appears when an artist allows Love to move through him or her. An image of a nude is sacred or profane based on whether Love is present in both the creation and in the heart of the viewer. 

   There is no justice without Love. Love's presence makes the delivery of justice sacred. 

   Places classified as sacred: churches, temples, mosques, hospitals, courtrooms, museums lose their sacredness when Love's entry is blocked. For Jesus the money-changers in the temple were interferring with God's presence. 

   God does not live in a "holy" structure. God lives in our hearts.

   An excessive focus on "money-changing" crowds out the sacred. Such an obsessive "transaction focus" converts hospitals to little more than brothels where "love" is faked in exchange for money.

   Both settings are obscene because in both such places humanity is degraded. 

   No place becomes sacred merely by its physical location. Any place where Love meets need becomes clothed with holiness.

   When a housekeeper enters a room to comfort a man in pain, that space immediately glows with the holy. When a nurse ignores policy to stroke the back of a dying three-day-old being that bassinet becomes sacred.

   What about flowers, sky, forest, and sea? Nature wears Love's raiment. We encounter this sacredness the moment we extend our hand to meet God's.

   If we want our work to matter, if we want to bring quality into our encounters, compassion must be present.

   Shallow thinking causes us to believe that we can sustain quality care without Love - that only we can bring skill. God is excluded from this way of thinking.

   It is Love that transforms everyday caregiving into healing encounters. Quality care programs are doomed to failure when they are grounded in fear and rely on rote performance. 

   Caregivers are not called to fix widgets but to meet human need. 

   Their charge is to allow God to create sacred space through them in every encounter, in every place, all the time.

-Reverend Erie Chapman

*Photographs:

1. Madrid, 2012

2. "Figure Study - Afternoon Light" - copyright dane dakota 2009

Days 113-114 Another Way

As weekend contributor to the Journal of Sacred Work, I see this as an opportunity to focus caregivers' attention towards self-care.

 Chances are it has been a busy stress-filled week. Healthcare reform coupled with a difficult economy is driving significant change.  Do more with less and achieve better quality outcomes; piece of cake, eh?

Our work world is in the midst of a tremendous transformation and we can never go back to the way it was. It is an awkward in between stage. Things are not what they were nor have we recreated ourselves anew. It's an uncomfortable and painful time as a metamorphosis takes place. Theorist, Kurt Lewin provides the apt analogy of an ice cube that has melted and not yet re-solidified.  Anxiety and worry often characterize this time of uncertainty.

Author, Judy Brooks cautions, "change is not our enemy"  but rather presents openings for personal growth, discovery and creativity. Better yet, Candace Nagle has shared with Journal readers that change can be a catalyst for deepening relationships with colleagues and renewed solidarity through loving support of one another.

"Love and fear represent two different lenses through which to view the world. The one I choose to use will determine what I think I see." -From CIM, offered by M. Williamson

Choose Love.

As we enter into this sacred Sabbath, may you experience rest in the peace of acceptance and Another Way.

~liz Sorenesen Wessel

Watercolor, 7/4/2009 by ~liz, in memory of my dear, sweet brother, John Edward Sorensen

 

 

Days 111-112 - How Childhood Stories Become Life

   Recently, our family of eight was reassembled on vacation. At bedtime, I walked down the darkened back hallway and overheard my adult children putting their small children to sleep.

   Behind one door,my grandson laughed as my son told him stories derived from tales I told him gleaned from ones my father told me. I recalled an image of him speaking at a camp chapel gathering twenty-five years ago (left) reciting parables. Today, as a trial lawyer, he knows the power of storytelling. 

   Behind the next door, I heard my daughter quiet-voicing her two to sleep with lullabys my wife and I used to sing to her.  

   Stories can bespeak Grace.  

   What my grandchildren heard was Love. The stories they listened to weren't coming from a television set or a video game but from the voices of their parents.

   We pass down caring with our stories. Through them, we teach without instructing. 

   Stories matter because, like a good joke, the listener gets to appreciate what the story means to them personally.

   There's usually not much Love in instructions. Rules often call for obedience, not caring. Regulations are put in place not because we trust each other but because we don't. 

  Nurses are told that visiting hours are over at 8:30 p.m. and may enforce that rule, not necessarily because they care about patients and families but because it's their duty to enforce policies. 

   There's nothing inherently wrong with rules and instructions. We all need them.

   What matters is the intention behind our decisions to carry out a set of rules.

   If I live Love my choice to follow guidelines helps caring. If I enforce laws unthinkingly, I am no more than a Nazi soldier obeying by rote, not by Love. 

   Better than either is what happens when I hear a story that illuminates Love.

   The stories my grandchildren hear from their parents are a way they learn how to live. 

   One day, beyond my knowing, they will pass this caring onto their children. Thus, they will bring light into the world.

   Right now, we can do the same. If I choose to communicate through orders, I may signal I don't trust the listener.

   When I decide to share a guideline through a parable, I act in the fashion of Jesus and the prophets of other faiths. I show that I can count on the listener to appreciate what happens when the chance arrives to figure out how the stories apply in everyday life. 

   If you want mere obedience, shout out rules. If you want to live Love, live Love's example - and tell stories that prove it.

-Erie Chapman

Days 108-110 - How Do Stories Change Us?

   Our stories define our lives. Particular stories can change the direction of our journey - the ones told by family and friends, the ones described in books, movies and on television and  the stories we tell each other.

   Most crucial of all, of course, are the stories we tell ourselves.

   Here are three books that have changed my life over the last several years: David Whyte's masterpiece, The Heart Aroused, John O'Donohue's Beauty and Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth.

   Along with this is the writing and speaking of storyteller Minton Sparks and my own book upon which this work is based, Radical Loving Care. 

   "...all our demons rise to meet us at the prospect of a fall," David Whyte writes. [There is] "the deep physical shame that we can never measure up.

   This is the plight of all sincere caregivers - the worry that we "can never measure up." We seek, we pursue and we often succeed. But we seem unable to accept that we have, in fact, done the best that we could.

   In other words, the demon-fire of shame burns us into a tragic corner. 

   This demon crumbles if we absorb what Eckhard Tolle writes: "The ego takes everything personally."  Obvious as it is, these five words struck me like a lightning bolt. 

   Tolle's path away from ego is, first,  to notice that the pain-body of our ego is shouting the wrong messages at us.

   We are not our ego. We are spiritual beings who can live well on this earth when our intention and actions arise out of Spirit, not out of ego. 

   We, as caregivers, are not what we do. We are grounded in Being, not in ego. 

   Only when we act in this world out of the Love rather than ego can we  practice the art of healing. 

   To escape the insatiable appetite of the ego, we move towards our spiritual Being and allow our lives, as healers, to be directed from The Source within us that is God.

   God is Love. 

   Where are Love's images? "The words sea and ocean are too small to image such wild divinity," John O'Donohue writes. 

   This is the world of loving caregivers. There are no words to describe the "wild divinity" that illuminates healing. 

   This is language that can send us beyond language - the knowing that it is powerful to pursue the art of description and to know, ultimately, that we may touch the hem but not the center.

   God will not accede to description. For this, we can only accept a "knowing" that is as personal, deep and sacred as the "flow of the ocean."

   Minton Sparks writes,  "Riding together but all alone/ Time sings/ 'Nothing but dust in the wind, child./ Why did you even get in?"

   We are "in" for now, living our story of the world moment by moment in eternity.

   Sparks responds to her own question:  

   "I'll answer:/ Cause I mighta missed,/ Cause I mighta missed/ Cause I mighta missed this ride."

   How rich "this ride" becomes when our story moves beyond the clatter of ego to become the song of our Being. 

-Reverend Erie Chapman 

Days 106-107 Nature's Spirit

Recently, my husband, Woody and I enjoyed a weekend in Northern California. I awoke early Saturday morning to the sound of rain falling from a steel grey sky. When the sun broke through we went for a walk in Armstrong woods. The moss blanketed the forest green, the mist filled in every barren crevice, the soul of the forest rose up in human form out of ancient fallen redwoods, my feet sank down in soggy pine beds, crystal raindrops lit up bare tree branches with her favorite diamonds; so magical.

Have you ever thought about how your spirit might manifest in nature? Water is quite appealing to me as it is the essence of life. Water forms tributaries within our bodies carrying nutrients to each cell. Our first experience is to be bathed, gently rocked and held safely in the sea of our mother’s womb.

Water is a powerful life force that can unleash tremendous strength as seen in the crashing of ocean waves or with the slow patience of molding stone. Water creates opportunities for intimacy, playfulness and nurturance.

Although I am drawn to the freedom or water, I imagine myself manifesting in nature as a tree. I would root next to a vibrant river or maybe the sea; a big shade tree offering a calming presence.

Sometimes I feel like retreating back into the forest to look for fairies with skirts of leaves and flower hats. It was a rainy week in Southern California and where ever you are chances are it has been a busy week. I hope sunshine lures you outdoors to experience the wonders of the day.

~liz Sorensen Wessel

Photo taken in Armstrong woods, N. CA March 2012,Watercolor mandala for my granddaugther Rejeanne, by ~liz 4/14/12

Days 104-105 - The Servant's Heart & The Power of Stories

"...the awakening process is an act of grace...There isn't a tidy sequence of logical steps that leads toward it." -Eckhart Tolle

   We, especially those of us that work in structured organizations, love a set of steps to follow. Love, the most important thing in life, is not learned with such a "tidy sequence."

   Stories are the best teachers. The stories we honor determine our values and guide our lives. Stories don't give us easy answers. Instead, they point the way to our truest answer.

   What does Radical Loving Care look like?

   Once upon a time, I sat with a group of housekeepers in a hospital cafeteria. One of them told me she had been mopping the floor outside a patient's room the previous night.

   "This old man was calling out for his daughter," she said. "I knew his daughter had left an hour ago. He was confused. The nurses were busy. I put down my mop, walked into the room, and took the old man's hand. In a couple minutes, he fell off to sleep. I went out, picked up my mop, and went back to work." 

   What is "radical" about this housekeeper's actions? Those of us that work in healthcare organizations recognize this story on several levels: The housekeeper broke from her regular responsibilities. In military terms, she "abandoned her post."

   In many settings, a supervisor would discipline her. In a healing organization, this story is shared by leaders to signal that this story defines Radical Loving Care. 

   The housekeeper gave the patient what he needed. He didn't need a pill or a shot or a medical procedure. He needed a loving hand. 

   She stood with him while she was needed and only left when that need had been met.

   When the patient's need was met, she returned to another place she was needed - her regular work.

   Some think of the Parable of the Good Samaritan as a fable from another time and, perhaps, another religion from theirs. The story of the housekeeper and the old man is a significant expression of the great Parable.

   Those with a Servant's Heart put aside their immediate wants for the deeper needs of others. They help others no matter what.

-Erie Chapman  

Days 101-103 - Love Above All

Only if we discover Love within us can we recognize Love in others.

    It was lunchtime in the doctor's dining room at Baptist Hospital. I sat down next to a young physician relatively new in practice.

   "How do you give loving care?" I asked her.

   "I'm an actress," she replied. "I start rounds at 6:30 a.m. If I tried to be compassionate to every patient I'd be exhausted by noon. So, I just pretend." 

    Love lives within this physician. Her "acting" blocks its expression.

   This doctor is being honest about something many of us do lots of the time. We pretend to care. Actual caring calls to us from a deeper place.

  At another hospital, I heard a "coach" instructing a group of nurses on how and when to smile. Walking behind a couple of staff after the session, I heard one say to the other sarcastically, "Okay, Shirley. Remember that we have to smile until we get to the parking lot."

   Fake behavior is not only ineffective, it's exhausting and soul-killing. The young doctor may think she's saving energy by pretending. The leaders of the smile campaign may think they will improve patient satisfaction.

   But they are both missing the core of both worthwhile living and meaningful caregiving.

   The most powerful thing to know about Radical Loving Care is that it is found within us. It is impossible for us to live Love unless we accept it as our deepest truth.

   The typical patient satisfaction program teaches surface behaviors. That is why so many programs fail. 

   Too many leaders are in a hurry to paste smiles on their staff member's faces. Instead, we should all be considering the genesis of our life attitudes. 

   What are the stories that put us in touch with true caregiving? Do the best caregivers deliver fake smiles and pretend to care?

   Of course not. Yet, these shallow practices are common because real caregiving seems so difficult.

   In fact, those who practice Radical Loving Care find their work soul-filling. They drink from deep wells of energy and celebrate their work as a calling. 

   All of us fake it sometimes. The problem arises when we discover that false motives have become our modus operandi. 

   The path to Radical Loving Care begins with a few core questions: From whom did you learn love? Why are a caregiver? What kind of care do you want for your mother? How do you give loving care?

   These are questions for reflection every day and night.

   If you are not practicing loving care, what are you praciticing?

   Nothing is more important than Love. And nothing is more worth delivering than loving care.

-Erie Chapman 

Days 99-100 Daffodils

Poem by William Wordsworth, Watercolor by ~liz, 4/7/12

Days 97-98 - The Five Relationships in Sacred Encounters

   Caregivers rise to their highest self when they live Love, not fear. 

   How do we nurture our lives so that we can live Love. Father Richard Rohr offers a crucial insight: "Self-help courses of any type...will help you only if they teach you to pay attention to life itself." (italics added.)

   Radical Loving Care is learned from within before it is practiced without. This process continues in each moment that we "pay attention to life." Meanwhile, this writing helps point the way for all of us who care.

   Sacred Encounters occur whenever Love meets need. Caregiving organizations were established to help heal us when we are ill or injured - when we are "broken."

   Sacred Encounters always offer more than "fixing." Health care organizations defining themselves as repair shops degrade humanity. Those that describe their work as healing honor life. 

   One way to understand healing is to esteem the five key relationships in caregiving.

   Caregiver to Patient:

   This is the reason hospitals, hospices and nursing homes were established. When we are in serious need, we seek the help of competent and compassionate caregivers.

   Caregiver to Caregiver:

   Most organizations operate in teams. Teams succeed when caregivers honor and support each other.

   Caregiver to Leader:

   Caregiver well being is determined primarily by the kind of leadership offered by the caregiver's immediate supervisor. The number one responsibility of leaders is to take care of the people who take care of people.

   Caregiver to Self:

   This relationship is, of course, primary to all others in healing care. We cannot serve others unless we have first found Love within ourselves.

   This Love within needs constant nurturing. None of us can live Love unless we can discover the Love that lives in our endless well.

   Our spirits thirst for Love. We mistakenly look without when the well of living water flows from within. Love needs nurturing because our egos block Love's flow into our hearts. 

   The well begins to open when we recognize that our ego is in the way. As teachers from Moses to Jesus and from Jung to Tolle teach us, the way to live Love is not to condemn our ego but to put it in its place.

   The ego takes things personally. Love honors the needs of others. 

   The ego seeks praise. Love is its own reward. 

   The ego demands constant feeding from without. Love lives naturally on the stream of light that rises from within. 

Caregiver to Place:

   Beyond those around us, we live in environments. 

   Come with me on my regular visits to Tennessee's Death Row and you will see a place that is the opposite of nurturing. Death Row prisoners live in concrete and steel twenty-three hours a day. They see the outside through a six inch by three foot slit.

   During the one hour they are allowed "outside" they are hearded separately into cages. As one guard told me, "We don't let these bastards touch grass."

   The fact that some inmates can find spiritual peace in such places testifies to the Beauty that lives within.

   For the rest of us, the world around us is rich if we have found Love within. Art trains our eyes to see a range of colors in the same sky, to taste the aroma of spring, to hear the heart beat of the forest and the song of the ocean. 

   Flowers are delivered to patients because we know that Beauty is healing.

   Place impacts healing. How we relate to our enviornment, along with the other four relationships, determines the quality of our lives.

-Erie Chapman   

Days 94-96 - “Practicing & Teaching” The Mother Test

   No health care organization can call itself a center of loving care, a healing place, unless it can pass The Mother Test.  How can a culture be transformed to accomplish this goal?

   There is no more important energy in the world than Love. We know that it cannot be taught. 

   This means that all the principles and teachings of Radical Loving Care are designed to guide caregivers, to point them to their own answers, to finding love in their own hearts so they may express it to others. 

   Dr. Roe, the orthopedic surgeon referenced in last week's Journal, cannot pass The Mother Test unless he undergoes a key transition. He needs to feel compassion for his patient as if it were his mother or someone else he loves. He learns this compassion by recalling his experiences of caring - of the love his mother may have expressed for him as a young boy.

  The Mother Test is difficult to teach because it must be felt before it is practiced. It is not accomplished by walking mechanically through a series of steps.

  Dr. Roe cannot live the joy of Radical Loving Care so long as he sees his work as a series of transactions. To ask him to do this would be like expecting a boy to experience the joy of riding a bike when he is focused on making the wheels go around and balancing his weight.

 So long as the bike rider is intent on the mechanics of speed, he cannot experience the joy of soaring.

 This leads to the foundation of both the practice and teaching of The Mother Test. Before any steps or any “doing,” we have to learn who we are and how we love in the rest of our lives.

Here are the Three Core Principles of Radical Loving Care:

The Golden Thread symbolizes the ancient tradition of loving care. The thread has passed through the hands of every caregiver who practiced love in his or her work.

The Servant’s Heart: A place becomes healing when it is staffed by people who have been hired, trained and led to express the heart of a servant in their work. 

Sacred Encounters occur whenever need is met with love. Encounters occur in every setting. Typically, they involve transactions. You do this for me and I'll do that for you. In other words, regular encounters are conditional. Sacred Encounters are unconditionally loving.  A meeting between a patient and caregiver achieves sacred status only when love is present in the exchange. 

   How much do you love your mother? How much do you care for your spouse, your children, your friends? 

   Can love really be quantified? Of course not. 

   Love is like art. We know it when we see it or when we discover how to experience it.

   Conditional behavior closes the heart blocking Love's entry. Unconditional living arises naturally whenever love is present.

-Erie Chapman