Journal of Sacred Work

Days 211-215 - Motionless

"...stone among the stones, he returned in the joy of his heart to the truth of the motionless worlds." - Albert Camus, from A Happy Death

Willow Oak - Erie Chapman

   Motionless in my backyard I heard him before I saw him. His clawed feet  scratched down the trunk of the Willow Oak (left).

   We eyed each other like dueling men. 

   The voice of a squirrel sounds like a cross between a dove's cluck and a dog's bark. He clucked.

   I tried to mimic him. He clucked again.

   We began a conversation. I must have said something wrong because after five exchanges he growled and turned tail. Perhaps he knew that I hunted his ancestors in the Ohio woods of my childhood. 

   I never knew squirrels could growl. Then again, I've never spoken with one.

   The most startling thing about sitting motionless in nature is what chooses to appear.

   Two hummingbirds fell into a swirl of purple flowers.  A pair of gold finches mated in mid-air, flying against each other in the morning sun. 

   I never see these kinds of encounters when I'm in a hurry. 

   So many caregivers work not in hospitals but at home. In the middle of the night these caregivers sit silent beside the beds of stricken loved ones. What truths arrive in their motionless quiet?

   In a movie theater recently I watched a powerful little girl named Hush Puppy work her magic in a searing film called "Beasts of the Southern Wild." Near the opening, she holds a bird to her face and listens, as if checking a heartbeat or listening to the animal's voice. "We're all animals," she says.

   The more distance we put between ourselves and animals or between ourselves and the trees the more our arrogance will blind us to the truth.

   Steven Dunn writes in his poem "Meaninglessness" about someone who had "learned, but forgotten,/ the pointlessness of seeking;/ he was, after all, alive,/ and desire often sent him aching/ toward some same mistake."

   What mistake?

   When I'm seeking, I never seem to find what matters.  

   Motionless, I fall, if briefly, into the quiet lap that rests behind the heart. It is in these moments when the truth of the world arrives.

-Erie Chapman

Days 209-210 “…with God All Things Are Possible.”

“Guess now who holds thee?” Death,” I said. But, there, the silver answer rang,--“Not Death, but Love.” ~Elizabeth Barrett Browning

What was life like before we moved through the portal of our Mother’s womb, to the waiting hands ready to catch and welcome us into this world? I imagine that within the protective warmth of our Mother’s body we longed for nothing. Our every need was met for comfort and sustenance without having to ask. We were one with the Source of life and in a realm of spiritual bliss.

However, once delivered into the arms of her parents, a baby must learn to express her needs for comfort, nourishment and love. According to psychologist Harville Hendrix, “above all else we seek connection.” During the first years of life, parents who are attuned to their baby’s physical and emotional needs are essential, especially if a baby is to develop this deep sense of connection.

Often well-meaning but busy parents may not be consistently attuned to a child needs as necessary, resulting in perceived dis-connections and childhood wounds.  Hendrix sees these broken connections as “the source of all human problems", and he believes that "restoring the awareness of our connections is the source of all healing."

There are times in my relationships with others that I feel a sudden swell of emotion. When the intensity of my emotion is far greater than what the situation warrants, it is a signal to me that an unhealed childhood wound is being poked. I feel impatient with myself and self-chastise, “Aren’t you ever going to grow up, Liz?” Interestingly, Hendrix reveals a basic but very important fact. The unconscious or our primitive brain of our ‘fight or flight’ response is unable to distinguish linear time. There is no past, present or future; what was still is. This simple revelation astounded me. Perhaps, my expectation that I just grow up, is a bit unrealistic. Conceivably, there is another way towards spiritual growth and healing.

Interestingly, we seek out mates who carry a set of positive and negative traits that are aligned with our early caregivers. Unconsciously we want to restore our sense of connection and heal the unresolved and unmet needs from our childhood. Yet, unless we develop new insights, awareness and relationship skills set we tend to repeat the same mistakes over and over. We may find ourselves stuck in a ‘vicious cycle’, so to speak.

Ever hopeful is a vision for healing; of becoming fully human while recognizing the Divine Source of our being. Not as something apart and separate from us. Not as a Love shining down upon us  but rather as our inner essence. As I pay attention, I notice how my self-limiting beliefs often obscure this Light.

A synchronous idea, revealed by Wayne Dyer gave me reason for great pause. Whenever, we say things like, “I am weak, I am not talented, I am unworthy… we take God’s name in vain!!! If God is in everything and in each of us…then are we not saying these things about God? For when God spoke to Moses, He said, “I Am That I Am” , which is the sacred name of God ( Exodus 3:14-15).

What if we instead, embraced and affirmed our sacred breath and source of our being; if we began to speak ‘I AM’ of Love?

~liz Sorensen Wessel

Photo: Granddaughter, Staring Wessel with her dad Lee, July 2012

Book referenced by Harville Hendrix PhD., “Getting the Love You Want: A guide for Couples” and Dr. Wayne Dyer, “Wishes Fulfilled.”

Days 207-208 - Celebrating the "Ordinary"

"...we Americans, to our detriment, have [come] to love accolades more than genuine achievement." - David McCullough, Jr. as reported in The New York Times)

   Mr. McCullough, an English teacher, made his comments in a commencement speech reported on recently in The New York Times. What was he telling them, and us?

   The culture of praise, something often touted in this Journal as integral to the approach espoused  by Radical Loving Care, can be overdone. That is exactly what has happened in so many aspects of our society.

   At every track meet or swimming competition, every participant gets a ribbon, whether they finished first or tenth. At every employee recognition ceremony, every associate or partner is recognized for their years of service - for simply showing up at work every day for five, ten, fifteen or even fifty years.

   There's nothing wrong with such recognition. But, there is something seriously out of kilter with the reason for our excessive focus on awards (note the endless number of awards shows on television) ribbons, certificates, and medals.

   Our American culture of medals-for-everything suggests that if we didn't receive an award, maybe our work didn't matter. We may subconsciously assume that achievement is not meaningful unless it is officially recognized. People who accomplish precious things in obscurity may, because of our culture, even come to resent not receiving an award.

   We may believe we are above such thinking. But, haven't you found your ego swelling when your name is called in recognition? Has an award ever left you feeling that maybe you have escaped the terrifying idea that you are (Oh NO! Dare I say it...) "ordinary?"

   How wonderful to win words of praise, especially from those we love. But, are we strong enough to feel affirmed by the quiet knowing that we have lived Love in ways that helped another, whether or not we are hugged or thanked or recognized with a framed certificate?

   Even if we occasionally do extraordinary things, perhaps, we are all ordinary.

   Is that such a terrible thing? Or is it something we might celebrate as one more way in which we are all joined together in our brief journey through this world.

-Erie Chapman   

Days 204-206 The Turn to Beauty

   When an ugly tragedy strikes in a way that the whole nation feels, it may look like Beauty has gone into hiding. But, it is we who have turned toward our shadow side and away from her light.

  Amid disaster, the turn to Beauty becomes all the more crucial. Why do we need to make this "turn?"

   "...beauty is the cause of of harmony, of sympathy, of community. Beauty unites all things and is the source of all things. It...holds all things in existence by the longing inside them to have beauty." (Pseudo-Dionysius, The Divine Names.)

   The beauty of caregiving lives amid the violence emergency department caregivers confront every day.  And it lives in the hearts of the volunteer caregivers who stepped forward amid the recent tragedy in Aurora, Colorado to shield, to help and to heal.

   The tragedies that are so often described as "senseless" tempt us to give into despair. Beauty holds hope in her arms.

   But, heartbreak always holds the potential to notice Beauty's always-open door.

   Before the trauma of a hard event, we may have fallen victim to the gray world of the banal. We may have allowed ourselves to fall into the shadows. Or we may do what one friend suggested recently by challenging me with this question: "Would you rather be a hostage of ego or a host to God?"

   The choice seems clear. First, we have to recognize that we have this option and decide how to select it.

   If we only look for Beauty in the easy and obvious places: the face of a flower, the smile of a child or the watercolor on a greeting card, we may find it only at its most shallow depth.

   If we think Beauty lives only in the pretty petals of a rose, how will we be able to find it in the face of a blinded child, in the eyes of a legless war veteran, or in the wrinkled hands of an elderly man?

   Great caregivers see with sacred eyes. They learn to find Beauty in the courage of a dying patient, in the sweat of a laboring mother, in the skilled hands of a trauma surgeon, in the voice of a loving chaplain, or in the words of a talented poet or a gifted artist. 

   In George Bernard Shaw's play St. Joan the inquisitor mocks Joan's "voices from God" as coming from her imagination. She responds, "Of course, that is how the messages of God come to us."

   Joan made her turn to the beauty of Radical Loving Care. Can we?

   My body, like yours, can throw a long shadow. Of course, I am not the one that casts it. The sun behind us does that. 

-Erie Chapman

Photograph: Self Portrait - Shadow - copyright erie chapman 2012

Days 202-203 "My Name is I AM"

 

 "Yahweh", according to the Jewish tradition is the unspeakable name of God; not to be spoken but breathed. Incredibly, with focused intention you may hear the actual sound as you inhale and exhale. Richard Rohr, offers a beautiful revelation, that from the moment of our birth to our very last breath we breathe our Beloved’s sacred name. Paradoxically, throughout our lives we seek Love outside ourselves when all the while God is a close as our next breath!

In meditation, or contemplative prayer, we focus attention on the ebb and flow of our breathing. This is one reason this practice seems so crucial to
restoring balance and harmony in mind, body and spirit. Throughout the day, when stressful situations or anxieties arise we can pause to take a deep cleansing breath and release the worry and stress from our bodies.

Our thoughts are more powerful than we realize. Thich Naht Hahn describes our mind as being very porous. Just like our skin we are susceptible to what we are exposed to, which is why it is important to pay attention to what you absorb. When we are surrounded by negative energy what is the consequences? Hahn encourages us to water the seeds of our thoughts with Loving intention.

To sit quietly and to focus our attention on the rise and fall of each breath draws us into communion. As a myriad of thoughts manifest we do not resist, judge or hold on but allow them to pass like clouds in an ocean of sky.

I AM

I was regretting the past
and fearing the future.
Suddenly my Lord was speaking:
"My name is I am"
He paused.
I waited. He continued,
"When you live in the past
with its mistakes and regrets,
it is hard. I am not there.
My name is not I WAS.

When you live in the future,
with its problems and fears,
it is hard. I am not there.
My name is not I WILL BE.

When you live in this moment
it is not hard. I am here,
My name is I AM."

                                                        By Helen Mallicoat

~liz Sorensen Wessel

Note: polyprint watercolor by ~liz

 

Days 197-201 - "Life Piled on Life" - Living What We Believe

"...Life piled on life were all too little." - Alfred, Lord Tennyson

   I remember reading Tennyson's poem in my high school poetry book with a mix of sadness and defiance. 

   If "life piled on life" were not enough for the great Tennyson what chance did I have? What do any of us?

  My mom gave her answer when we celebrated her 100th birthday. "It's wonderful," she said, "I wish I could take everyone with me."

   If we could travel our road the way she did, we'd want to accept her invitation. 

   Towards the end of your life, what would you like to say about your journey?

   In my youth my dreams (perhaps like yours) were untainted by cynicism. My enthusiasm soared. I decided then, and many times since, to pile as much life into my years as I could.

   But, I have done too much from desperation and not enough from Love. 

     I've struggled high in the twin professions of law and healthcare (and now in ministry.) And I've failed many times. 

   I fancied myself a t.v. star and created a television show that made it into 122 countries over eight years (and a companion radio show.) Both were cancelled.

   I've written three books about healthcare. One of them is successful the other two have been flops. One of my four documentary films is shown in hundreds of hospitals. The other three are rarely seen.

   Love kids? Write a children's book. Mine sold fifty copies.

   I've composed music for five cds, written and produced a play (and a movie based on it) been a prize winning photographer, written a novel, published a book of my photographs and poems, and am currently producing another feature-length film.

   What my piled-up life has proved is not that I am multi-talented but that I am multi-interested.

   It also establishes that an ego-driven life can never be "enough."

   Until recently, too many of my endeavors were spawned by desire rather than from passion. The question that has plagued me since I was an idealistic kid remains: Why is it so hard to live what we believe?

   I don't think people should fret about failures. I've obsessed about every one of mine.

   I think people should be patient and kind. I deliver irritable responses more often than a scared porcupine shoots his quills.

   I preach loving care. I doubt I would have the endurance to last more than a month as a bedside caregiver. 

   Self pity is ridiculous. I often wallow in it. 

   I don't believe in despairing. Yet, I have just written four paragraphs that sound like I am doing just that. 

   And if you're wondering about my ego, count the number of times I have used "I" in this article.

   Still, a long life may have taught this wisdom: If we find Love in every moment, the courage to live with passion will follow.  

   Fear can only birth despair.  Love's four children are courage, wisdom, passion and compassion. 

-Erie Chapman 

Days 195-196 I am Love

"I Am Love"
Author Unknown

"Some say I can fly on the wind, yet I haven’t any wings.
Some have found me floating on the open sea, yet I cannot swim.
Some have felt my warmth on cold nights, yet I have no flame.
And though you cannot see me,
I lay between two lovers at the hearth of fireplaces.
I am the twinkle in your child’s eyes.
I am hidden in the lines of your mother's face.
I am your father's shield as he guards your home.
And yet… Some say I am stronger than steel, yet I am as fragile as a tear.
Some have never searched for me, yet I am around them always.
Some say I die with loss, yet I am endless.
And though you cannot hear me, I dance on the laughter of children.
I am woven into the whispers of passion.
I am in the blessings of Grandmothers.
I embrace the cries of newborn babies.
And yet… Some say I am a flower, yet I am also the seed.
Some have little faith in me, yet I will always believe in them.
Some say I cannot cure the ill, yet I nourish the soul.
And though you cannot touch me, I am the gentle hand of the kind.
I am the fingertips that caress your cheek at night.
I am the hug of a child.
I am love.”

This morning, a Beloved spirit has come to bless our family. Her name is Starling Wessel, and she is loved.

~liz Sorensen Wessel

 

Days 190-194 - Do You Call Yourself Beloved?

   Near death and suffering from a brain tumor the great writer Raymond Carver wrote this poem, "Late Fragment" to his wife, Tess:

And did you get what 

you wanted from this life, even so?

I did.

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself

beloved on the earth.

   It's a lovely writing, speaking brilliantly to the criticality of Love in our lives, particularly as to whether we allow ourselves to feel "beloved on the earth."

   If we receive deep love, as has my oldest grandson (in photo at age eight) than we know we can feel beloved and love ourselves. 

   But, what happens if we are unable to accept that we are loved? I can see one answer to that question in the life of the prisoner I visit each week on Death Row.

   He has never received Love and therefore has trouble feeling beloved (not to mention calling himself such.) This may be the reason why Glen has done so many mean things in his life.

   Love breeds Love. It's absence nurtures hate and anger and gives birth to fear.

   When I first saw him two years ago, a thick piece of glass separating the two of us, one of the first things Glen told me was: "Don't expect me to trust you, Erie. No one has ever trusted me and I don't trust nobody."

   It's an understandable attitude, isn't it? 

   If Love cannot find a pathway through us how can we, as caregivers, be healers to those in need?

   If we have never found a way to love ourselves perhaps Carver's lines can point us towards the permission we need to love and feel ourselves beloved in our brief journey on this earth.

-Erie Chapman 

 

Days 188-189 A Unifying Force

"The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe; to match your nature with Nature". -Joseph Campbell

 
I have heard it said, and I believe it to be true, that the unifying force that holds the universe together is Love. One need only to walk outdoors to experience this phenomenon, in sky’s translucence, suns buttery warmth, winds breath, birds symphony, rivers calling, seedlings flowering, and gardens luscious abundance. Nature provides us with countless signs of Love’s expansiveness in Creations’ infinite dance of loving affirmation.

All suffering arises when we resist or try to deny Love; when somehow we think we are separate from God. Our thinking mind can overanalyze and try to dismantle what heart knows to be true.

The above painting was inspired by the following story from, “A Path with Heart” by Jack Kornfield.

 “There is a tribe in east Africa in which the art of true intimacy is fostered even before birth. In this tribe, the birth date of a child is not counted from the day of its physical birth nor even from the day of conception as in other village cultures. For this tribe the birth date comes the first time the child is a thought in its mother’s mind. Aware of her intention to conceive a child with a particular father, the mother then goes off to sit alone under a tree.

There she sits and listens until she can hear the song of the child that she hopes to conceive. Once she has heard it, she returns to her village and teaches it to the father so that they can sing it together as they make love, inviting the child to join them.

After the child is conceived, she sings it to the baby in her womb. Then she teaches it to the old women and midwives of the village, so that throughout the labor and at the miraculous moment of birth itself, the child is greeted with its song. After the birth all the villagers learn the song of their new member and sing it to the child when it falls or hurts itself. It is sung in times of triumph, or in rituals and initiations. This song becomes a part of the marriage ceremony when the child has grown, and at the end of life, his or her loved ones will gather around the deathbed and sing this song for the last time.”

Imagine, if we were attuned to the heartbeat of our universe in such a loving way that we could hear each other’s song!

According to E. Easwaren, each of us carries Love’s blueprint in every cell of our body. Our life purpose is to discover that Source of infinite Love and to express that love in our daily living.

~liz Sorensen Wessel

I dedicate this blessing song, to my precious grandaughter Starling Wessel who is scheduled to greet us all on July 9, 2012.

Note: above acrylic watercolor by ~liz

Days 183-187 The Self We Don't Know

"Life is a matter of becoming fully and consciously who we really are, but it is a self that we largely do not know." - Richard Rohr

"The Concealed Self" - photograph by Erie Chapman 2012

   Whenever I read an insight like Rohr's I always wonder how it could be that the one person I might not fully know is myself.

   By age ten, I was pretty clear about my identity. Then the process of "forgetting" began, of gradually losing myself beneath layers created by my efforts to match society's demands.

   As we bury ourselves beneath masks, we lose our story. Why do we do this? The world we seek to copy is filled with the insanity of wars, torture, political chicanery, pain and petty criticisms (along with moments of joy.)  

    In the finest journey we can take, we seek to discover, once again, our true self. This is the stuff of fairy tales and hero's journeys. Those stories are interesting to us because we recognize that we have also lost our way. The hero inspires us that perhaps we, as well, can recover our truth.   

   Our own fable casts us as someone striving to recover this truth. Like Luke Skywalker or Joan of Arc, or Jesus himself, we battle shadowed demons and hard darkness to find our Light.

   Caregivers witness this every day. As the stricken among us lie ill or injured, they see desperation in the eyes of some and in others the light of a continuing journey.

   No caregiver has ever succeeded in becoming a loving healer without first suffering and then staying in touch with the learning found there. We have all suffered.

   What have we learned from our agonies?

   Suffering is our hardest teacher. The lessons are expensive. Why cast aside what our pain has taught us?

   Who are we really? In the Apostle John's first letter, he writes, "It is not because you do not know the truth that I am writing to you, but rather because you know it already." (2:21)

   Our best truth is that, at heart, we are all children of Light. Our greatest self is the one that shines through when we become messengers of Love. 

-Erie Chapman