Journal of Sacred Work

Days 272-276 - Choosing A New Path

   Three workmen were asked what they were doing. The first one said, "I'm laying bricks." The second man said, "I'm building a wall." The third person said, "I'm building a cathedral."

   This frequently-told story powerfully illustrates the power of intention. Meaning and motivation are raised when you lift up your eyes to the light. 

   Your life energy turns on how you define your work. Tell yourself you are just laying bricks and you are certain to experience burnout. By defining your work as building a cathedral, as sacred work, you enrich your life with hope.  

   How do you do that? The definition of foolishness, one wise person wrote, is to keep doing the same thing and expect a different outcome. If you want to change your life you have to change your intention first and then your approach.

   One leader recently expressed a frustration to me: The instructions to the team were clear and after months of trying the staff was not executing those directions effectively. 

   This leader was humble enough to admit that a new approach was needed. 

   The only successful path towards meaningful change starts from within. This is what wise people do. They back away for a time, regain perspective and ask themselves crucial questions: What life patterns are darkening my days? How can I change?

   The hardest parts comes next. They are persistence and picking the positive path. You can  complain about what you cannot do or focus on what you can do. The way to fail is to give up.

   Is your work a job or a calling? Do you bring your best self to your calling? Are you a disciple of Love?

   Stop laying bricks and start building cathedrals.  The path to Love leads to only one outcome: success.

-Erie Chapman

Days 268-269 Love Holds

Thank you

for the many ways

you illumine

 my universe...

Today, many of us will gather to honor our colleague who unexpectedly died this past week. Our presence will be a sign of support to her family and one another that we share in their loss and stand in solidarity with them.

Even the smallest gesture of love can illuminate the darkness. We find ourselves cracked open; a veil lifts and Love informs our being. We awaken, if only for a brief moment, for we may not understand but we can heed Love’s call.

 I dedicate this prayer by Rev. Ron Johnson to Celayoa Lacour

In our loss we grasp for answers and reasons, but in the end, as St. Paul says, our knowledge will fail us. The gift we seek is a response to the loss of one so precious and now she is gone.

The gift is to love even more, by loving life more, being more aware of life, of our relationships, of the earth. 

The task is to claim the goodness against the pain, to respond with faith "though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea." 

The task is to accept the loss and still live, still love.

Thus we honor Celayoa by taking her goodness and making it our own so that we can share it with others.

 Contributed by Liz Sorensen Wessel

Days 265-267 - Magic Shoes

   It was 1951 when my pal Jill and I watched my family's first television walk through the door of my childhood home. Its glowing, ten-inch, black and white eye was encased in a piece of furniture the size of a boulder. My eight-year-old self was transfixed as if Merlin himself had entered our living room. 

   Commercials on a screen were a new phenomenon. One, in particular, caught my eye. A boy about my age ran like lightning across the screen. Why was he so fast? He was wearing a pair of magic shoes called U.S. Keds.  

   When my mother let me buy a pair I walked home cradling the shoe box as if Mercury himself were waiting inside to affix his wings to my feet. All I needed to do was slip on the shoes and I would be as fast as the kid on the screen. 

   I examined the U.S. Keds label, slipped my feet into the black canvas, tightened the white laces and prepared to become a human rocket. On our front lawn, I took up a starter's position and started to run. Mrs. Strubel, our next door neighbor, would surely be astounded by my new found speed.

   I was shocked to find that I wasn't running any faster than I had been in my bare feet. How could this be? The commercial had promised me. 

   Everyone wants magic shoes. You already have them. 

   Today, put on the shoes of Love. They will bring you all the magic the world can give.

-Erie Chapman

Days 263-264 Wholeheartedly

Recently, a colleague confided in me that he was struggling with emotion, as he anticipated his first born son leaving home for college. “But I keep reminding myself that I can choose my attitude”, he said. Rather than denying his feelings of sadness, I could not help but inquire. What if he acknowledged and honored his discomfort might this be another way to move through the experience of this major threshold crossing.

As we conversed, it seemed apparent that he was trying to be strong for the sake of his son. He wondered what his son might be feeling. Perhaps anxiety about leaving home, mixed with excitement, anticipation and anxiety. “But I keep reminding myself that I can choose my attitude.”  What if your son knew that you were feeling sad and excited for him, I asked? Perhaps, that would give him permission to express his feelings too about this sacred time of leave taking and new beginnings.

 

Personally, I sometimes struggle with these two opposing philosophies.  One school of thought is to think positive thoughts and to surround yourself with positive people and avoid negativity. The "Course in Miracles" instructs that only loving thoughts are real. Everything else is illusion. On one level, I embrace this premise wholeheartedly; for the only truth I know is Love.

Yet, there is another reality that rings true as well. This comes from the lived experience that life encompasses light and darkness, joy and suffering; polarities of two opposing parts that together create a whole. One cannot exist without the other.  When we avoid, deny or stuff down feelings, what is the consequence?

I believe that our best chance for healing, transformation and love is to acknowledge the hidden, discarded, vulnerable parts of ourselves with loving kindness. This  sounds easy enough but much harder to actualize. I do not know if my response to my colleague's dilemma was helpful or not.

The only truth I know is Love.

~Liz Sorensen Wessel

Mandala by ~liz

Days 261-262 The Footsteps Of Your Soul

"The face of all the world is changed, I think,/ Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul" - Elizabeth Barret Browning

   The footsteps of my grandchildren's souls have certainly changed the face of mine. But, our presence does not always bring joy to others. 

   "Jean" was a veteran nurse leader at a hospital I came to lead. She was described as competent. 

   But, Jean's staff was afraid of her. When Jean went up on the floors, the Love's light went down.

   When I mentioned this to her she said, "Good. I want my staff to fear me. Then they will do what I say."

   I suppose there is a place for fear-based leadership, but it is not in a hospital that espouses Radical Loving Care. Jean was guided into early retirement. 

   How do you change the lives of others? Who has altered "the face of all the world" for you?

   It can be fascinating to consider the imprint of your heart. Consider the effect you have when you walk into a room of colleagues. Does the light rise or fall?

   Insight comes from honestly asking yourself the right questions. What impact do you have? What influence do the "the footsteps" of another have on you? How can you raise your light?

   You probably underestimate how much you affect the lives of others. Fortunately, you carry Love within you.  Let it come out. 

-Erie Chapman 

Days 258-260 - Earthly Stories with Heavenly Meanings

[Reading time: 1 minute 10 seconds]  

   A first year medical student scans a corpse. "Where do I start?" he ponders. The professor will give instructions. A good professor will model why this work is sacred knowing there are no instructions for the sacrosanct.

   Love is taught best through personal example, presence and stories. 

    A picture matters because it suggests a story.

   All beliefs honor story-telling. Why did Jesus teach in parables when he could have used only commands?

   "Who is my neighbor?'" a lawyer asked Jesus. He could have answered, "everyone."

   Instead, Jesus understood story-power. He told the lawyer the parable of the Good Samaritan.

   Some have said that a parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. Yet, even though the meaning is "heavenly" stories help you live Love's mystery on earth. 

   Stories, allow you to "get it" on your own. Jokes aren't funny if you don't get them and can be hilarious if you do. Stories that help you "get it" can trigger epiphanies.  

   When a recovery room nurse speaks to an unconscious patient she humanizes both him and herself. When a housekeeper puts down her mop to hold the hand of a screaming patient she shows you compassion. When you tell these stories you help others learn Love.

   But, do you have what Jesus called "ears to hear?" If you cannot hear Love's voice you might pick up a patient's hand like a robot. 

   How does Love cradle a patient? Imagine the person's deeper story. This is someone's mother or brother or friend. 

   Listen with sacred ears to the stories of others. You will find what cannot be taught with instructions: Love. 

-Erie Chapman

Days 256-257 Whether Or Not to Tell

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)

-e.e. cummings

The following story was written by Fang Chen RN.

When my father was diagnosed with lung cancer, his doctor talked to my brother to ask permission to speak with my father.  We had a family meeting that day, except for my father and mother, to discuss whether or not to let them know.  The final decision was made, which was not to tell them the truth.  Keep the secret and let my father get the best treatment. 

At the end of my father's life, I spent all my time with him during his final days.  I felt he had known his diagnosis but no one told him directly. 

He told me many stories I never heard before.  He recalled his whole life and finally he told me he was ready to go.  But at that time I was too tearful to ask him if there was anything he would like me to do for him.  He smiled at me and seemed to know what our family (my brother and sister etc.) did for him.  He said that he was very proud of me for being a nurse.  He said that he "felt very comfortable and he was receiving very good care at the end of life" and "your patients will feel the same way."  "You are a very good nurse to take care of your father and your patients." 

Those were the last words I heard from my father.  But not just those words on that day, for I'm keeping them close everyday as I care for patients and work in my nursing career.

 ~Fang Chen RN

Thank you Fong for sharing your story…

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

-e.e. cummings

Mandala by ~liz

Days 251-255 Your Sacred Eyes

   If you want nature to look tidy there are few grander examples than golf courses. Yet, I'm struck by how many golfers can only see streams as "water hazards," trees as obstructions and longer grass as dreaded "rough" that may swallow their ball. As Mark Twain said, "Golf is a good walk spoiled."

   You can experience your job as a good career "spoiled." Or you can experience it as your highest destiny if you see with sacred eyes. 

   Jesus said "I have come to you that you may have life to the full." Is your life "full?"

   Burned out caregivers may see their patients as obstacles instead of opportunities, their supervisors as "hazards" instead of helpers and their paycheck as always too small instead of enough.

    To find your sacred eyes ask Love. Love will show you Beauty in a pair of shoes or in the hands of one of your patients. 

   Such seeing transforms your moments and thus can make an atomic change in your life. 

   "No one wants to remain a prisoner in an un-lived life," John O'Donohue averred. What if Mother Theresa or Martin Luther King had ignored their gift of sacred seeing?

   Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, a Nobel Prize winner, said that "Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen, and thinking what nobody has thought." Theresa saw suffering and worked to relieve it. King saw injustice and risked his life to remedy it. Philo T. Farnsworth saw a pattern in the tracks left by a farm plow and used that learning to invent television. 

   What do you "see?"

   Stephen David Rose offers the lovely insight that "...beauty interrupts restrictions in every place and thing." 

   What if you began seeing Beauty in everything and in everyone?

   Find your sacred eyes and you will find your destiny.

-Erie Chapman

Photo by Erie Chapman

Days 249-250 She Dreamed of Beautiful Angels

The following story was written by a nurse colleague, Dayna Ayala RN

My great grandma was diagnosed with lung cancer and shortly after was admitted to hospice. Most of the time she didn’t have any pain and after a few weeks she would tell my grandma that she could see my great grandpa standing by the window watching her, even though he had passed away about 10 years earlier. She said that he called her by name, and sometimes too, told her to come with him.

One morning my great grandma shared that she had dreamed of beautiful angels flying above her bed and she wanted to reach up and grab one but couldn’t because she wasn’t strong enough. Her daughter (my grandma) told her that the next time she saw the angels, to reach up and hold on as hard as she could, that it was okay to go with them.

The next morning my great grandma was found lying in bed with her hands clenched tight. She had held on to an angel and passed away in her sleep.

This beautiful phenomenon is often reported when a loved one is transitioning from this earthly life.  Angels and loved ones come to greet and accompany us.

Have you ever witnessed a transcendant moment such as this? 

Special thanks to Dayna Ayala RN for sharing this  gift of the Spirit.

 

Watercolor by~ Liz Sorensen Wessel

Days 244-246 - LOVE - What's in it for you?

    Nothing.

   There is nothing in it for you to live Love. If your intention was to love because there was something "in it" for you, you wouldn't be living Love but engaging a transaction - an idea inconsistent Love's God-driven ideal. 

   But, since you are world-caught for now you're bound to wonder, Why choose a pathway that involves sacrifice? "If you can't get people to figure out what's in it for them, people will never support Radical Loving Care," my friend, Rollie Mains warned me several years ago.

   I did not want him to be right. My naive self hoped that people would commit to Love just because it was right. 

   Yet, our earthbound selves must see some personal advantage in an approach before we are going to commit to it. This truth has always been a challenge for the advocates of Love. 

   Jesus knew this. So did the Hindu we know as Gandhi. So did Moses, Mohammed and the Buddha. All our prophets understood that the path they advocated, the path of Love, would involve suffering.

   Radical Loving Care involves nothing more than applying Love's concepts to caregiving. What is in that for you?

   Maybe, the answer is not nothing but everything. If you live Love you will always succeed in living a full and fulfilling life.

   You cannot see Beauty unless you live Love. You cannot experience romance or parenting without Love. If you live Love, you are living life's highest calling. Whenever you live Love, God's light flows through you.

   Bend your heart to Love and feel the pliancy of the earth, the arrangement of the clouds around the moon, the way the afternoon light suns itself on your caregiver's hands. Fall in love with how light illuminates those around you.

-Erie Chapman