Journal of Sacred Work

Days 303-304 - "Portable Sabbath"

"Prayer is like a portable Sabbath, when we close our eyes for just a moment and let the mind rest in the heart." - Wayne Muller

   What is a Sabbath other than a time to "let the mind rest in the heart?" What traditional Sabbath times can do is teach you that any day and any moment can be sacred. 

   "The world seduces us with an artificial urgency," Muller writes. That urgency "requires us to respond without listening to what is most deeply true."

   I was born at high noon on a Halloween Sunday (also celebrated as Protestant Reformation Day.) It was a fun birthday as a kid (dressed as a clown on my 4th birthday with scrapbook notes from my mother.) The clown and cowboy outfits were fun. But, I never liked the ghoulish images that pockmark that holiday and always wondered why so many people enjoy masks covered with blood and people dressed to terrify us. When I began working in a hospital in 1975 the skeleton costumes and gore-covered Draculas grew even more distasteful.

   I have often let the "noise" around Halloween interfere with celebrating my birthday as a personal Sabbath. That may happen to you on your own birthday. The day is sacred yet you may not experience it that way. 

   What is most "deeply true" about your life? What do you want to become more true? What would happen if you looked beneath the "artificial urgency" of the world's demands?

   From the horror of a Nazi concentration camp Ette Hillesum sends you a diary entry: "Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and reflect it towards others."

   When is your Sabbath? What about now?

-Erie Chapman

Days 300-302 - Celebrating Liz Wessel's Art & Love

   One of the great things about Liz Wessel's art (example at left) is that it lifts us toward Beauty and Peace. Amid our everyday lives of joy, boredom, sadness and the too-often tragedies that caregiver's see Liz lifts us toward the first of these, joy. 

   Her mandalas, paintings, writing and the moments she creates for us bring solace to every caregiver who visits this site regularly. She surely does the same for those who work with her, live with her and love her. 

   More than seven years ago Liz was among the very first to see the potential in this Journal. She continues to support caregivers so well across the last several years as a regular contributor to our weekend edition and with her everyday leadership and caregiving. 

   Most important of all, Liz Wessel's presence offers to us an example of Love. Amid all the writing, the encouragement and the efforts to paint and photograph Beauty into your lives it is Liz's example that shines brightest. She is paid no money for the columns she writes for you each weekend. It is part of her gift. 

   We are called to be humble. All who know Liz recognize this trait in her quiet presence. She is a shining example of Radical Loving Care. 

   We are asked to notice Beauty. Liz not only notices but shares her gifts of seeing. We are invited to live Love. That is what she strives to do every day and night.

   Liz and I live and work thousands of miles apart and we never see each other in person. Across those many miles I send you my deep appreciation, Liz. We celebrate you and we thank you.

-Erie Chapman  

Days 298-299 The Prayer of the Person

"I would see you as my friend, / That I may remember you are a part of me / And come to know myself.  -Course in Miracles

In the early 1600’s in Le Puy, France a small band of women religious left the comfort of their cloistered life and took to the streets to reach out to their “dear neighbors”. They wore the black widows garb so that they could move freely without the customary constraint of a male escort. They  brought healing and hope to those who were most vulnerable and in need.

They met people where they were and moved beyond the  societal forces of their time, the stigma and prejudices. They looked into the eyes of the person before them and they saw themselves. They connected heart to heart and offered Love's soothing salve to those suffering with simple acts of kindness and by honoring human dignity.

We meet as strangers and make first impressions instantly. If we only take in superficial appearances we can easily objectify people and risk missing the deeper mystery and potential for meaningful relationship.

We can change the world by changing ourselves. Spiritual truth reveals that so much of what we see in the outer world is a reflection of our inner perceptions. Salvation is encountered person to person. How easy it is to fuel hate with seeds of anger and resentment  towards people who are different from us.

 It is easy to become discouraged, yet amidst all the fear, turmoil and violence, new voices are rising up. Malala Yousufzai has a beautiful voice that reflects an evolving enlightened consciousness. In war torn countries, I have heard tell of grieving family members who meet face to face with the one  killed their loved one. Healing and reconciliation occurs as “the enemy” becomes known as a person.

The power of Love knows no boundaries; it is an unstoppable force that can change the world one person at a time. 

Prayer of the Person

The person across from you is the greatest miracle and the greatest mystery in this moment—a testament of God’s continuing creation and presence in the world.

The person across from you is an inexhaustible reservoir of possibility, with potentialities only partially realized.

The person across from you is a unique universe of experience—of possibility and necessity, laughter and tears, love and indifference, hopes and fears—all struggling for expression.

The person across from you believes in something—something precious; stands for something, lives for something, labors for something, waits for something, runs for something, runs towards something.

The person across from you is not perfect—often feels disappointed, is often undecided and disorganized and woefully close to chaos; but is endowed with a tremendous inner strength, and is capable of surviving great difficulties and persecutions.

The person across from you is a community of persons—persons met during a lifetime.  Each carries with them a mother and a father, student and teacher, brother and sister, enemy and friend.

The person across from you does some things like no one else in the world.  There is something this one life on earth means and cares for –will that person dare speak it of you?

The person across from you is more description than explanation. The person across from you is MYSTERY made in God’s image, never to be fully understood.

Look before you, and within you---look around---for God is indeed among us!

~Anon

Contributed by Liz Sorensen Wessel

Photos by ~liz

Days 293-297 - The Art of Existence

"The function of a [person] is to live, not exist." -Jack London

   If anyone knew this truth it was Jack London, author of Call of the Wild as well as fifty other books. London grew up poor and, as a teenager, spent a hellish month in a penitentiary, an experience that scared his life. He traveled the world after his biggest book sold millions and he continued to live his life to the fullest. 

   "The art of existence," a phrase coined by a friend, is my favorite subject. It challenges us to see ourselves as more than a series of vacation photographs punctuating an otherwise gray existence.

   What kind of life are you leading? Another friend who is a dentist and heads up the marvelous Interfaith Dental Clinic faced a career crisis recently. Nearing burnout after twenty years of heroic and healing work she came down with the flu. 

   "All I could do was lie there," she told me recently. "All these thoughts came to me that didn't appear when I was so busy." Not until she became sick did Rhonda realize she needed to live in a new way.  

   She began to re-imagine her life and her leadership. When she recovered, she returned to her work with a whole new vision, one that is bound to bring more healing to thousands of people who live within the influence of her clinic.

   Why waste your one and only life in mere existence? You have the luxury of taking some moments right now to reflect on your life's direction. You don't have to wait until you are down with an illness to discover what will breathe new life into your world - and open the door to Love's boundless energy.

-Erie Chapman

Days 291-292 Like A Welcome Season

Maybe if we reinvent whatever our lives give us we find poems."
~ Naomi Shihab Nye

Leave the familiar for a while

Let your senses stretch out

Like a welcome season

Onto meadows, shores and hills

Change rooms in your mind for a day

All the hemispheres in existence

Lay beside the equator of your heart

Greet yourself in your thousand other forms

As you mount the hidden tide

And travel

Back home

Into the great circle of the heart

-Hafiz

Contributed by Liz Sorensen Wessel

Photo:  Vermont Autumn, 2013 by~liz

Days 286-290 - The Art of Self Healing

"This is the only life I have, this one in my head,/ the one that travels along the surface of my body/ singing the low voltage song of the ego..." - Billy Collins   

   Your heart wounds are self-inflicted. It is not that you are masochistic. It is because your ego's ear is so finely tuned for praise that you bleed at every perceived insult.   

   From childhood to our last breath our hearts are both cut and healed by the language of living. The healing may come through the tincture of time whose days deliver perspective and dim loss.

   But, there are better ways to nurture your soul than letting time thicken your scars.

   There is the magic of forgiveness - not the kind that says, "I forgive you but I was right." Instead, forgiveness heals when you embrace understanding and generosity. 

   Wounds can also be healed through the stories you tell. Change your story and you will change your heart's experience.

   This is part of what spoken word artist Minton Sparks (above with guitarist John Jackson) does in her story-telling workshops. She helps people engage their history so they can reinterpret their lives.

  Suffering is compassion's best teacher. Heart scars are so hard-won you might as well let them inform you. 

   The finest caregivers remember their pain as a way to empathize. Ineffective caregivers hid their pain beanth a veneer of superiority. Instead of sharing common ground they adopt patterns of pity that demean instead of heal.

   Self-healing is an art that can be both taught and learned. Like any art, it needs training and practice. 

   "This is the only life I have," Collins wrote, "and I never step out of it/ except to follow a character down the alleys of a novel/ or when love makes me want to remove my clothes/ and sail classical records off a cliff."

   Self-healing begins when you strip off the hair shirt of self inflicted pain and throw the dragons that clawed your heart off a cliff. Confront your dragons and they lose their power. In their place comes a new choir of angels to sing the high voltage song of your one and only life.

Your three self-healing medicines:

1) Time

2) Forgiveness & Gratitude

3) Changing your story

And one more, 4) Rest

-Erie Chapman

Days 284-285 "Something To Hold On To"

Note: The following story was written by Ashley Piturro Hospice MSW. Thank you, Ashley for sharing your generous heart with us.

A few years ago I cared for a patient in a skilled nursing facility who had been receiving dialysis. His name was John and he came to us from the hospital after the doctor told him that they were going to have to amputate his left leg.

John had no local family; his only daughter lived in St. Louis which was about 1500 miles away. John had a great sense of humor and he had lived a good life.

My first meeting with John was a poignant one. He decided that he did not want to continue the dialysis, nor did he want to have his foot amputated. He told me that he was tired and he cried in front of me. I discussed with him the pros and cons of continuing dialysis or stopping dialysis. I also discussed hospice with him but he was not ready.

 John decided to stop going to dialysis on a Friday and then he died the very next day. What made it so hard, was when I talked to him about hospice, he replied, “It is not like I am going to die tomorrow!” But, he did. Somehow, I felt guilty that he died the next day.

The only comfort I felt was when I arrived at work the next day, the nurse told me about how she had held the phone up to his ear, and while he slipped away into unconsciousness, his daughter said her goodbyes from 1500 miles away in St. Louis. The nurse said he went peacefully after she hung up the phone.

I spoke to John’s daughter after he died and she asked if I could mail one of his favorite blankets to her so that she had something to hold on to. I did not want the blanket to get lost or ruined, so instead of sending John’s blanket to our facility laundry, I took it home and washed it at my place. I attached a sympathy card and mailed the package to his daughter the next day.

A couple of days later, I received a call from John’s daughter in St. Louis. She was so grateful for all the staff had done for her dad and said it meant so much to her to have a piece of her dad with her.

That was one of the best days of my life. I truly felt like I had made a difference.

Special thanks to Ashley Piturro Hospice MSW for sharing her deeply moving experience, which is a remarkable example of Radical Loving Care.

There can be no denying that life’s circumstances are often beyond our control and incongruent with our ideal of how life shall be. Suffering is a part of living and no matter how imperfect, what never fails  how Beauty manifests unexpectedly to redeem us from  despair.

October 12 is World Hospice and Palliative Care Day. This reflection is dedicated to all caregivers who show up for us in times of uncertainty and anguished vulnerability, offering comfort in a warm blanket of love.

~ Liz Sorensen Wessel

Photo, Laura’s Quilt by  ~liz

Days 279-283 - Your Comfort Zone

   She is brilliantly trained and highly intelligent. She was at the top of her class in college, medical school and in residency training.

   Today she is called to do what we focused on in my old Life Choices television show - make a hard choice. She is an executive and no longer treats patients. Her job now is to take care of the people who take care of people.  

   There is a problem. Finance comes easy for her. Rounding to build morale is hard. Her shyness makes smiling difficult. She is uncomfortable with the relationships leaders must master.

   In other words, her “soft” skills are under developed.

   Staff members sometimes think she’s angry. They fear her when actually she only wants the best.

  “It’s time to leave your comfort zone,” I told her when I was asked to consult at her hospital. Fearful people will not bring their heart to work.”

   I told her she no longer had the luxury of wearing a grim face on occasions when her staff needs warmth.

   How do you teach such skills? That is the issue we are addressing together.

   Radical Loving Care calls us to the challenge zone – to pursue areas that will ultimately enrich life. To fulfill his promise a math whiz needs to study literature. The artist would benefit from studying calculus. Caregivers need heart as well as head.

   The comfort zone is well named. We stay in patterns because leaving them poses risks. But patterns can kill passion. 

   There is an oft-reported experiment on the danger of the comfort zone.  A scientist places a frog in a pan. He heats the pan slowly. Feeling the warmth, the frog relaxes. The scientist gradually increases the heat until the contented frog is fried.

-Erie Chapman

[1992 publicity still for Life Choices with Erie Chapman & Kathleen Sullivan]

Days 277-278 "Grant That I May Not So Much Seek..."

"My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog already thinks I am." ~Anon

This Sunday our church will honor the life of Love of St. Frances. I've been looking forward to this day for months. This is because we can bring our pets to mass to receive a special blessing. Each year, I've enjoyed seeing all the furry creatures that kids and families adore; turtles, cats, dogs, birds and even a miniature horse.

Just like our pets who offer unconditional love, 900 years later, Frances still has a great deal to teach us about loving. 

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;

O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled, as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

-St Frances of Assisi

 

"Looking over a lifetime you see that love was the answer to everything." -Ray Bradbury 

 Contributed by Liz Sorensen Wessel

Mandala by ~liz