Journal of Sacred Work

Days 182-186 - Caregivers: Watch This for a Life-Enriching Experience

This is the finest four minutes on the art of empathy I have ever seen. It was produced for The Cleveland Clinic. 

Click on this link for a life-enriching experience. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcvA2pdpuSU#t=14

-Erie Chapman

Days 180-181 - What Is the Shape of Empathy?

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life

Empathy is a willingness to keep company with another who may be hurting and feeling alone. As we open to the experience of another’s suffering we open into our own vulnerability. Yet,  if we have the courage to stay present, what one once scary is transformed by Love. 

My mom taught me this lesson early in life. I was 10 at the time when Dr. Cahill came to my home to examine me. Next, I knew I was whisked off to the hospital via ambulance. The next three days were touch and go, and it was uncertain if I would survive spinal meningitis. I was placed in isolation, lying flat on my back, in a darkened room, not allowed to sit up or quench my thirst. The headaches were intense, the vomiting, relentless. Although just a child, I was aware that I was very ill and I was scared.

Mom sat by my side all night and day. She said to me, "I wish I could trade places with you." The gift of her loving response was the best medicine. 

Little did I know the profound impact my mom's empathetic response would have in shaping the course of my life… In fact, it was not until Erie posed a question about how our mothers influenced our lives (in an early reflection) that I made the connection between this experience and my chosen profession.

In nursing, I was drawn to be with people in the final stage of life just as my mother had accompanied me through the shadow of death. Early on I was tempted to run but I understood that is when people need you the most. She taught me the healing power of Love’s presence and I am forever grateful to her and to Dr. Cahill for saving my life.

When caregivers encounter another with a listening presence they enter sacred ground.

Liz Sorensen Wessel

The following is a short, light hearted video illustrates empathy versus sympathy.

 

Days 175-179 "...the house you never left."

"The master spoke to you from eternity but [you] have understood him according to time." - a follower of Meister Eckhart

   The ultimate existential issues are time and consciousness. Inside these notions lives our sense of Love and how we exist.

   Time, Eckhart suggests, is a trick. I think reality is an even bigger one. Home becomes an idea even more than a place.

   Rumi wrote: "A man goes to sleep in the town where he has always lived, and he dreams he's living in another town.

   "In the dream, he doesn't remember the town he's sleeping in his bed in. He believes the reality of the dream town.

   "The world is that kind of sleep."

   Recently, a friend shared that her adult grandson had returned to Columbus to visit his parents who had moved from his childhood home. "What do you do when you come home and home isn't there anymore?" he wrote. 

   That's how I feel when I return to my childhood neighborhood where I played with my friend Jill (left.) The place was dear to me yet I can no longer claim it as home. 

   It has also been a decade since I left the buildings where I spent twelve of the most intense years of my life. Riverside Methodist Hospital is a gigantic and magnificent place of healing. I served as President & CEO from 1983-1995.

   Those were years of magnificent success. Now I walk the same halls anonymous, looking for the footprints of the people who once walked with me.

   "...though we seem to be sleeping, there is an inner wakefulness that directs [our] dream and that will eventually startle us back to the truth of who we are." (Rumi)

   Along one corridor of the hospital a woman approached me. "May I help you find your way?" she asked. 

   I recognized her. She was and still is a nurse in obstetrics.  

   "Debbie? It's Erie Chapman." She put her hands to her face as if she had seen a ghost.

   "How wonderful to see you!" she said. "I wish you had never left. You were so good to all of us - such a fine leader."

   I had found my way home - and to "the truth of who we are."

-Erie Chapman

Photograph: Jill & Chip, 1951 - by Erie Chapman, Jr.

Days 173-174 - Our Hands

So much of what we experience is through touch. A baby discovers the world through tactile feel. A mother’s hands gently gather her baby in to nourish and comfort in the warmth of her arms.

A friend extends hands to secure a hug; a lover caresses the softness of affection. Hands enable the laborer to work, the accountant to count, a caregiver to serve, an artist to weave, create and splay colors of light.

I have often wrestled with identifying what is more important the gift of sight or hearing? But now, I contemplate how our hands are involved in every movement, moment to moment. Whether, to pen our name or turn a page, a key to unlock, a lather when washing, the kneading of bread, turning earth in our garden; our hands are our means.

In a handshake of hospitality or a pat on the back, the flick of a switch or the might of a fist, a gesture unto heaven, a rising up prayer, they sweep up fallen pieces and in darkness they reach before us to guide our way. 

From generation to generation, hands have waved to acknowledge our leave taking and to welcome us home. Our hands enable us to give and receive and to share our love. Their lines and tributaries grow deeper with age, know stories we have yet to live and encourage us to extend beyond ourselves for the sake of others.

Caregivers offer their hands in healing as they honor the sacredness in all beings. Hands bless and express caring; for truly our hands are a gift beyond measure.

I hope you enjoy this splendid reflection by an illuminating soul, Renate Hiller. Increasingly vibrant at age 85, she is the former co-director of the Fiber Craft Studio at the Threefold Educational Center in Chestnut Ridge, New York.

 

Liz Sorensen Wessel

Day 169 - The Color of Calm

   This Journal passed through its eighth anniversary a week or so ago. I'm not sure whether it is the anniversary or something else that brought a dose of fatigue as I sat down to write to you this week.

   I looked at the photograph (left) I made of the Atlantic a few months back. As you can see, it was a day when it was hard to discern the horizon line between sea and sky. The sea, so often roiling, and the sky, working so hard each day to paint the water, chose a morning to rest. Both looked worn out.  

   Every week, Liz Wessel and I search for the right words and pictures to post here - an ocean that will sitr you, a sky that will brighten your life. Many of you are kind enough to post thoughtful comments and also to click that odd little "Like" button on both Liz's and my Facebook page.

   We want to offer you inspiration and support in your caregiving.  We also know you have such limited time in your very busy schedules. 

    Frankly, there are occasions when I know Liz struggles to come up with something for you. So do I. 

   What are your reflections on how you deal with work  and home responsibilities when you are feeling worn out?

-Erie Chapman

Photograph, "Gray Sea." Erie Chapman, 2014

Days 167-168 With Gratitude, On Father’s Day

During the revolutionary war, our founding fathers were a diverse group of brave men who banded together in their quest for freedom. In 1776, Thomas Jefferson crafted these famous and profoundly eloquent words;

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”, in the Declaration of Independence.

We give thanks to our founding fathers for their courage and sacrifice in birthing one great “nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.”

Personally, I never had the privilege of meeting either of my grandfather’s, yet I cherish their memory through stories and images shared by my parents. It is the blood of our grandfathers that courses through our veins. Through work of their hands and the sweat of their brow they realized a dream for a better life. Their gift to us is a legacy of love. We may never fully realize their impact on our lives; for the known and unknown parts of ourselves, we give thanks to our grandfathers.

A father’s love for his child is such a powerful force that carries us through life like the wind on a  sail.

The longer we live,

The more your presence

We find, laid down,

Weave upon weave

Within our lives

 

The quiet constancy of your gentleness

Drew no attention to itself,

Yet filled our homes

With a climate of kindness

Where each mind felt free

To seek its own direction.

                                                                                                    - John O’Donohue

 

  Our heavenly Father’s love for us is boundless. He is never far, for He is the breath of life.

“Our longing for the eternal kindles our imagination to bless. Regardless of how we configure the eternal, the human heart continues to dream of a state of wholeness, that place where everything comes together, where loss will be made good, where blindness will transform into vision, where damage will be made whole, where the clenched question will open the house of surprise, where the travails of life’s journey will enjoy a homecoming. To invoke a blessing is to call some of that wholeness upon a person now.” - John O’Donohue

 This Father’s Day may you be blessed with a knowing of the Great Love that abides in you and may your way be lightened by Beauty. 

Happy Father's Day!

~liz Sorensen Wessel

Mandala. in loving remembrance of Helen and Wes, by ~liz

Days 162-166 - The Practice of Humility

   Humility calls for obedience as well as compassion. The purest discipline grows from Love.

   The human spirit is strong. The human ego can often be stronger. 

   Why is humility so important to the quality of human life?

   As part of an obedience ritual,  4th century monk Abba John was ordered to water a dry stick each day. He did this for three years, hauling water a long distance from an oasis in the desert in order to obey his instruction. 

   At the end of three years, the stick miraculously blossomed. The monk's spiritual father showed the blossoms to the other monks: "Behold, the fruit of obedience," he told them.

   If the stick had never born fruit the story would still be important. True humility expects no reward.

    Pope Francis exhibits a Christ-like humility. In his first months he has done some "shocking" things: embraced horribly deformed people, washed the feet of prisoners, hugged disturbed children. We expect this from important clerics and often do not see it. Consider how hard it is to look at the deformed man (below) much less to wrap your arms around him.

   What does this mean for us? Humility is not about self-degradation. It is about the difficult work of honoring the needs of others even when it seems as hopeless as watering dry sticks. The prisoners were not freed after the pope washed their feet. The deformed man was not cured. Pope Francis demonstrated unconditional love and his example calls us to do the same. 

   Caregivers are often called to water sticks - to care for those who will not recover, to love those who will surely die. The "sticks" bloom because of holy humility not plain water.

    The guidance of Love is never pointless. The call of Love is never false. 

    Love requires humility. When you live Love, you always succeed.

-Erie Chapman. 

Days 160-161 Beauty

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is our purpose; it is why we are here.

In the age of innocence, children simply see and feel without filters. A ball is red. The sky is blue. Over time, a child's responses become conditioned by the external messages received from a societal mirror. Layers upon layers cover over until we lose sight of our real essence.

The temporary nature of our life here on earth reinforces a perception that we are bound by time. This is a root cause of fear for many of us. Yet, Love is limitless and flows beyond the confines of time.

We are more than our physical bodies. Our thoughts matter. What we think influences how we see. What we don’t accept in ourselves we attempt to discard by projecting it outwards. Yet, all spiritual truths tell us to look within.

Love is the seed of all creation. What is born of Love is true. We can return to this simple awareness and listen for the still small voice to guide us home. It only takes a little willingness on our part to see anew.

As we begin to see only Beauty that is in the person before us, we begin to see it in ourselves as well.

“I have come to bring out the beauty
you never knew you had,
and lift you like a prayer to the sky."
-Rumi

~Liz Sorensen Wessel

 

Days 155-159 - Keys to Happiness & Moments of Magic

    Is the key to happiness to choose it? 

    Is the key to magic to notice it everywhere?

   This is not slight of hand. Magic lives in the exhaled breath of belief. 

   How do you "choose" happiness amid tragedy? How do you "notice" the magic that is always present?

   The truth is, you do not need to be happy amid sadness. Sadness builds its own room. It is best to sit there during the harder chapters of your life. 

   But, it is not difficult to find both happiness and magic in the presence of any three year old child. The one in the picture lives two stories.

   One is in the spacesuit in which he imagines himself an astronaut gliding through a cosmos that is more magical in his imagination than the actual one.

   His other magic appears in the classic tale of The Red Balloon. A balloon befriends a small boy and, with no string tethering him to the child, follows him everywhere. 

   Just a fable? Adults engage the world of magic every day. The word comes from the Magi who conjured by studying the heavens. Was there journey across the desert beneath a guiding star not magical? 

   Children find magic in imagination. So do you. 

   Noticing is important. After looking at the photo several times I was startled by the shadow in the left window. 

   Mary Oliver wrote, "Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous/ to be understood.../Let me keep company always with those who say/ 'Look!' and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads."

   There is more energy in belief than there is in medicine. Both happiness and magic are born from Love.

   Find Love and you discover both.

-Erie Chapman

 

Mary Oliver may also help you "notice" magic. 

Praying

 

It doesn’t  have to be

the blue iris, it could be 

weeds in a vacant lot, or a few

small stones; just

pay attention, then patch

 

a few words together and don’t try

to make them elaborate, this isn’t

a contest but the doorway

 

into thanks, and a silence in which

another voice may speak.