Journal of Sacred Work

Days 150-154 - The Listening Room

   One window, two chairs. No pictures or music to distract. The only sound is the voice of your heart.

   You would know that I am not your hired lawyer listening to news of crimes nor the half-interested priest to whom you list your sins. Nor would I be your paid psychologist or the psychiatrist waiting to prescribe. 

   I am not even the loving friend who wants to hear but cannot escape making judgments taught from childhood. 

   Instead, you would know that I am the angel appointed to listen & receive. The one who absorbs your sacred secrets as gifts of truth.

   You would understand that I am Earth's hint of the Light you will see at your death. 

   This is The Listening Room. It is a place as elusive as the Fountain of Youth & richer then the Realms of Gold. 

   In such a place The Listener speaks only with eyes. Every gesture is an invitation you accept.

   As you speak the doors to your shadows open. Your dreams bloom.

   For the healer's gifts are listening & affirmation. 

   I would love to be The Listener, now, for my adult children. The one who hears them speak with the old trust of their childhood. The one who heals their sorrows & reawakens their brightest hopes. The one who loves them as I love my 8-year old grandson harboring a birthday wish in his prayerful hands. 

   And I would like to be the one, now, who hears what you most want to say; what you would share if you thought I was as innocent as the light streaming through the window between us... and as loving.  

-erie chapman

    

    

 

 

Days 148-149 Listening Heart

"To listen to another's soul into a condition of disclosure and discovery may be almost the greatest service that any human being ever performs for another." -Douglous Steere

Nature reflects the wisdom of a listening heart. 

As a child I loved to wake up early and sit on the front stoop of our house and be present with my thoughts. I took in the quiet before the neighborhood had a chance to wake up.

I grew up in the suburbs of New York with all its concrete and tar pocketed streets. Yet being outdoors I loved the feel of cool morning dew on green grass and how the first rays of sunlight kissed a chill from my cheeks and the ebb and flow of God’s breath coaxing the flowers to dance.

In quiet, you notice a great deal more but you have to slow down and allow your senses to awaken to what is right there before you.

I’ve heard it said that listening is an art. Perhaps this is because researchers have observed that the average person’s attention span is only 22 seconds. We only remember about 50 percent of what someone says and within a few hours only 10-20 percent. 

The art of listening requires that we are intentional about developing this skill. When we listen with every cell of our body, it becomes a way of being that allows space for the sacred to enter into our encounters with one another.

“It is the art of becoming a listening presence, a way of being in which stillness and attentiveness provide space for people to speak authentically and know they are being heard. It is from this place that we can listen across diverse backgrounds, cultures, religions and belief systems. It is about being a presence for understanding rather than judging." ~Kay Lindahl, CLP

During my teenage years in Vermont I discovered an unsurpassed quality of life amid the peace and beauty of a natural landscape. Yet, our inner landscape offers an expansive quality of connection between ourselves and others when we listen with a wholeness of being. To offer this kind of listening is a priceless gift, one that cultivates a heart of gratitude.

“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.” -Meister Eckhart

Liz Sorensen Wessel

Watercolor by ~liz

Days 141-142 Acceptance

Note: This insightful reflection is offered by Terry Chapman PhD

Why, oh why, is it so hard to let things go?  And to let people go?  We will always have them with us in spirit, but as humans, we try very hard to hold fast to everything, fearing perhaps, that when other people and our possessions go, there go we also.  I divested much of my collected items of little consequence when moving into a cozy condo: music albums way too heavy, old stones from God knows where, assorted jimjams and treasured books—but not all of them!

 It’s ok to hold on to those items that reflect you at your core being: for me books do that and so do fishing and fly-tying items, hoarded on my den desk. And music, especially classical romantic era, refresh my soul and sooth my mind and being.  So, take heart and take a long dispassionate look at your “stuff” and separate the wheat from the chaff; most of it is truly only chaff!

Robert Frost wrote a poem called “Acceptance” about how the other members of the animal kingdom deal with letting things go, for a peaceful nighttime anyway. 

Acceptance

When the spent sun throws up its rays on cloud
And goes down burning into the gulf below,
No voice in nature is heard to cry aloud
At what has happened. Birds, at least must know
It is the change to darkness in the sky.
Murmuring something quiet in her breast,
One bird begins to close a faded eye;
Or overtaken too far from his nest,
Hurrying low above the grove, some waif
Swoops just in time to his remembered tree.
At most he thinks or twitters softly, 'Safe!
Now let the night be dark for all of me.
Let the night be too dark for me to see
Into the future. Let what will be, be.'

Sincere thanks to Terry Chapman for sharing his wisdom with us

Watercolor by Liz Sorensen Wessel

 

Days 136-140 - The Many Lives Inside One

The crying infant in is my younger sister, Martha. Our 35-year old mom could not imagine how that girl would become her primary caregiver across the last two decades of her life & a model for Radical Loving Care.

   A caregiver assessing my 105-year-old mom could not have pictured all the people living within - the 12-year-old (below) wearing incredible curls in 1924, for example, or the pretty, 32-year-old mom holding her young son (me) at right (below.)

   All these people lived inside the ancient & wrinkled person who received Radical Loving Care from the staff of Hospice of Northwest Ohio at the end of her legendarily long life.

   What if each caregiver reflected on the different people inside every patient for whom they care? Would that person receive better care? More respect?

    Sometimes caregivers (& all of us) survey a diminished patient & accidentally fall into a dangerous syndrome: I am strong, the patient is weak. I am healthy. The patient is sick. I am in charge. The patient is not.

   This syndrome can unintentionally lead to a condescension that harms healing. 

   Remembering the many vibrant people inside every ill patient - the people they used to be - helps caregivers move beyond curing to healing. 

-Erie Chapman

Photographs: Molly Chapman in 1924, in 1944, in 1948

Days 134-135 ... "And Graces Us Along Our Way"

Mother Mary has comforted the hearts of many throughout the ages. My mom loved to tell us stories about my grandmother, Catherine Carter Lawler and her love of Mary. Mom’s tone of voice rose at least two octaves whenever she shared that “grandma prayed to Mary and oh how she listened!” She interceded on her behalf and her prayers were always answered.

My Grandmother kept a small plastic statue of Mary by her bedside. This visual image was a powerful symbol of unconditional love, compassion and forgiveness.  After my grandmother died, my mother placed that little icon of Mary at her bedside to help focus her prayerful intentions.  Now I am the keeper of the statue. Mary is by my bedside and I treasure this meaningful keepsake as blessing.

This love for Mother Mary has been passed on through the generations worldwide. Some years ago, I discovered the “Rosary of Divine Union” as a contemplative form of prayer that offers great solace and peace. Fr. John Keating shared this insight,” A Mother sees flowers where others see stones. Mother embraces. Mother unifies. Today’s world is a world in need of Mother, and many people look and seek for birthing of a spiritual life, of Divinity within themselves. As Mary birthed Divinity within herself, she stands as Universal Mother—ready to assist all who come to her in birthing Christ within themselves.”

Mother’s Day is a tradition that celebrates and acknowledges the many faces of Love. We celebrate the richness that our diversity encompasses, the blessings of our unfolding journey and our universal connection within the frailty and resilience of the human heart.

We celebrate the joy of new life, accept the sadness in leave taking, while embracing the gifts revealed in Loving.   

Blessing The Mothers
by Jan Richardson

Who are our
first sanctuary

Who fashion
a space of blessing
with their own being:

With the belly
the bone and
The blood

Or,
If not these,
then with the
durable heart
that offers itself
to break
and grow wide,
to gather itself
around another
as refuge,
as home.

Who lean into
the wonder and terror
of loving what
they can hold
but cannot contain.

Who remain
in some part of themselves
always awake,
a corner of consciousness
keeping perpetual vigil.

Who know
that the story
is what endures
is what binds us
is what runs deeper
even than blood

and so they spin them
in celebration
of what abides
and benediction
on what remains:

a simple gladness
that latches onto us
and graces us
on our way.

 

This reflection is offered in loving memory of Molly Chapman and all mothers & grandmothers who are no longer here on this earthly plane but who continue to offer a wellspring of love and guidance to help "ease our way".

Liz Sorensen Wessel
Mother Mary by ~liz

Days 129-133 - May 5, 2018

    May 5 dawned with high hopes. Cinco de Mayo celebrations would spread across North America. Louisville would fulfill its annual hosting of horse racing's biggest competition.

   The marque sporting event in Nashville would feature an NHL battle between our Predators & the Winnipeg Jets.  

    Also, my first photography show in 36 years would open at the celebrated Dane Carder Studio. 

   My family had been expecting a different kind of event for months. But, when the phone call came at 7:10 a.m. it carried news no one can schedule.

   My mom's final moments passed softly. As my younger sister stood by her side reciting the names of loved ones mom sighed & slipped away.

   Yes, just a sigh, not a cinematic gasp. She always hated melodrama. 

   David Whyte writes that "Heartbreak...is the natural outcome of caring for people...of holding in our affections those who inevitably move beyond our line of sight...."

   He says that, "We use the word "heartbreak" as if it only occurs when things have gone wrong...But heartbreak may be the very essence of being human..." 

    Heartbreak is so certain that Whyte thinks we might as well befriend her as a teaching companion even when her hand clinches into a fist.  

   Mom never wanted to cause anyone heartbreak - not even her college suitor who knelt to beg, unsuccessfully, for her hand in marriage. So she tried to soften our inevitable heartbreak with a gentle ending. 

   She left life like an elegant guest - quietly slipping out the side door, her pink gown flowing, the scent of her beloved gardenias perfuming her wake. And the very sweetness of her departure broke my heart. 

 -Erie Chapman

Photograph by Erie

   

Days 127-128 Winds of Fate

Note: Thanks & appreciation for this special guest reflection by Terry Chapman

Photo (All’s Well) courtesy of Endurance photographer and Ernest Shackleton

The Winds of Fate
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

“One ship sails east and another drives west
with the selfsame winds that blow.
‘Tis the set of the sails and not the gales
which tells us the way to go.
Like the winds of the sea are the ways of fate
as we voyage along through life:
‘Tis the set of the soul that decides its goal,
and not the calm or the strife.”

We are all caregivers at one time or another in our lives.  Each gives and receives care.  But when the prognosis is somber, then is the time for “the set of the soul” to take over and guide us to a safe harbor, free of all worries, fears, and obstacles.  We know deep down that “this too shall pass!”

In my life, again and yet again, when faced with challenges and obstacles I remember this poem from my childhood days growing up in Maryland, as this poem and a painting of a ship in a stormy sea, adorned our family dining room.  None of us talked about it; but it was always there as we cared for my brother Ronnie, severely challenged by deafness, autism, and an inability to learn to speak.  We lived day to day with courage, persistence and love, fostered by this nautical metaphor.

What is the set of your soul?

Terry Chapman