Journal of Sacred Work

Day 365 & Days 1-4 -STARTLING GIFTS!

 The window seat said "Reserved." So I took the aisle. 

   Soon, the spot was filled, not with the huge football tackle I feared, but with a seven-year old girl flying alone. After reassuring the Southwest attendant of my grandpa-hood I introduced myself to someone that I presumed, with wild inaccuracy, would be shy.

   "Hi," she chirped. "What's your name?"

   "Chip," I answered. "It's my nickname."

   "Well, Chip, I talk a lot," she said boldly. "I have ADD & I get in trouble because I can't listen. My mom died three years ago & my dad is somewhere else. I'm sort of an orphan & live with my grandpa & sometimes with my aunt &..."

   She continued non-stop.

   As if sensing trouble passengers avoided our middle seat until it was the only one left. John, a high school teacher & football coach with a Marine haircut, squeezed in.

   I had misjudged the little girl as shy & missed again by guessing John would be a tough guy.    

   For three hours I witnessed classic caregiving. John not only listened to his seat mate's rambling but did crossword puzzles with her & told her (when he could squeeze it in) about his little boys. 

   "I wish I could learn to listen, John & Chip," the little girl confessed. 

   John offered ideas but his student kept interrupting. As we approached the flight's end she began repeating, "I am REALLY scared about landing.

   It was my turn to help. "Once upon a time there was a seven-year-old girl named Susan who had a fairy godmother who helped her every time she was scared &..."

   For the flight's last twenty minutes our little friend sat enchanted. Her rapt silence continued as the plane shook during its descent through a rainstorm.

   "Look how well you listened." I told her as we taxied to the gate. 

   "Wow," she exulted. "You're right!"

   I waited to reveal the little girl's name because John & I were as disbelieving as you may be.

  "My name is Essence," she had instructed us. "E-S-S-E-N-C-E.  You know, like something important."

-Erie Chapman

Photo by Erie

Days 362-363 All that We Are

The priest at my little faith community experienced a serious stroke earlier this year, followed by another intracranial bleed, additional complications, surgeries and a grim prognosis.

Miracles do happen; prayers are answered.  

Watching Peter’s miraculous progress month by month has been incredibly inspiring to witness.  

On Christmas Eve, our beloved pastor gave the homily. Since the stroke his thoughts and expressions are marvelously transparent and go unfiltered. In the past, Peter said he might have been concerned about how others viewed him, or with wanting to impress people with his knowledge.

All this has vanished now and what remains is a pure unconditional love and his wonderful humor.

What touched me most, is how Fr. Peter sees everyone through a sacred lens. He described how we are all spirits before our birth in human form and that each person is a real treasure to truly cherish. The sincerity and beauty of his message lingers still.

How often do we forget this truth?

Our relationships with the people who enter our lives offer us gifts beyond measure that help us grow and learn something in the process. 

A childhood memory of mine is walking to church on Sunday mornings with my mom and brother Tom. Afterwards we would stop by my grandmother’s house for our weekly visit. There we were warmly greeted with hugs and kisses by my elderly grandmother, Kate, Uncle John & Aunt Mary. I recall fondly now, (although I did not fully appreciate this at the time) how all three would come to the doorway to wave as we took our leave, standing there watching until we were out of sight. It was a small but sweet gesture and a tender expression of love.  

When all is said and done what do we remember? Perhaps, the ways we opened our hearts and shared our love as best and as imperfectly as we were able? And to ask for forgiveness for the ways we fell short.

I thought I would share this poem by Sr. Claire who I have the privilege to know as a friend and as someone I love and adore...

Christmas is a time for remembering
That love is eternal and friendship forever.
A time to forget the hurt and the pain
And taste all the joys of love once again.
To know the meaning of the Christ child’s birth
 Is to know that He came to bring love to the earth.
 “That all may be one, O Father,” He prayed.
We must forgive and forget the mistakes that were made.
Let’s just share and relish this time while it lasts
And give praise and thanks as each moment flies past,
For we know that one day the anguish and pain,
The fear and the sorrow will be turned into gain.
And then we will know the fullness of life
 Its mystery will vanish and so will all strife
For at the moment we will discover HIM in each other!

Poem by Sister Claire Olivier, CSJ
Jubilee Journal © 2012

Wishing you happiness in the grand celebration of all that you are,

with thanksgiving for all the love & friendship we have shared.

Happy New Year to all!

In peace,
Liz Sorensen Wessel

Days 351-355 - Hope Who is Love Who is God

And now, the eve of all hope. And now Hope is here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blessings to all in the name of Hope who is Love who is God. 

-Reverend Erie Chapman

Days 349-350 "The Sum of Light"

To understand Christmas is to come face to face with the incarnation. The very notion that God imbued creation with divinity makes everything we see sacred. Every step we take a pilgrimage to the divine.
~ Joan  Chittister

    Excerpt from the Poem, "Annunciation" by Denise Levertov

 Arrived on solemn grandeur of great wings,
 the angelic ambassador, standing or hovering,
 whom she acknowledges, a guest.

 But we are told of meek obedience. No one mentions

  courage.

       The engendering Spirit
 did not enter her without consent.

         God waited.

 Compassion and intelligence
 fused in her, indivisible.

Called to a destiny more momentous
than any in all of Time,
she did not quail,

  only asked

a simple, ‘How can this be?’
and gravely, courteously,
took to heart the angel’s reply,
the astounding ministry she was offered:

to bear in her womb
Infinite weight and lightness; to carry
in hidden, finite inwardness,

nine months of Eternity; to contain
in slender vase of being,
the sum of power–
in narrow flesh,
the sum of light.

                     Then bring to birth,
push out into air, a Man-child
needing, like any other,
milk and love–

but who was God.

Just click on the blue "watch on Vimeo" tab below to experience this lovely Advent message by Cynthia Bourgeault ...

An Advent Meditation with Cynthia Bourgeault from CAC on Vimeo.

Shared by Liz Sorensen Wessel
Artwork by ~liz

Days 344-348 - Everyday Hope

    What can my fifteen-month old grandson know about Christmas joy? More than we think. He already understands that dancing is fun. And Happiness visits every time I play this 12 second video from my son.

   But Happiness is not the super hero whose muscle fuels life's highest energy. Hope is. That is what Jesus brought. 

   Of course, Hope helps. We may not appreciate this: Hope heals the sick. 

   Proof? Watch Hopelessness shatter the hospitalized & homebound. It does not take a doctor to diagnose depression in a patient's voice. It does not take a nurse to read despair in one's eyes.

   It does take training for caregivers to learn the art of painting Hope across the canvas of a particular patient's energy. It takes savvy to make differential diagnoses to discern which flavor of Encouragement to brew for each patient. 

   All patients cannot be cured yet everyone can heal by befriending Hope. The terminally ill fasten their eyes on heaven's light. Meaning is the life blood for caregivers.

   But many have lost their way.

   Radical Loving Leaders heal by injecting cultures with cubic centimeters of encouragement, doses of humor, milligrams of reassurance & cupfuls of energy-giving visions.

   The job of America's leaders is to infuse meaning. Hire Hope &  brighten lives every day. 

-Erie Chapman

Days 342-343 A Deeper Truth

                         “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it.” (Jn. 1:5)

Excerpt of A Reflection Written by Jack Shea.

Spiritual traditions interpret December as the season the sun arrives late and leaves early. More scientifically, the earth is turning in such a way that we are in darkness more than at other times of the year. This greater darkness symbolizes the growing power of all that afflicts us –in body, mind, society, and spirit. Winter brings with it a sense of our vulnerability.

As an antidote, Christmas trees accompany the darkness of December. They are symbolic push backs to the absence of light. Their branches are not bare but full, leafy, and strung with lights. Their power glows, radiates, shines. They are not victims of the December darkness, and they refuse to allow it to dominate. Their brightness is defiant. What is the message of this defiance?

We may want a perfect world -good enough health, good enough finances, good enough relationships, and a good enough, stable, non-violent society and world. But that is not what we always get. We find our health precarious; our careers, jobs, or vocations under stress; our finances dipping badly; our relationships in need of repair; our society and world either slightly or wildly insane. We are under duress.

Enter the Christmas tree. Its lights say: “Give all the things that afflict us their due, but do not give them our soul. There is something stronger in us than the surrounding darkness." The body may be under siege, the mind may be quivering with anxiety, and social supports may be waning, but dignity is the rock that remains, the rock on which the whole house is built.

There is always a power of love that holds us, a deeper identity that survives all attacks. It is imperative to allow Christmas trees to remind us of this deeper truth when the December darkness is parading a shallower truth.  ~ Written by Jack Shea

Shared by Liz Sorensen Wessel
Watercolor and photo by ~liz

Days 337-341 - Your Childhood Bedroom

My plan was to write about letting go of goals - how goals can become obsessions & how obsessions can crowd out the sweeter side of life. 

   When a friend asked what I remembered about my childhood bedroom I fell into such a reverie that I let go of my goal to advise you about goals.

   Sandwiched in age between two sisters I shared a bedroom with my younger one until age nine. Upon our little brother's birth the dining room became my sleeping quarters.

   But the bedroom I shared with Martha housed the sweetest memories. During afternoon naps the walls were California sunlight. Venetian blinds striped my bedspread with gold bars. Always-open windows bore scents from the lemon tree just feet away.

   Nighttime sometimes hosted ghosts dressed as the teachers that regularly dispatched my restless self either to a hallway chair or to the principle's office for another tongue lashing for not holding mine.

   A lifetime of remembering my dreams began in that first bedroom - a nightmare that my father had died & everything was up to me. Another one that I was seventy-five & felt relieved to wake to the news that I was five.

  Now I am seventy-five & grateful for it. In spite of those childhood nightmares I felt safe & happy in that sunny place. 

   As you return to your own first room I hope you rediscover a place made safe by a mother who was like mine - one that tucked me in, read me stories & listened to my prayers.

   This will be my first Christmas without her. I miss her. 

-Reverend Erie Chapman 

Snapshot with mom - 1946

Days 335-336 Peace

In the Christian tradition, Advent is a time for spiritual wakefulness and preparation. Amid the flurry of activities, a comforting voice beckons, "rest in me, come rest in me..."

These moments of rest are available throughout our day, if we pay attention. We often miss the opportunity for a sacred pause because we are hurrying on to something or someone that we consider more important than what is unfolding in our midst. 

Take rest, for the gift is in this moment. Be a blessing; receive a blessing.

 “We ask for rest today, and quietness unshaken by the world’s appearances. We ask for peace and stillness, in the midst of all the turmoil born of clashing dreams.

 “I rest in God.” This thought has power to wake the sleeping truth in you, whose vision sees beyond appearances to that same truth in everyone and everything there is. Here is the end of suffering for all the world, and everyone who ever came and yet will come to linger for a while. Here is the thought in which the Son of God is born again, to recognize himself.

This is the day of peace. You rest in God, and while the world is torn by winds of hate your rest remains completely undisturbed. Each hour that you take your rest today, a tired mind is suddenly made glad, a bird with broken wings begins to sing, a stream long dry begins to flow again.” ~Excerpt from A Course in Miracles

In this season of Advent, wishing you a peace that surpasses all understanding. Happy Hanukkah!

Offered by Liz Sorensen Wessel
Statue Sketch by ~liz 

Days 331-335 - The House of Memory

  My little granddaughter walks from shadows to sun holding hands with Love & Safety. That is who my son is to her as their silhouettes trail them into their House of Memory. Twenty years hence she will recall her father's loving care. 

   Since to be alive is to remember we each occupy Memory's House. Who lives in yours? Whose images line the walls? Which ghosts whisper down the hallways of your nights? 

   My father's strong & caring voice is with me every day. My mother is there more by her always-gracious presence then by her words. 

  We all live with roomfuls of advisers: the kind, the wise & the mean. Without knowing it, we equip each & every inhabitant of our House with a range of powers including some they never had.

  Every story is woven from recollection & is populated by characters of our choosing. We gain new power when we realize how to change the stories that haunt us & enrich the ones that have brightened our lives. 

   In our House of Memory live many caregivers. Pick one that will nurture your life today.

-Erie Chapman

Photo, 2018 by Jen Chapman