Journal of Sacred Work

Days 27-31 - Confusion of Flowers

   A half-robed choir not sure whether to sing or not, these pansies ask: "Is it Spring or not?" After all, consistent with the post winter solstice the sun holds back Night's curtain longer each eve. But, inconsistently the days have warmed preternaturally. 

   During a morning walk I spotted another strange sight. Boys playing catch & swinging bats as if Spring had called "Play Ball."  

   Every year Winter challenges life. Trees play dead. People vanish indoors. Flowers hide.

   Two things carry us through: Hope for new life & our sense of purpose. 

   The sounds of baseball on a field normally frozen in January sounded hopeful. But the warrior expressions on some player's faces proved that sports are war's kinder cousin. Purposefulness is woven when battles are life & death. 

  If sports are "Just a game" why do so many play as if life depended on victory? Is it because they seek to make work "play for mortal stakes" so that it will matter? 

   The meaning of hospital work is so obvious it should be every leader's primary tool. Instead, too many bosses degrade the nobility of caregiving by emphasizing margins over mission.  

   Gladly, the faces of the seventy leaders I addressed last week at Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center (SNVMC) shined with purposefulness. That is because CEO Kathie Johnson practices Radical Loving Leadership. Dr. Johnson, together with her leadership team & Cuemanity President Sean Keyser, knows that culture determines behavior & leaders determine culture. So she uses her power to ensure that every caregiver is someone she would want caring for her mother.

   Pansies know their calling: Beauty. The calling is the same for caregivers: to shine Healing's Beauty into the hearts of sufferers. Since fatigue can cool that calling leaders must always be the sun for every caregiver.  

-Erie Chapman

Photo by Erie

   

Days 25-26 Love & Justice

This week we commemorated the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. a man who has inspired all humanity with his visionary dream of a better world. May we honor his memory by working together to transform his dream into a reality.

“Everybody can be great because everyone can serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love.”

“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, what are you doing for others?”

"Let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge, to make America what it ought to be.”

"Although social change cannot come overnight, we must always work as though it were a possibility in the morning.”

“All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.”

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

"We must learn to live together as brothers and sisters or perish together as fools.”

“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear."

“The ultimate measure of a person is not where he or she stands in moments of comfort and convenience but where he or she stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

Shared by Liz Sorensen Wessel

Days 20-24 - "Only When Love & Need Are One..."

Among countless poems only a few have been life-changing for me. One came from my son when he was a senior in high school & shared Robert Frost's iconic, "Two Tramps in Mudtime."

The closing stanza caught his heart & mine. Perhaps they also shaped my concept of the sacred encounter which happens when love meets need. 

My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For heaven and the future’s sakes.

In one way or another hospital & hospice caregiving is always "play[ing] for mortal stakes." But caregiving is only fulfilling "where love & need are one." 

Importantly, the merger of love & need are always at play in any fulfilling "victory." The secret lies in the hearts of each individual who chooses to unite avocation with vocation. Where "two eyes make one in sight." 

You achieve this union the moment you see your work as a calling, not a job.

-Erie Chapman

Days 18-19 My Grandmother's Hands

How transparent and thin the skin over my hands has become, revealing these gnarly blue veins. Some days the joints in my fingers swell and I feel like the character, David Banner when his body suddenly bulges into The Hulk and as the swelling retreats, my fingers  are increasingly deformed.

Today, instead of feeling disturbed by these unpleasant signs of aging,  I thought,"these are my Grandmother’s hands" as a sense of love and acceptance flowed through me.

 I remember many visits with my mom, inevitably I would press the heel of my hand on to hers and find that our hands were a perfect match.  Although into her 90’s, her hands were riddled with arthritis, they were beautiful to me.

In the photo are the hands of three generations. Mine, intermingled with my son’s and our firstborn granddaughter Reajie (2007). A love transmitted from one hand to another that will continue to span across many lifetimes, as Love eternal.

The act of writing enables us to process our experiences and in doing so, we discover insights that we may have missed because we were so busy and just kept moving. Yet in pausing to reflect, we can “notice the richness of our life experience” (paraphrased, Erie Chapman).

The written word is like a photograph; we capture a moment in time and create a lasting memory. When we share our stories, we deepen our awareness, as we honor the blessings in our relationships.

Liz Sorensen Wessel

Days 13-17 - One Who Raised The Light

   It happened the first time I met Marcy Alton. Arrows of kindness arced from her like healing medicine. Her fellow employees said, "When Marcy enters a room the light goes up."

   At Riverside Methodist Hospital in the 1980's & '90s Marcy demonstrated how ordinary could become extraordinary. After Mark Evans, the finest Human Resources leader in the country, assigned her to the employee recognition event it quickly became a fun & inspiring celebration that genuinely honored caregivers. After she helped establish an on-campus employee convenience center, that service became part of the loving culture that lifted Riverside to rank in America's top 10 best places to work. 

   Marcy did not cure patients with prescriptions. She healed with her presence.

   When you enter a room does the "light" go up or down? Do others feel pleased or afraid? Confident or unsure? Loving or fearful? 

   The light dimmed when I learned of Marcy's recent death. It will soon rise again for those who knew her. Those arrows of joy she sent out made a permanent impact on thousands.

   Thank you, dear Marcy, for leaving a legacy of Radical Loving Care.

 -Erie Chapman, President Emeritus, Riverside Methodist Hospital

Note: Thanks to Joe Forquer for helping track down a picture of Marcy.

www.eriechapmanfoundation.net   

Days 11-12 Beyond Words

I’ve often heard it said that much of what we communicate is non-verbal. Our facial expressions, eye contact, posture, and the tone of our voice can say so much more than mere words. Well, I had an opportunity to test out this premise.

Over the holidays, my daughter in law’s parents came for a visit. Since, they are non-English speaking and I do not know Korean, a colleague asked, “how will you communicate?”  I responded, “My daughter in law can translate and love will find a way.”

Two months earlier, my son John and Eunyoung purchased their first home and thus began a remodel. Every day after work, they were at the house accomplishing a myriad of chores from painting rooms, dealing with contractors, to John putting down wood floors.  Late on a Sunday night John finished the floors and was up early the next morning off to his first day at a new job! Eunyoung’s parents arrived on Dec 18, just 2 days after the move. Although the house still needs finishing touches it a charming, cozy abode.   

 Needless to say, it was a tremendous effort that was fueled by the energy of love. Love between a couple creating a new life together. Love for our adult children and a desire to be of support in the endeavor. A daughter’s love of her parents and a couple’s desire to offer a warm and comfortable welcome. Love passed on from our parents and grandparents and from one generation to the next. A Love that made the seemingly impossible, a reality.  

As we drove up to the house, Eunyoung’s parents came out to greet us, which was a touching gesture. That first night was so special, my son ordered take out, which was by no means fancy but the air was filled with the excitement and anticipation of seeing them again.

So memorable, was this unique opportunity to spend the Christmas season together. We hosted several family gatherings to share meals and break bread together. Although we do not speak the same language, there were no perceivable barriers. Friends commented that Eunyoung’s mom has smiling eyes and that her parents are such kind people, for what shone through abundantly was a genuine warmth, a lot of laughter and love.

In Home Health, caregivers cross the threshold and enter into the lives of patients and families at times of crisis and vulnerability. Our ministry reminds me of the early Sisters of St. Joseph who had the courage to leave a cloistered life and venture out into the neighborhoods to serve the dear neighbor. Our community is diverse, and in home care we experience a richness, impoverishment and intimacy that is unlike any other health care setting.

Caregivers who are new to home health may feel a bit uneasy at first, due to working in an uncontrolled environment with many unknown variables. Patients can be nervous about opening their home to someone they don’t know, as well. We overcome these potential barriers when we offer warmth, caring and a genuine desire to be of help, which shines through to touch the heart of the other. We enter in as stranger to become a trusted friend. Through these sacred encounters we learn that love has no bounds.

Liz Sorensen Wessel

Days 6-10 - The Most Important Thing We Forget

   Every older person worries about forgetfulness. But, when Vanderbilt Divinity School intern Summer Hyche told her audience, "We are a forgetful people" she was not talking about dementia.

   "We forget we are loved," she said. She is right. 

   Love is humanity's core longing. But what if your heart's house feels empty?  Reminding you of God's Love may ring false if you think everyone hates or ignores you. 

   Low self worth blocks Love. The shame I feel when I fail to be present to another, lose patience, or don't meet expectations aggravates that. 

   It is natural, though foolish, to allow others to define our "lovability." A supervisor spouting venom may seem more powerful than your invisible God. 

   Each day we silently seek signs of love. They are everywhere but we may be blind to them.

   Today I noticed an invitation in the church bulletin. It asked that we remain seated in silence during the Postlude to consider how to connect what we heard inside church with our lives of service outside. 

   As you serve others today may you experience the soft rain of God's grace nurturing the meadow of your soul. That grace is love.

-Rev. Erie Chapman

Photo-painting - "Soft Rain at Dawn" Erie Chapman, 2020

Days 4-5 Prayer for Peace

Although we use different words and names, Lord you see into our hearts and minds as we join in unity with purpose to pray for peace.

Peace and Universal Love is the essence
of the Gospel preached by all
Enlightened Ones.

The Lord has preached that equanimity
is the dharma.
Forgive do I creatures all,
and let all creatures forgive me.

Unto all have I amity, and unto none enmity.
now that violence is the root cause of
all miseries in the world.

Violence, in fact, is the knot of bondage.
“Do not injure any living being.”
This is the eternal, perennial,
and unalterable way of spiritual life.

A weapon, howsoever powerful it may be,
can always be superseded by a superior one;
but no weapon can, however, be superior to
non-violence and love.  ~Jain Prayer

 

 

Prayer of St Frances

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
And 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.

 

 

 

May our prayers become a mighty force to transform the world.
As we invoke Peace around the world, we are bold to imagine that blessing for all of your creation everywhere.
We pray for Peace in our time as we recognize the deep need in all the world for the miracle of Divine intervention.
Too long has hate and fear marred the amazing creation we are on earth.
Too long has brother risen against brother in endless often meaningless wars.
Too long has humanity turned away from Love.  Yet, You our Divine Creator, are Love.

It is through Love that we can know and experience your grace.
It is through Love that our lives can be transformed.
It is through Love that we can find forgiveness for our most unforgivable errors.
It is through Love that we find the brotherhood and oneness of our unity as humanity.
It is through Love that this world can be a sacred place, a safe place for all of Your creation.
Fill the hearts and minds of all of humanity with Your Divine Love.~ Genevieve Gerard

My thoughts and prayers are with Sr. Maureen and all the beloved people & creatures of Australia who are experiencing immense suffering due to the fires and to all those who are suffer because of oppression, poverty, violence and war.

Offered by Liz Sorensen Wessel
Artwork by ~liz