[This column appeared in the Journal exactly a decade ago.]
"If being beautiful in the eyes of the Creator means being ugly in the eyes of the created than it's worth it." - author unknown
Made "ugly" by a neurological condition that riddled her face and body with bumps, Lois was one of the most beautiful caregivers I ever met. Each day she brought smiles to the people she encountered in her cashier's job.
She calmed distressed family with her soothing voice and touch. And she shared with each of them her "joke of the day" as they filed past her in the hospital cafeteria.
No one ever seemed to mind their wait in line because Lois, for a moment, parted their clouds of worry.
A glance at Lois might have left some people feeling that the face of God had been hidden from this woman. Instead, Love's light shined through her eyes.
She seemed to know this - that she was beautiful "in the eyes of the Creator." And she soon began to look beautiful to those who experienced brief but sacred encounters with her.
Lois was not a nurse, a physical therapist or a lab tech. The "line" people waited in before they encountered her was the checkout line in the hospital cafeteria. "Everyone is a caregiver," I always taught at the hospitals I was fortunate enough to lead.
The good of the world is dependent not on the speeches of the great but on the ordinary actions of each of us. It is in your "ordinary moments" that you have the chance to bring kindness to strangers and friends alike. Then, as Love flows through you and circles back through your heart, you feel Love's grace.
What of the hard experiences you endure? Can you love the old man who is throwing his bed pan and cursing you? Can you rise from your fatigue to help the woman suffering down the same hall you have already traveled dozens of times during your shift? Can you sustain patience in the presence of a mean-acting supervisor?
Your endurance depends more than any thing else on one thing: Do you see Love in your mirror?
Only self-love - the acceptance of God's Love - can enable us to give Love when the world leans on us with all of its weight. Only Love enables us to see Beauty in a broken fence, an angry stranger, or in a face pockmarked with disease.
-Erie Chapman
Image: "Broken Fence" by Erie
