Journal of Sacred Work

Get Out of Your Boat Days 233-234

Each of us is occasionally confronted by a situation of dire need where we have two choices: one is to stay in the comfort of our “boat” and do nothing, or get out of our comfort zone and try to provide help. Strong caregivers regularly get out of their boat—their home, their office chair, their normal routine—and actively offer aid, support or sustenance to anyone who is needy, either in their professional charge, or as a volunteer helper or caregiving family member.  Their help can sometimes mean the difference between life or death or could also help provide a better life to someone, thanks to your unselfish care.

We all have different strengths and weaknesses and not all caregivers have the physical or mental strength to always get out of their boat when a dire need is obvious, but we should then reach out to others for assistance in meeting that need! 

 In a hospital or medical clinic setting, getting necessary help is not difficult but what should you do if not in a setting with any nearby assistance?  You can offer emotional support and stay with the person while trying to get what is needed to solve the problem.  Do you have the emotional strength to do it?

Only you know.  Take stock of your capacities to help and work to further develop your caregiving skills and capacities so that the next time you are confronted with a challenge, you will rise to the occasion and offer all that you can to lessen the problem or hardships. 

Guest Post by Terry Chapman PhD

Photo by unknown photographer
license CCBY

 

Stepping Off The Path - Days 228-232

   A video including my 5 year old grandson defines "stepping off the path." While adults and older sister conversed politely above him, Reed traced a circle 8 racing in and out and around them, laughing, bumping and...being a little boy. 

   Next month he will be six. Every teacher and other adult around him (except me) will work to "get him on the straight path." 

 We have traveled that journey. We must learn the "safe" path, before considering alternatives. 

   Stretching the analogy, what is more interesting, straight line or figure 8? A great artist would not only choose the "8" but create an innovative portrayal.

   It is like New York. It  can be a jungle, or great if you walk the safe streets. Take an alley and you may end up hospitalized or imprisoned.

   Travel your career safely and gold stars for attendance and long service will come your way. We need safe-pathers. They are the majority.

   Fifty years in courtrooms and hospitals trained me to help those whose path led to trouble. Searching for innovative approaches constantly sucked me off the safe path on behalf of clients and, in healthcare, using an unheard-of practice literally called radical. 

   Loving care looks like the safe path. It is not. Look at Jesus, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Lincoln, Van Gogh, Dickinson, Nightingale. Even ET?

   Patients need Radical Loving Care^®. Caregivers who live it will break rules: some visitors stay beyond visiting hours, a nurse exits the ER to help a patient, a staffer stands up to leaders who compromise care for money or doctors that engage in patient-harming treatments.

   Radical Loving Care's requirement of exceptional service causes off-path pain: My younger sister's boss's reprimand: "Stop doing so much and making other staff look bad," and board criticism for her older brother for refusing to cut caregivers to save money.

  Renown storyteller Minton Sparks (above) summarized my life long off-path approach in just two bold sentences: "I love your odd take on the world, in Radical Loving Care and the arts. It is incredibly brilliant, incisive, and can be very scary at the same time." 

  Radical Loving Care delivers only one sure reward. It comes from your heart, not your paycheck. 

-Erie Chapman

In Our Dreams Days 228-229

"The day my mother died, I wrote in my journal, "A serious misfortune of my life has arrived." I suffered for more than one year after the passing away of my mother. But one night, in the highlands of Vietnam, I was sleeping in the hut in my hermitage. I dreamed of my mother. I saw myself sitting with her, and we were having a wonderful talk. She looked young and beautiful, her hair flowing down. It was so pleasant to sit there and talk to her as if she had never died.

When I woke up, it was about two in the morning, and I felt very strongly that I had never lost my mother. The impression that my mother was still with me was very clear. I understood then that the idea of having lost my mother was just an idea. It was obvious in that moment that my mother is always alive in me. I opened the door and went outside. The entire hillside was bathed in moonlight. It was a hill covered with tea plants, and my hut was set behind the temple halfway up. Walking slowly in the moonlight through the rows of tea plants, I noticed my mother was still with me. She was the moonlight caressing me as she had done so often, very tender, very sweet... wonderful!

Each time my feet touched the earth I knew my mother was there with me. I knew this body was not mine but a living continuation of my mother and my father and my grandparents and great-grandparents. Of all my ancestors. Those feet that I saw as "my" feet were actually "our" feet. Together my mother and I were leaving footprints in the damp soil. From that moment on, the idea that I had lost my mother no longer existed. All I had to do was look at the palm of my hand, feel the breeze on my face or the earth under my feet to remember that my mother is always with me, available at any time."

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

This is such a beautiful reflection by Thich Nat Hahn, one that offers wisdom and comfort. We are more that our physicality, we are spiritual beings. What a blessing of healing and a gift of enduring love to receive this visit from his mom. A turning point in his grief process.

 I have spoken to friends who have experienced very vivid and intensely beautiful dreams of a beloved visiting them in a dream state. I recall my mom sharing how her mom visited her and it was so real she was uncertain if it occurred in her sleep or if she really saw her mom’s apparition in an awake state as she called out to her ever so tenderly, “Oh mama.”

After my brother John had died my cousin Charlie received a visit from him in a dream. In it, Johnny was able to fly and was enthusiastically giving Charlie a tour of the in-patient hospice. The room where he had been cared for and all around the facility. His message was a reassuring one letting Charlie (and indirectly our family) know that he was joyful and in a good place.

I recall listening to a podcast once in which James Finnley shared that after his wife died, he was deeply grieved until one day he realized that their love was still vibrant and alive. He discovered that he could share in conversation with her and in this way their relationship endured beyond the physical realm. What a beautiful thought to contemplate or as Thich Nhat Hanh, expressed, “All I had to do was look at the palm of my hand, feel the breeze on my face or the earth under my feet to remember that my mother is always with me, available at any time."

Liz Sorensen Wessel
Artwork by ~liz

Standing Strong Against Wrong - Days - 223-227

    One recent American story is so terrible none of its sordid details will be retold here. The headline is horrible enough: In January, six white Mississippi police officers broke into a home and viciously and repeatedly tortured two innocent black men for hours.

  All six have pled guilty.

  Not one or two but six officers actively planned and carried out this racist and sadistic attack. I wonder if any of them had second thoughts before or mid-crime but could not stand strong against his "buddies."   

  What does this have to do with caregiving and leadership? How often have you seen co-workers, including doctors, leaders, board members, or others engaged in wrongdoing and said nothing? 

  Standing strong against wrong. We are all love that idea. Still, under peer pressure, we routinely "go along to get along" and thus, actively or passively, end up endorsing cruel behavior.

   Yes. We need to know when and where to draw the line. Sometimes (not always) I have openly argued with others when they make racist or sexist comments. Many think I speak up too much. "Just let it go, Erie," I have often been told. "You aren't going to change anything."

   But silence can imply endorsement. 

   How many others in that Mississippi town's subculture of hateful rhetoric stood silent, went along to get along, let it go?

   When you look at the chart, which "zone" is your favorite? We all love comfort. Can we enjoy our comfort if we always just "let it go?" It we entered the Challenge zone more often and stood strong against wrong instead of sitting silently in the Comfort zone, could we save someone from suffering?

-Erie Chapman

Note" Screenshot of Six from CNN

   

Thousands Days 221-222

 

Thousands

Better than a thousand meaningless statements
Is one meaningful word,
Which having been heard
Brings peace.

Better than a thousand meaningless verses
Is one meaningful line of verse
Which having been heard,
Brings peace.

Better than a thousand meaningless verses
Is one meaningful line from the Path of Wisdom
 Which having been heard,
Brings peace.

Greater in competition
Than a person who overcomes
A thousand times a thousand people
Is the person who overcomes self.

Certainly, the better success is in the struggle with the self
Than in a struggle with others.
For someone who is mindfully self-directed
And always lives with relaxed self-control,
Neither heavenly nor hellish spirit,
Nor the powers of force of evil
Could turn such success into defeat.

Adapted from the Dhammapada, Canto 8 (verses 100-103)

 

 Last week when I was searching for some workshop materials that I have not had need of in a long time, I came across this passage from sacred text. I had not seen it in years but discovered it as I was mining through my treasured pages. I placed it in a safe place for easy access for this week’s Journal entry.

As I continued sifting through papers, poems and mandala artwork it was like getting reacquainted with a part of myself that I’ve not spent much time with of late.  As I began typing “Thousands” to share with you I realize that it is just what I needed to read and reflect upon. May it bring you peace.

 “May all sentient beings be well.” “May all sentient beings be happy.” “May all sentient beings be free from suffering.”

May all sentient beings know peace in their heart.

Liz Sorensen Wessel
Mandala Art By Liz

Spotting The Hidden Light in Others - Days 216-220

It is a story reported here before and raised again to highlight a crucial truth: We hide many of our best gifts from ourselves. Jesus, in his universal role as a prophet and leader, advised not to "hide" our light.* When leaders spotlight gifts hidden in others it can sunrise success.

   In the mid-1980s Ohio's largest hospital needed a blue ribbon leadership team. A CEO is like a football coach or orchestra conductor - not just recruiting talent but helping players shine.

  The light coming through that mid'-'80s time-window revealed multiple leaders-in-hiding that would take top spots in American healthcare. "Hiding" here, meant that none of them had top leadership experience in health care. 

   Mark Evans was working for a retail department store chain. Hiring him as Senior Vice President for Human Resources was one of my best decisions. Tracy Wimberly, R.N., was a first line public health nurse in Toledo when I noticed her. She became our Senior Vice President for Patient Care. Jeff Kaplan, who was a top assistant to a university president when I recruited him to help lead Riverside Methodist Hospital. 

  These three had one more thing in common: Profound talent beyond what they recognized in themselves. That had also been true of our Senior V.P. Steve Garlock when I hired him from the Faultless Rubber Division of Abbott Labs. He did not appreciate how good he was until he helped us become so strong that by 1994 Riverside was among America's top ten hospitals and the flagship of the burgeoning U.S. Health system (now OhioHealth.) 

  I get too much credit for Riverside, OhioHealth's and Baptist Hospital's booming successes. Part of what I did was simply recognize that each star could shine more brightly if I could help them trust their talents and practice them. 

   A leader's job is not simply to hire. It is to develop a culture that nurtures the best talents in everyone! We are all stronger than we think we are. But often takes someone else to recognize our hidden gifts. 

   When that happens, Love triumphs. 

-Erie Chapman 

*Neither do men [sic] light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.” (Matthew 5:15)

The Light Within: Days 214-215

 

The longer i live, the more deeply i learn that love — whether we call it friendship or family or romance — is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other's light. — Maria Poplova 

 

One discovers the light in darkness, that is what darkness is for; but everything in our lives depends on how we bear the light. It is necessary, while in darkness, to know that there is a light somewhere, to know that in oneself, waiting to be found, there is a light. James Baldwin

 

 

Shared by Liz Sorensen Wessel
Photo: My granddaughter and me, 201
 Night Sky by ~liz