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
