Journal of Sacred Work

Secret Memories

 What does it take to radically change our life view? You as a caregiver know that trauma can do it. Can a book?

  After recovering from his near death experience (NDE) neurosurgeon Eben Alexander, M.D. wrote, "...there is a secret part of ourselves that is recording every last aspect of our earthly lives, and it...commences at the very very beginning."

  I don't like the title, Proof of Heaven because of its religious implications. I had heard so much about NDE's I doubted this book had anything new. I was wrong. 

  This book is different. It changed my life and will enrich yours beyond measure.

   Two earthshaking things I now know. Brain and spirit are related but separate. One mortal, the other unaffected by our body's death. Dr. Alexander's neocortex was disabled during his coma freeing his spirit to roam what he calls heaven. When his brain recovered, he could describe what his spirit had experienced because of that "secret memory" we all have.  

   Second, no afterlife skeptic can explain a common NDE phenomenon: the number of people who SEE things they could not know while they were "dead." Millions of similar stories abound beyond the thousands reported.    

   Dr. Alexander's story is the most convincing on record. Only our five senses can "prove" the existence of the material world. During an NDE, another "sense" emerges. 

   After transcendent experiences, we say "I have no words to describe it." There are words to describe art* or falling in love. They never match the feelings.  As a scientist, not a cleric or poet, Dr. Alexander finds the words for us. 

   As a caregiver you may have heard NDE stories. After reading the book, you will be able to honor such stories in ways that can be healing for your patient and yourself.

-Erie Chapman

*Experiencing difficulty communicating with an artist in Spain, I realized we need a new word for the wordless language of art: "Artish". Not just Spanish or English but Artish.

Photograph By Brian Stauffer for Scientific American

Proof of Love After Death - February 19-23

  The moment Shirley entered Hartford Hospital's ER in August, 1994, she flatlined. The team did their drill. Nothing.

   They repeated the process and were about to surrender when the patient revived. 

   "I floated up and saw your team working on me," Shirley reported. "A doctor wearing a brown cardigan came in."

   "You're right," a nurse said. "We hear those stories often."

    "But, I floated above the hospital (a 10-story building), the patient continued, "There's a red tennis shoe on the roof."

    When security unlocked the roof door there it was. Not a pair of red tennis shoes. Just one.

    Scientists regularly study these Near-Death Experiences (NDE's)

   In Proof of Heaven (2012) neurosurgeon Dr. Eben Alexander describes his NDE after contracting meningitis and entering a 7-day coma. His coma's length allowed deeper travels through the death experience including an angel-like orb of light who mediated with a higher power he interpreted as God. 

   Alexander had no neocortex function. He was "brain-dead." Was it time to discontinue life support?

   “During my coma my brain wasn’t working improperly,” Alexander writes. “It wasn’t working at all.”

  Later, he reached a shattering conclusion: post death thoughts exist separate from our brain.*

  Dr. Alexander's credentials are impeccable as his best selling story. Yet, he drew the usual firestorm of critics.

  But cynics have never been able to answer how some patients (e.g. the "red shoe" women) see things they could not know!

   A recent LA accident victim recovered from his coma and asked ER staff for his briefcase. 

   "It's gone," they said. 

   "No. It's halfway down the hill near my crash," he reported. And so it was.

   There will always be skeptics. I am one who believes something Alexander and numerous others confirm: In the afterlife love reigns supreme. 

-Erie Chapman

*A massive number of credible NDE stories exist - many from doctors. Robin Kelly, M.D, writes “Our brain may not be the seat of consciousness, but merely a vessel through which consciousness is realized.” After his NDE (2020), orthopedic surgeon Tony Cicoria, M.D. reported: "I was able to verify details of my near-death and out-of-body experience that I would have no conceivable way of knowing except through conscious travel of my spiritual self outside of my body."

Photo "Afterlife Angel" ^©Erie Chapman 2024

"I Love You" by Rebecca Ondov

"No Act of Kindness, no matter how small is ever wasted." Aesop

Dishes clattered as I washed and stacked them in the drain rack to dry. It was a Sunday evening before service, and I’d volunteered to help in the church’s kitchen. The monotony of doing dishes was a welcome relief after the last couple of emotionally draining weeks. I really wanted to hide in the solitude of the kitchen all night.

Then I heard from the doorway, “Rebecca, I’d like you to meet my mother.” 

I sighed, dried my hands, and turned to see Susan guiding her elderly mother toward me. Her mother’s blank stare and the uncertainty of each step revealed the progression of her dementia. Compassion for my friend swept over me. Oh Lord, what can I possibly say to encourage them?

Susan lovingly patted her mother’s hand. “Mom, I’d like you to meet Rebecca.”

Although her mother’s eyes stayed blank, they almost twinkled as she turned toward me and with a delicate voice, she said, “I love you.”

Shocked, I leaned back, just as her mother repeated, “I love you.”

Susan heartily chuckled and explained that for years her mother had worked in a local grocery store as a cashier. She’d always greeted everyone in her line, whether a stranger or a friend, with an “I love you.” Many times, all the other checkout lines were empty, but her mom’s line brimmed with people who longed to hear those three special words.

Warmth flooded my heart and erased the stress of the previous weeks. I glanced at the wisps of gray hair and the curl of her back. She was merely a shadow of the woman she once had been, but she still spoke those three transforming words. I gently grasped her hand,“I love you too.”

Thank you, Lord, for showing me that a great way to encourage others, and to be emotionally recharged, is by reaching out and saying, “I love you.”

Written by Rebeca Ondov,  from Walking in Grace – Daily Devotions to Draw You Closer to God, 2020

A colleague shared this story with me yesterday and I found myself travelling back to my childhood days remembering that those words "I love you" were not spoken. Yet, my parents expressed their love in so many other ways. All these years later, saying, "I love you" is easily spoken especially with a parting goodbye and I never tire of sharing these sentiments.

Erie, this story also reminds me of your sister, Martha, and all her years of offering kindness and joy as she greeted healthcare workers as they purchased their meal in the cafeteria. During her career she brightened the days so many caregivers!

I think too of my friend who has Alzheimer's and how she lights up when I stop in to visit her. Her smile brightens my day as she says to me, "I am so happy you are here and when I take leave we often share an "I love you."

Today is my mom's birthday, Elizabeth Dorethea Sorensen as well as my best friend Susan's mother's birthday, Candi Maio. I dedicate this reflection in remembrance of these two beautiful souls who shared their love so generously throughout their lives.

Liz Sorensen Wessel
Photo taken in a church inIreland, 2011 when visiting my grandmother's homeland- marble alter 

Nursing's True Beginning - Days 43-47

 You have seen videos of mom's nursing. But you have never seen one like this (click on link): 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UFX5zafn60

   It portrays the first intimate experience we have. Yet we do not recall it. Or do we?

   Is there some aspect of us that remembers our first moments? How the world's blasts startled us? Whether the shocks were softened when we were skin-to-skin with our mothers?

   Whether or not you were nursed or were a nursing mom, psychologists now believe that our first encounters with the world matter. Particular comfort for male babies eases the potential alienation of different-bodied males from their mothers.* 

   Caregiving starts at birth. Millennia passed before Ms. Nightingale professionalized it.

   Longing begins at birth. We flail for balance and quickly search for food and comfort!

   In 2013, as part of my film, "Alex Dreaming", we filmed actor Julie Baber-Brooks nursing her baby, Ryder. More than 10 years later, I found discarded film.

   9 minutes seems long if you think it is repetitive. Here, with your sacred eyes, you can experience things you never noticed and feel, as did I, the presence of the feminine divine.

   Ryder is now ten. How did he turn out?

-Erie Chapman

*HE - Understanding Masculine Psychology - Robert A. Johnson

   

   

The Miraculous: Days 41-42

"There is no order of difficulty in miracles. One is not "harder" or "bigger" than another. They are all the same. All expressions of love are maximal." ACIM

The everyday human gesture is always a heartbeat away from the miraculous.

Remember that ultimately we make things happen through our actions, way beyond

our understanding or intention; that our seemingly small ordinary human acts

have untold consequences; that what we do in this world means something; that we

are not nothing; and that our most quotidian human actions by their nature

burst the seams of our intent and spill meaningfully and radically through time

and space, changing everything.

Our deeds, no matter how insignificant they may feel, are replete with meaning,

and of vast consequence, and that they constantly impact upon the unfolding

story of the world, whether we know it or not.

~Nick Cave

 

I found Nick Caves thoughts meaningful and worth reflecting upon and I thought you might too!

Shared by Liz Sorensen Wessel
Mandala by ~liz

How Chaos Helps - Days 35-39

   No patient ever wants a confused caregiver. No caregivers wants a confused leader. How could confusion ever be helpful?

   Can chaos provoke creativity? When I became President and CEO of Nashville's Baptist Hospital System in 1998 the board was unaware that disaster was lurking in the balance sheets. Outside accountants shared the shocking truth: The hospital, originally projected to make $10 million, would report a $73 million loss!    

   Fortunately, as a former trial lawyer and CEO of two previous systems I was accustomed to emergencies. In three years we went from minus $73 million to plus $1 million by using contradictory as well as conventional solutions. One example was my immediate public announcement (to the horror of our CFO) that "We plan to hire a hundred new nurses." Another was our decision to dominate women's health services. Within two years, two thirds of Nashville's babies were being born at Baptist.* 

   Real life mocks theory. Beyond rote practical solutions lie unexpected events that require creative as well as conventional answers. Chaos triggered praxis, the process of putting ideas into practice. In three years Baptist's nightmare was transformed into a triumphant success story of patient satisfaction in the 90th percentile, high quality scores and a $74 million turnaround.

   Surrealist painter Salvador Dali (photo) wrote, "You have to systematically create confusion. It sets creativity free. Everything that is contradictory creates life."

   Because contradictory thinking creates discomfort most hate practicing it. Great performers practice chaos thinking so well that create solutions status quo thinkers cannot imagine. 

-Erie Chapman

*Other examples appear in Radical Loving Care™, Sacred Work and Inside Radical Loving Care™ at http://www.eriechapmanfoundation.net or from online sellers.  

Circle of Gace: Days 33-34

"Within the struggle, joy, pain, and delight that attend our life, there is an invisible circle of grace that enfolds and encompasses us in every moment. Blessings help us to perceive this circle of grace, to find our place of belonging within it, and to receive the strength the circle holds for us."

~Jan Richardson

 

May you be encircled with a peace that is without bounds, filling your days with warmth and Light.

Shared by Liz Sorensen Wessel

Mandala by ~liz