Journal of Sacred Work

Who is Your Unsung Hero?

The following story by Autumn Barners and Laura Kwerel is an excerpt from NPR's "My Unsung Hero" series, and the Hidden Brain team. It features stories of people whose kindness left a lasting impression on someone else.

 

"It was just a really rough time. My mom was very fragile [and] needed a lot of attention,

a lot of support," Lorrie Paul said.

When dividing her attention between taking care of her mom and talking to the doctors became

too overwhelming, Paul decided to take a walk through the hospital. After wandering for a

bit, she stopped at a windowsill to look out

“[I] just stared out at nothing. And I started to sob. It got to be too much, and I just

thought, 'I'm gonna lose my dad.'"

As she cried, Paul felt a reassuring hand on her left shoulder. She instantly felt at peace.

Rather than turn around, Paul allowed the stranger's hand to provide a moment of comfort.

"Having someone there and showing that compassion — that love — brought me this sense of

calm," Paul said.

"They didn't try to fix the situation. They didn't try to console me. They didn't try to find

out what was going on. It was just presence."

Her sobs subsided, and she felt her body relax. Then the stranger squeezed her shoulder and

simply walked away.

Paul doesn't know who the person was. But nearly 30 years later, she says she still thinks about

that person often.

"It was so incredibly powerful," Paul said.

"This compassion they shared with me, this sense of humanity — that they were sharing my

sorrow — brought me such a sense of peace that I was able to go back in ... and help Mom and be

there for Dad, and get through.”

 

Caregivers offer the gift of compassion in the most intimate sacred moments of accompaniment. These tender moments often go unwitnessed and untold but always remembered by those who expereinced the kind gesture. This is the healing power of human connection, where both the giver and the receiver are mutually touched by the experience. The sharing of caregiver stories higlights our humanity and reminds us of our true nature and purpose; to love one another. 

Note: the following link:  https://hiddenbrain.org/myunsunghero/   is where you can access to NPRs My Unsung Hero Site and listen to their podcasts.

Shared by Liz Sorensen Wessel
Artwork by Liz

Do Women Still Need Men?

Ai gurus ask, "How much longer will people be needed?" What about the current power shift around gender roles? 

I. 1950's

In the binary world of the 50s I heard no existential questions about gender. Women ran the home. Men ran the world as they always had even though male militancy wrought massive suffering. 

Was that just about physical strength?

The '50s inquiry, "How could we have won WWII (or any war) without men?" begs the question of whether there would have been a war if women had been governing. How much would more feminine presence have improved organized religion? 

II. 21st Century 

Caregiving:

Despite a wildly diverse career, my life has been about two things: caregiving and the arts.

Both have been male dominated. Both must yield to a balance of feminine and masculine energy for both to thrive.  

Excellent leaders know this. They remain rare. Caregiving, founded by women, still chokes in the grip of insensitive male energy including when any female leader allows aggression to destroy compassion. 

Arts:

   Pending a rebalance, I am a feminist advocate, My art reflects that. The goal, however, is humanism.

   My classical figurative art of women hews to early training from Roberta Waddell at the Toledo Museum of Art. Other women, including 35 female subjects, and sculptor Alan LeQuire, have been massively helpful. 

    Abuses by many male predecessors have pushed some feminists to over-correct: "Beauty can only be portrayed by women," they say. Public sentiment is moving their way.

   This problem arose when my 2019 film art show, "The Feminine Divine" debuted at Vanderbilt Divinity School. No viewers complained about nudity. Instead, some complained I had not gone far enough. "Where are transgenders or heavy women?"one feminist asked. 

   "Not my interest or expertise, but did you see my still-animation of a transgendered Jesus?" I asked. "Missed that," she said, generously confessing, "Maybe I was too anxious to criticize a white male."  

   Women can self-portray. Males succeed only in partnership. 

   What if women took charge of healthcare and the arts? Could this correct historic male overreach?

   Absolute answers are nonsense. The question is not whether women need men. We all need each other.

   And our questions must prod us to figure out how to better equalize our culture. Soon!

-Erie Chapman

Compassion Heals

 

The rapid explosion of innovation in AI technology has been unleashed and there is no turning back. We can embrace advances in research, medical break throughs and the good it offers in addressing challenges. Yet in a complex and chaotic world, it is increasingly difficult to know truth from distortion and worrisome to consider what can happen in the hands of the nefarious. As Erie has previously cautioned, we are at risk of losing our humanity. Now more than ever cultivating compassion, human connection, and our relationships is of primary importance. May we fan the flames of compassion and be the torch bearers of Radical Loving Care.   

In the words of Judy Cannato,"Compassion changes everything. Compassion heals. Compassion mends the broken and restores what has been lost. Compassion draws together those who have been estranged or never even dreamed they were connected.”

Sending Forth Compassion by Joyce Rupp

I stand at the door of a light-filled dawn
where the gift of hope rises in my soul.
I open my heart and send forth this gift
to each and every person longing for joy,
To all whose spirit grows dim with sorrow.

I stand at the window of midday
where the flurry of the day’s activity
beats upon the pane of urgency.
Opening my heart to where peace resides,
I send forth this abiding harmony
to all who are caught in the claws of poverty,
whose endless work seems never enough.

I stand at the gate of the lengthening dusk,
the transitional place between light an dark;
I send forth confidence from my heart
to those who are unsure in their transitions,
to each person who questions the future.

As I stand at the entrance of the dark 
I open my heart to send forth compassion
to those whose bodies or minds knows pain,
to all whom the nighttime brings burden, not rest.

Throughout the day and into the nighttime
I stand with the Holy One by my side, calling out:
“Peace to one. Peace to all. Hope resounding.
Love indwelling. Compassion abounding.

Joyce Rupp

 

May we offer loving kindness to all beings and oursleves.

May you be safe. 

May you be peaceful. 

May you be well.

May you be free of suffering 

May you live with ease.

Shared by Liz Sorensen Wessel 
Photo by my gifted niece, Chrissy Connors 

Circling the Still Point

   Is life about different kinds of marriages - to people, jobs, landscapes, hobbies? The determined fellow portrayed looks stuck. 

   What is it that we marry in others, author Michael Ventura asks. He describes it as "a process that goes on while we manage to earn a living, go to the m0ives, watch television, go to the doctors, walk on the Palisades, drive to Texas, follow the election, try to stop drinking, eat too much Haagen-Dazs."

   Is this the whirlwind of your caregiving life? Do you live under the commands of the moment or dance circling a still point?

   We imagine balance. Yes, hope is the answer. Depressed people never think, "I feel so hopeful." So hopeful generalizations crush nuance and never dent suicide's trends.

   My passionate journey down wildly diverse paths looks whimsical. My current travels generate as much depression as joy as I flail for meaning beyond simplistic advice. 

   My best still point is a salvific, God-centered, imperative: Whatever I do must serve others.

   This is so lofty I am often lost, floating amongst the Palisades, running to the cliff's edge, screaming into the void, and stopping to eat too much Graters.

   Does approaching journey's end force setting priorities in our cathedral? OR, can even caregivers release goals, sit in center of the chapel and watch the dance? I have visited the mediation room but have never stayed. It is not a thing you "do."

   What is it like to be? Can we be and do in a new marriage where the still point dances?

-Erie Chapman 

Portrait, "Erie at Parthenon" Minton Sparks, 2019 

   

On Wings of Peace June 15-16

 

On this Father’s Day week-end let us express gratitude for our fathers. For those who bless our lives with their presence and fathers who are no longer with us; we cherish your memory. For those who have shaped us, loved us, or have been as father to us. For our ancestors known and remembered and grandparents we love or who we may never have met. We thank them for the great sacrifices they made on behalf of their children and those yet to come so that we could have a better life.  

 I share this poem by Joy Harjo in honor of all fathers dedicated and those who have been as father for us. For our adult children who are loving fathers nurturing and loving their children. We give thanks!

Remember by Joy Harjo 1951 –  

Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.

As you reflect on those who have loved you into being, we invite you to share a memory, a name, a blessing or a thought to honor those who have been as father to you.

Blessings to you on Father’s Day!

Shared by Liz Soresens Wessel

What is in the Circle?

   The story still haunts me. Rosalyn Carter was siting on the front porch with Jimmy the day after he left the President's office.

   "I need to replace some of those bricks below the front steps," he told her. 

   "When Jimmy said that," the former first lady told a reporter, "all I could think was that the day before we had been dealing with  the Iran Hostage Crisis. Our life horizon had suddenly shrunk from leading the free world to worrying about bricks."

   Astride any large stage in our lives, our attention is focused on what seem to be big issues. When our stage shrinks, we keep doing the same thing. A crack in the front steps sucks our attention as if it were something earthshaking.  

   Sometimes, the stage changes size twice in the same day. The nurse manager of a giant ER who has spent all night multiple victims of a mass shooting may chuckle to herself when she comes home to see her teenager fussing about a cut finger. 

   It is difficult and important to sustain perspective. Indeed, that skill has a direct impact on our ability to practice once of life's most essential skills: gratitude. 

-Erie Chapman

May the Light of Your Soul June 8-9

When we love a person, we accept them exactly as is: the lovely with the unlovely, the strong with the fearful, the true mixed in with the

façade, and of course, the only way we can do it is by accepting ourselves that way. ~ Fred Rogers

 

In this season of our lives we have an opportunity to shed our old skin in a regenerative way. Our friends are the cherished beings who see beyond our faults to our true essence, as brilliant as the northern star.

May the light of your soul guide you.
May the light of your soul bless the work
You do with the secret love and warmth of your heart.
May you see in what you do the beauty of your own soul.
May the sacredness of your work bring healing, light and renewal to those
Who work with you and to those who see and receive your work.
May your work never weary you.
May it release within you wellsprings of refreshment, inspiration and excitement.
May you be present in what you do.
May you never become lost in the bland absences.
May the day never burden you.
May dawn find you awake and alert, approaching your new day with dreams,
Possibilities and promises.
May evening find you gracious and fulfilled.
May you go into the night blessed, sheltered and protected.
May your soul calm, console and renew you. -John O' Donohue

Shared by Liz Sorensen Wessel
Drawing by ~liz

If It Ain't Broke, Make it Better! - June 3

   We love catch phrases. It's so much easier (and lazier) to say, "Haste makes waste" than it is to discuss how rushing can cause trouble. I, too, love some of these sayings including the doctor's injunctive, "first do no harm"

   Still, catch phrases can cause trouble.

   At each of the three hospital systems I have been privileged to run, staff often greeted me with, "Erie, this place is doing fine. And 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it,' right?"

   Wrong. Most of the time. Leaders must always seek meaningful improvement.

   Recently, I asked the incoming head of a crucial training program at a large hospital about her plans. 

   "I have none," she said. "The program is doing fine."

   Seeking to preserve the status quo is a deceptively dangerous strategy. Status quo leaders frustrate meaningful innovation. Leadership grounded in staying the same in an always-changing world pursues a dicey proposition. 

   What if Steve Jobs had decided in 2007 "The iPhone is fine. No need for more."?*

   This truth holds for us personally. Contemporaries declining to learn new technology risk irrelevance.

   God hands us presents. Universal wisdom holds that we die with countless gifts unwrapped. 

   Those who see no need to work harder to live love are, in important ways, not fixed but broken. 

-Erie Chapman

Photo: First iPhone, 2007

*Not to mention the Apple II (1979) computer's world changing transition to the Macintosh - so user-friendly that when I turned on mine in 1984 the first image on the screen was a smiley face! It rapidly became the first mass-marketed computer. 

   

  

A Call to the More - Part 2 June 1-2

As I continue to reflect on my pilgrimage experience in  Le Puy France and the impact it has had on my life, I believe it will continue to reveal itself over time. Nearing the end of our journey we particpated in an exercise in which we each looked back over our journey and notes and recollected some thoughts that stood out to us. This is what surfaced for me that I would like to share with you. (This is my first attempt at a pantoum, a 15th century style poem with repeat stanzas.)

I say yes to the invitation, to the strong power of Love, to a contemplative way of prayer. How do I reflect Gods love in this world?

We are called to surrender, emptying of self, of ego, to put on the new, relying on God’s grace in every situation.

The great love of God is in everything, everywhere and all of creation holds God’s life-giving presence.

All is a gift, reverence one’s being and find the good in all things.

We are called to surrender, emptying of self, of ego, to put on the new, relying on God’s grace in every situation.

As we love others, we learn to love ourselves.

All is a gift, reverence one’s being and find the good in all things.

“That all may be one”, in the fullness of God’s great love, in communion and in service to humankind and all of creation.

As we love others, we learn to love ourselves.

The great love of God is in everything, everywhere and all of creation holds God’s life-giving presence.

“That all may be one”, in the fullness of God’s great love, in communion and in service to humankind and all of creation.

I say yes to the invitation, to the strong power of Love, to a contemplative way of prayer. How do I reflect God’s love in this world?

 

When all else falls away, we recognize what really matters the love we share. What better way to sepnds one life than to love it all away?

Liz Sorensen Wessel
Photo by ~liz