Journal of Sacred Work

The Strange Way Grief Enriches Gratitude - Day 332-336

   Inside Thanksgiving joy another voices calls to me: "You better be grateful, buster, because you are incredibly lucky."

   That voice speaks truth...and can fuel guilt anytime I hear myself regretting, rather than grieving, a loss. It is good to take responsibility for failures like betraying a friend. It is foolish to wallow in that guilt rather than to let it teach you how to honor that same friend and the great times you shared.    

  Wisdom offers a strange truth: Grief, makes gratitude possible. Stripped of its low notes of grief incessant optimism can ring as dull as some Hallmark cards. 

   My best consultant is 19-year old grandson Miles. I have never encountered anyone who cultivates daily gratitude as richly as does he. 

   In his phone calls from college he routinely reports he is doing "GREAT." But he is no pollyanna. 

   "Why do you always sound like you just won the lottery?" I asked,

   "Because I am luckier than a lottery winner," he said. "And bad breaks can turn good. I was six and sad when my parents divorced. When they remarried I got great new step parents."

   When his other grandfather died, he cried his eyes out. Each tear signaled grief and gratitude.

   Positivity is power. Turning to it or jumping over it before grieving is a mistake. 

   Odd how I offer wisdom I rarely practice. My brand of sentimentality harbors fantasies of reclamation. And it is true that no mourning devalues what was there.

   Yet, wallowing in mourning or dismissing the loss, creates a self-made prison. Grief, makes gratitude possible. Honoring what once was creates meaning.

  The discovery, at 80, that without meaningful grief there is no meaningful gratitude has opened one of life's richest energies. I hope it will do the same for you.

-Erie Chapman 

Picture: Tyler & Miles Chapman

Does Healthcare Need a Female President? Days 323-325

   A caregiver friend who rarely talks "politics" broke her silence recently with a rhetorical question: "Is our choice for President really going to be between two elderly white guys?"

   Her tone bore the despair of millions. The Journal is not a political site. Yet, even though caregivers know government's giant impact on healthcare many have thrown up their hands and stopped paying attention. 

   Freed of an organizational timetable, and a lifelong student of leadership in general and Presidential leadership in particular, I have taken time you may not have to study up. 

   First, a multipart syllogism: Since healthcare leadership has lost its way; and since the vast majority of CEOs are my fellow males; therefore, we need women in charge.

   More accurately, we need either women, or men with enough feminine energy to practice Dr. King's injunction: Leaders must be tender-hearted as well as tough-minded.  

   Second, electing a woman as President is a great way to shatter the glass ceiling nationwide. This is our chance to do something America has never done: elect a woman.

   Third, in an effort to be objective, I offer a choice for each side. For Democrats and others anxious about Biden's age, check out a capable middle aged, two-time governor with the ability to inspire America: Michigan's Gretchen Whitmer. (left)

   For Republicans, a superior alternative to Trump has emerged. Many of her policies are different than mine, however she displays excellent leadership skills, is a former governor, and, like Whitmer, demonstrates skill, intelligence and maturity: South Carolina's Nikki Haley. 

   Clearly, these are just my thoughts. My urgent invitation is this: If you care about leadership in general, healthcare in particular and feel discouraged, I offer you hope: There are good alternatives out there. Two of the best are women. 

-Erie Chapman

   

   

The Audition - Days 312-316

   Invited to photograph dancers at an audition, I found myself judging the performers even though I was not the casting director.

    As each hopeful awaited their music cue some looked nervous. Auditions suggest judging & judging raises that awful specter called Rejection. If we were always our best selves, no practice would be needed. If we truly trusted our God within it would be nice, but not necessary, to have others' approval. 

   Auditioning is innate. Does not an infant begin "performing" the moment they discover behaviors that serve them? Smiling done for approval signals that auditioning has begun. 

   Every job I wanted required an audition before I was "cast." Dating is an audition process. Think of the tryouts you went through to become a professional caregiver? To live successfully in society we routinely pursue one thing: acceptance. Approval from others of our okay-ness.

   Early in my hospital leadership I visited a doctor who had become a patient. He was lying in bed wearing scrubs. 

   "Hey, I don't want to look like a patient," he told me with a chuckle.

   The doctor was auditioning because he knew what we know: A patient gown is demeaning. Maybe his doctor costume would protect him.

   It was an early signal that what patients & caregivers need from leaders is an environment where both were honored. What an uphill campaign! 

   We are told, "You don't need to 'perform.' I care for you as you are." 

   But life is flooded with judgments. Depression's onset in the late 1990s taught that gloominess is off-putting. I had to pretend "normal" or find myself alone. 

   Naturally, discernment & evaluation are necessary disciplines. What I love about the God of my understanding is that Love is patient, kind & forgiving. Does realizing that mean I can stop auditioning?

-Erie Chapman

Photograph: "The Audition" Erie Chapman, 2022   

Days 319-323 - The Best HR Leader in America!

 Every autumn for at least a decade (until COVID) Mark Evans would climb into his car & make the long drive from Columbus, Ohio to Nashville. Just to wish me a Happy Birthday.

   We would lunch & often review memories of our decade (update 1995) as members of the leadership team that guided Riverside Methodist Hospital from average to exceptional. That dream team laid the foundation that lifted RMH to top ten status & enabled it to become the flagship, in 1984, for the U.S. Health (now OhioHealth) multi-hospital system.  

   After lunch, despite entreaties that he stay over night, Mark would climb back into his car & make the long drive home. 

   "Why," I often asked him, "would you drive so far just for lunch." His answer was always the same. Gratitude.

   He would tell me I gave him his finest opportunity & brought out the best in him. In fact, the credit goes to him.

   One hundred percent of great organizations have great cultures & great Human Resources leadership. The seeds were there (along with weeds) when I hired Mark. By the time he & other leaders left, Riverside was a thriving garden offering nourishment to hundreds of thousands.  

   Some facts. By 1995, turnover had dropped from from over 20% to 8%. Employee & patient satisfaction was at an all time high. Riverside was picked as "One of America's Best Places to Work" by Working Mother Magazine, referenced in the book The Service Edge as one of America's top three best service organizations & honored by ABC News as a top ten hospital.

   Back then, it seemed everyone wanted to work at Riverside & no one wanted to leave. Openings were filled as fast as they appeared because there were sometimes ten applicants for open positions. 

   When I expressed that the first job of leaders was to take care of the people who take care of people, Mark took me seriously. He would be the first to credit his team. They included, among many others, Carol Stanley, who, with Mark, led the effort to create a world class day care center on campus & coordinated the establishment of on-campus shopping via a Kroger's, Dry Cleaners & video rental facility in the middle of the parking lot; the late, wonderful, Marcy Alton who developed the best employee recognition program I've ever seen, & Colleen Pero, who labored to ensure fair benefits for all staff. 

   HR oversaw the whole process for hiring, promotions, terminations & training at RMH. Gene Rhodes, Mary Alice Rice, Diane Schaub & Sharon Smeltz were key team members. Because we were looking for certain personality types in our culture, outside psychologists Thaddeus O’Brien & Andy Passon were important guides. Ron Cadieux (who passed away very recently) offered wonderful guidance to ensure that our training & orientation programs were integral in developing a culture of what is now called Radical Loving Care^®.  

   Mark, along with our magnificent Chaplain, the late Bob Davis, supported the entire effort to deliver loving care that honored RMH's mission as a faith-based hospital.

   If you are making a list of leaders who made Riverside great during that period be sure & include Mark Evans...& put lots of gold stars next to his name! Across 45 years of healthcare leadership, he is the best HR leader I ever encountered. That is because he is also one of the finest men I know. 

   On behalf of everyone in our great Riverside of those days, & everyone who wonders how Riverside became the best of what it is today, thank you, Mark. 

-Erie Chapman

https://www.eriechapmanfoundation.net/

Photograph of Mark Evans by Barb Schwartz. @1993  http://www.barbschwartzphotography.com/

   

Days 221-225 M.I.T. Scientists: Distance Prayer Can Work!

   A ray of sun travels millions of miles & lands on a single magnolia leaf. Presto: photosynthesis enables the leaf to synthesize foods from carbon dioxide & oxygen.

   What if "Thoughts & Prayers," (a now-trite phrase) are not distance dependent?  Could regular reader, Sister Maureen McDermott, aim a healing prayer from her Australian home towards Liz Wessel in California & affect Liz's body chemistry?

   "No!" Scientists always said. Now, new evidence from scientists suggests what the faithful believe. "Yes!" Our prayers can help heal...& distance is irrelevant! 

   There is no area where spirituality & science intersect more tantalizingly than in quantum physics. 

   But, if you are a poet, musician or science-hater you probably missed news from the world-renown Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Starting back in 2013 MIT Technology Review wrote: "The ability to control one quantum particle by manipulating another somewhere else sounds like the stuff of science fiction. Now physicists say they know how to do it."

   So can you. Since our thoughts, as brain waves, are quantum particles (including photons or electrons) their travels are not restricted by distance.  Scientists call the transport process "teleportation" & describe it in the article as "one of the more extraordinary phenomena in the quantum world. It, [teleportation] allows a quantum object, such as a photon or electron, to travel from one location to another without passing through the space in between." (Italics added)

   Distance prayers may have been working for millennia!

   Larry Dossey, M.D., author of Healing Words, told me this thirty years ago on my international t.v. show, Life Choices with Erie Chapman. But, I was doubtful & rarely read science journals. My son-in-law, Alberto Pierotti, does & led me to the latest research.  

   The faithful have always used distance prayer. Now faith-doubting scientists may join ministers in weaponizing thoughts to help defeat disease.  

   Perhaps, your prayers will gain new energy. Someone across the ocean will experience new healing...& wonder why. 

-Rev. Erie Chapman

Photograph: "Magnolia" - Erie Chapman

   

Days 207-211 How Leaders Never Miss an Opportunity to Miss an Opportunity

   "Here's what we doctors say about administrators," a cardiologist said recently, "They never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity."

   The comment is painfully accurate. Most leaders squander their best power: To make life better for caregivers & patients. 

   As a trial lawyer entering hospital leadership in 1975 I asked myself a core question & got an answer that changed my life &  the lives of hundreds of thousands since.

   Who is my client?"

   I sat in the ER & watched patients come go. Untrained in anything but law, I wondered how I could help? A Code Blue was called. I took a few steps & stopped. What was I going to do, draft a will? I knew I could use the law to warn of the need for better care but I was given the chance to do more. 

   That is how it came to me. I was responsible for several departments. Maybe those caregivers were my "clients". If I took loving care of them they would take better care of patients & each other. As a side point, we would also minimize lawsuits & practices that lead to them. I had the power to impact the quality of their lives & they had the power to heal people in need!

   I did not want to "miss this opportunity."

   For the next forty-five years I led tens of thousands of caregivers in three different health care systems, a healthcare company & two charitable foundations. The simple leadership mission of "taking care of the people who take care of people" resonated through every place I led. Employee & patient satisfaction (also quality & finance) soared in every setting. That work continues in hospitals that practice Radical Loving Care^® (RLC).

   What is being squandered? Most leaders fail to practice RLC. Instead of nurturing, they threaten. Instead of removing bad leaders they tolerate mediocrity. Instead of loving their work they demean it as just a job.

   Culture determines behavior. Leaders determine culture. Leaders have a massive opportunity to create cultures of loving care. When they waste that they betray the mission of the hospitals where they lead. 

   Please share this. Ask leaders to sit in the ER & ask themselves one question: How can I impact patient care? What if I took better care of caregivers: encouraged & inspired them, made sure they had supportive leaders, had them tell me how they give loving care & thus empower them as teachers. What if I practiced a core element of Radical Loving Care: humility. 

-Erie Chapman  

Days 244-248 - Leaders MUST Have Compassion

   Whether you are running a hospital, a city, a nursing unit or a country you must be able to empathize & have the strength to act on that empathy to solve problems. That is why one of the three great characteristic common to every great leader is compassion. 

   Without it, leaders are deaf to human need. They cannot select good team members or execute an inspiring vision. Without compassion, Lincoln, Reagan, Obama & others would have failed. 

   Forget politics. The current Presidential election is now about our health & well-being in a country divided as it has not been since the Civil War. 

   Yet, too many of my fellow white males dismiss compassion as irrelevant. "What I want is a tough leader," one told me recently. In fact, what America needs right now is a President who is what Martin Luther King called "tough-minded & tender-hearted."

   John Baldoni wrote in last week's Forbes Magazine, "As our nation is riven by the twin viruses of Covid-19 and systemic racism, and the resulting economic fallout, people in need, or people in general, want to know that someone cares."

   Why? A President that genuinely appreciates suffering will not toss paper towels at a crowd of Puerto Ricans hungry for food, water & electricity & then refuse meaningful aid. He will not tolerate immigrant children being caged, will respond immediately to the pandemic instead of calling it "a hoax" & will empathize with both police & those suffering from racist treatment. 

   Baldoni suggests who can best lead America: "Biden feels empathetic because that is who he is. He acts on empathy because he feels he must. And therein lies the leadership lesson. Being and doing are different things."

   Yes. This Presidential election is now about our health. Leaders who lack compassionate are blind to the very human needs we elect them to address.

   That is why we need a President who is a Caregiver-in-Chief as well as a Commander in Chief. Someone who leads with love, not fear. 

 -Erie Chapman

Here is a 3 minute video I made to help you explain this issue to others: https://youtu.be/yeHMj9T1Ivg

 

Days 188-191 - Changing Bitter Harvests To Blessings

   Farmers know that different crops ripen in different season. Fisherman know this idea too.

   What about your harvest in this season? Whatever your age you have endured hardship & plenty, sorrow & joy, disappointment & gratitude. And...?

   Farmers question quantity, quality, salability, what can be stored or shared. Underneath lie hard work & meaning. 

   We ask the same.

   What astounds is the manifold ways that two people with similar riches can celebrate or curse their yields. Rich seventy-year olds complain it is not enough. Others with small fractions of that feel grateful.    

   Frequently, when a career or relationship ends in betrayal the "victim" is traumatized & devalues their life. I have experienced both. What magnified my losses was that the other was so anxious to rush on to their next chapter that they failed to honor their scarred partner. Disrespect wounds Humanity.* 

   Two comments expose hurt, not truth: Demonization of the once-loved job or person or, "I don't care."

   "Victims" feel the frustration of the wronged & the bitterness of the humiliated. Thus, they lose not only job or spouse but, worse, they face a crisis of meaning. The question "All that commitment for nothing?" repeats itself.

   I often struggle to do what I recommend: Find worth in my commitments independently. It hurts to be fired unjustly. It hurts to be divorced & ignored.  It is hard to prioritize my ordination vows above my lawyer's training. 

  Still, I recommend to CEO's: Celebrate the departing. Show caring not indifference.

   Choosing love not fear means reviewing shared history with gratitude.    The same for both parties in broken relationships: Thoroughly honor history with something more than a flippant, "It's over but thanks," or the deadly, "I will always love you" (implying "But not enough to stay with you.") 

   So, instead of blocking memories grieve & celebrate. Thank your lucky stars for how they shined on you for awhile.

   If you can do that magic trick bitter harvests will become food that will bless the rest of your days. 

Erie Chapman

*This story is told searingly in "About Schmidt." After retirement, Jack Nicholson's character walks by a storage area where all his carefully kept files are being discarded. 

Photograph, "Southern Harvest" by erie, 2016

  

Days 169-173 - Meaningful Relationships

These sweet siblings already know their sister & brother relationship is meaningful. And also know very little of the pain that comes when life's relationships deepen. Caroline foreshadowed early awareness when she was 4 & her brother was disrupting her life. She told her dad, "Remember when Reed was in Mommy's tummy & I could not wait until he was born? Now, I can't stand the sight of him." 

Loss is integral to meaning. For 27 years Nurse JoAnn Parker dedicated her life to caregiving. Frequently recognized for her caring heart & flooded with letters of affirmation from patients, co-workers & supervisors she was a model of Radical Loving Care.

Then her supervisor called her in. "JoAnn, we're letting you go. Nothing personal. We've got to cut costs & we're closing your Neuro unit. You'll get severance."  

That was it. 

There is nothing more life-affirming than meaningful relationships & nothing more crushing than their sudden end - especially for the innocent. This is true whether it is a job, a marriage, a dog or other sacred bond. Some people cry over the death of a tree or loss of a painting or destruction of a memory-drenched home. 

Of course, there is no such thing as a meaningful relationship that is pain-free. To think otherwise is fantasy. Still, for those who love the a relationship's death is a killing. 

Healthy relationships turn on love not fear. Pain is endurable if love is present. When fear wins pain becomes an agony that can feel life-threatening.

Is it better to have "loved & lost than never to have loved at all?"  A sufferer may say no. Some never open their hearts again. Others vibrate with the coda of Emily Dickinson's words at the end of "After Great Pain":

This is the Hour of Lead –

Remembered, if outlived,

As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –

First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go 

 

Will Hope rise in Letting-go's wake?

 

The radical thing about Radical Loving Care is that the heart's sensitivity, newly tuned to Joy, becomes exquisitely vulnerable to suffering.

 

What about JoAnn? Her work was her calling. When that vanished so did she & only recently returned.

Will she ever open her heart again? I do not know. Would you?

I sent her the Dickinson that begins:

Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -...

 

Erie Chapman

Days 160-164 - The Only Path to Compassion

   Long ago I shared with an acquaintance the agonies of my Crohn's disease. "I know exactly how you feel," he said, "my brother has that."

   He had no idea "exactly" how I felt. He simply knew about being a brother to a sufferer. But, compassion can be learned. 

   The road to compassion runs through the city of pain. Pain burns unique brands into each of us. We experience agony differently so none of us ever knows another's experience.

   Have you ever experienced the superiority of feeling healthy while another is ill? "I'm well & strong & he's sick & flawed," my acquaintance may have thought.  

   "Pain is the first proper step to real compassion," David Whyte writes. "It can be a foundation for understanding all those who struggle with their existence."

   Compassion can birth deep listening, It can turn your heart to what lies beneath the suffering of another & deter jumping to judgment.

   In a Facebook post, Chris York (left), recent recipient of the CEO of the Year award from Erie Chapman Foundation, showed one reason why he is America's finest healthcare leader.

   "My apologies to [former 49ers quarterback] Colin Kaepernick," Chris wrote, "I was critical of his approach [4 years ago] to protesting police brutality and I was wrong...Today, I can’t help but wonder how much better off we’d be as a country had we listened to his message."

   How much better would hospital care be if we listened?

   Staying open-minded. Humility in recognizing a mistake. The courage to publicly apologize. All characteristics of great leaders (& never demonstrated by our President.) 

   Compassion lives at the core as Radical Loving Caregiving: To honor another's pain by remembering your own. To bravely live love to help another. These mark the pathway to healing. 

   Yes. It is easier to advise then to follow my own counsel. Perhaps that is why I often write this Journal to myself as well as to you.

   Thank you giving love whether or not it is reciprocated. 

-Erie Chapman 

Days 153-157 - Men & Tears

 "Wow. Doc sure is taking this hard," I heard a mourner say at the visitation. "Look at him over there crying his eyes out."

   The doctor's wife & two remaining daughters were crying too. The visitor did not mention them. It was this well-known surgeon's tears that made him uncomfortable. 

   The crying could not have been more justified. On January 11, 1977 Death & diabetes had suddenly stolen Doctor Lokvam's lovely middle daughter, Sonja, at thirty-six. 

   Accustomed to saving lives, the doctor could not comprehend it. "I should have figured out how to save her but she seemed healthy."

   Since that awful night in the brutal winter of 1977 I have thought often of how proud I was of my father-in-law for crying & for his wife who comforted all of us with saintly compassion. 

   We know the rules. Men are not supposed to cry. If one does he better not do it in a way that suggests a wimp. 

   Remember "A League of their Own?" The women's softball team manager (Tom Hanks)notices that his pitcher (Madonna) is crying. "There are no tears in baseball!" he shouts at her." 

   Caregivers often comfort the grieving by saying, "It's good to cry."

   If that is so how come crying by men is tacitly banned? 

   My fellow males & I carry this burden. If you are ever present when a man cries you do not have to say anything. Just hug him one (when we are again allowed to do so.) Otherwise, say, "I am glad you have the strength to shed tears."

   Plagued recently by a bit of depression (anger turned inward) I created an 80 word poem & one minute cinema. (Click the link.)

Tears

Men are terrible at crying.
At least ones like me who

Grew up thinking only women cried.

Tears of laughter are different.
So is crying when you see your baby
Son for the first time.
But sadness? My throat traps those
Tears & holds them, boiling water
Ulcerating my skin.

It does no good to tell men
Like me to cry.
Once I gave way to that,

Ended up in the hospital.
I may land there again.
Soon.

 

-Erie Chapman 2020

Days 132-136 - The Enemies of Presence

E    Last summer, my then 18-month-old grandson looked into the mirror. His father asked, "Who is that?" "Reed," he answered as if he had discovered gold. And my son said to his son, "That's right!"

   Reed had entered a "reality" that governs our lives: That the person in the mirror is us.

   We know there is not just one of us. The self portrait from 1977 has been updated with images of different "me's" at different ages being watched over by a guardian angel. All of those people are within me now accompanied by a crowd of others. 

   The importance of our multiple personas is a fact routinely & tragically overlooked by many caregivers. The doctor or nurse that sees the wrinkled skin of an elderly patient & brands them as old & less relevant misses the complex humanity of the many people that person has been...and is. Loving caregivers give better care because they understand the many lives inside the one before them

   So many personas lurk within: The brilliant you, the angry you. The you who grieves, laughs, lies, plays childlike with a child, treats your dog as a person, speaks rudely to a clerk. 

   And there is the you who wants to escape the present. To run from the fear of being trapped by constantly scanning for the nearest exit.

   This helps when threats are as real as an attacking Grizzly.  But for many running away is a strategy to escape not just headaches or an angry boss but fear of abandonment, loss of hope or simple ennui.

    Fear is the enemy of presence. Fear blocks adventure & discovery, can destroy relationships & defeat meaningful experiences.

   Fear does not just make us run from tigers. If you routinely choose flight it can deaden your life.

   Strangely, one of the most effective ways to deal with most threats is to stand still. Embrace your fear & thus weaken its power over you. 

   The most soul-enriching path is the hardest to choose: To sit with Fear. Watch it. Befriend it as a teacher that will illuminate truth. To listen to it as a guide to the Love we were meant to live.

-Erie Chapman

Days 125-129 From Whom Did You Learn Love?

   Whether we remember her consciously or not we all "know" the first teacher from whom we learned love. I had a great one & consider myself incredibly lucky.

  It was through her that I entered this earth & from this earth that she departed two years ago (May 5, 2018, at age 105) a few days after I made this picture. It is odd that by taking a picture of my own mom I ended up creating what other artists now consider fine art.*

   Mom's exit was as soft as was she, so pleasant that my son said, "Dad, I want to sign up for that kind of death."

   Obviously, I had nothing to do with her longevity (105). But great as were her genes it was her gifts of love that mattered. 

   In the course of teaching Radical Loving Care it is often my father whose words I recall. Like me, he used a lot of them. Not mom. Her love spoke through presence.

   Some see hands as healing pathways. The ancient ones in the photograph, when they were those of a young mom, were rarely used to swat me in the rear.

   Instead, it was those hands that held me to nurse at her breast, those hands that hugged me when I cried & that stroked my face when I was sick. It was those hands that she used to conduct the Rachmaninoff & Beethoven she listened to & those hands that reached out to me in her final days to hold mine & say, "Oh Chip, I hate to see you leave."

   Long as we had her, I hated to see her leave & am grateful for her every moment. 

   Our mom's are our first caregivers. Yet, many great caregivers had bad luck. Moms who were indifferent, unkind or absent. Somehow they found others to teach them Radical Loving Care. 

   This Journal can help you reflect on your teachers, not just with words like, "My mom was great," or "My minister was terrific." But, to write specifics & stories that illustrate them. Through that exercise you may learn things forgotten or never recognized & thus teach love in new & richer ways.

-Erie "Chip" Chapman

*The great photoartist Imogen Cunningham did a similar thing with her famous image "My Father At Ninety." Prints of it are $20,000!

"Final Days," this image of my mom, hung in the Vanderbilt University Art gallery this past year. 

Days 96-100 - Celebrating Caregivers in Song

 

 As some yield naturally to the desire retreat emotionally as well as physically from the deafening noise that this crisis creates I know many others seek ways to serve as well as to thank those who serve. One choice is to sing - whether you are good at it or not.

   As someone vulnerable to depression, in part because I could help as a leader & have no direct option to do so due to age-related marginalization (now there's a phrase for you) I find music as one way to give back. 

   Please watch this video thank you & pass it along on your Facebook and/or Instagram page or via email. 

   Thank you caregivers everywhere - now & always. Hallelujah!

-Erie Chapman

www.eriechapmanfoundation.net

Days 82-86 Two Reasons Why Some Crises Unite Us

   Quarantined, the gregarious citizens of Italy (including my daughter, her Italian husband & their children) found a way to unite by taking to their balconies & singing. Others gathered to cheer for doctors & nurses. 

   Music & cheering do not kill viruses. Instead,  they are hymns of hope that dilute Fear's poison. They are the solo chickadee singing his way through the shadows of Spring. 

   Every leader knows that crises galvanize people. They understand that power comes easily when people are united against a common fear.& they appreciate the second reason crises energize: emergencies fuel meaning. 

   Just as we are warned to stay apart the virus draws us together - both emotionally & logically. We find meaning by sharing what we have in common in whatever way we can find. 

   As millions become instant caregivers for the un-hospitalized elderly their lives becoming more meaningful.  And the cared for feel more hopeful. 

   Beware of Crises' dark side. Millions concoct fear to make themselves feel better at the expense of others. The Ku Klux Klan united white racists. Nazi's did the same. In all such cases leaders distort truth to unite followers around hate instead of love.  

   Jesus called us to find Love against peer pressure to hate. Love your enemies. Love the lepers, those who look different & even those who betrayed you. Love the drug addict in the ER & the Death Row inmate headed for execution. 

   It is easy to join in when everyone is singing for good & hard to stand strong when the crowd is a mob. This standard is so difficult that we all fail sometimes & some flunk routinely. 

   Radical Loving Care calls us to love even when Fear says it makes no sense. Why? Because love is the heart of our highest humanity.

-Erie Chapman

Photograph - "Shadows of Spring" 2018 by Erie

   

Days 69-73 - A Surprising Way to Combat Viruses

   It is the best smilers & the easiest laughers that I search out before every serious speech I give. 

   A great smile (& terrific laugh) appeared immediately at Baylor Scott & White's Grapevine Medical Center*, Dallas. On March 5 the Erie Chapman Foundation awarded the first Healing Hospital GOLD LEVEL CERTIFICATION™  to this magical organization. 

   The surprise was not that several people showed humor there because "Healing Hospital CEO of the Year™" Chris York has created a culture where Radical Loving Care™ is a requirement, compassion is as essential as competence, & humor is integral to leadership.

   Yet, I do not often find humorists among those that wield financial spread sheets. Surprise! The first contagious laugh I heard was Vice President & Chief Financial Officer Olga Young's!** 

   Why is a sense of humor so important to successful leadership? Because medical researchers now know that laughter strengthens your immune system. Check this from a 2011 article by Dr. Paul McGhee: "...immunoglobulin A (IgA)...resides in the mucosal areas of the body and helps protect you against upper respiratory infections like colds and flu...these studies have shown significant increases in concentrations of IgA in response to comedy programs..."

   The Mayo Clinic Newsletter reports, "Negative thoughts manifest into chemical reactions that...bring more stress...and decrease your immunity...positive thoughts...release neuropeptides that help fight stress and potentially more-serious illnesses." (April, 2019)

   Sure, we should wash our hands & use common sense against the coronavirus. But did you know laughter could also help vaccinate you against illness? Yep. Ms. Young may not know it but every time she delivers her sweet laugh people get healthier! 

   Meanwhile, as part of Chris York's A-Team of leaders Olga Young is doing her job brilliantly. She now brings smiles of another kind via spread sheets with great news: BSW Grapevine is having a banner financial year! 

-Erie Chapman

*More on BSW Grapevine in a future article.

**Olga is the youngest of thirteen children!

Days 50 & 51 - Mercy San Juan Medical Center - Healing Hospital Certified™

™FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Mercy San Juan Medical Center Certified as One of America’s Healing Hospitals™ By Nashville Foundation

Dateline Nashville: Erie Chapman Foundation, Nashville, Tennessee, has announced that Mercy San Juan Medical Center, Sacramento (part of the Dignity Health network) has been awarded Healing Hospital Certification™ (Bronze) for 2019. The recognition was announced January 31, 2020 at a special ceremony at the hospital.

According to Foundation President Erie Chapman, “Mercy San Juan has been recognized for successfully creating a culture of Radical Loving Care™ that emphasizes high competence and deep compassion by every caregiver. This medical center has made major improvements in three areas: clinical quality, patient satisfaction and continuing improvements in budget performance. This is a challenging trifecta. Congratulations to every caregiver on this wonderful accomplishment.”

Michael Korpiel, President of Mercy San JuanMedical Center said, “As part of a faith-based system we are thrilled by this recognition. Every one of our employees is a caregiver and thus credit goes to them for integrating loving care into the culture of this organization. We believe loving care is an essential part of the healing process.”

Laurie Harting, CEO of Dignity Health’s Sacramento Division, said, “Our entire system is about mission excellence and we are grateful that Mercy San Juan Medical Center has received this national recognition. Congratulations to Michael and his team.”

Erie Chapman Foundation is a charitable trust that supports Radical Loving Care™ in hospitals, hospices and in the arts. Hospitals are evaluated on a wide range of criteria including whether each caregiver can pass what the Foundation calls The Mother Test™. To pass, leaders must show that caregivers are delivering the loving support they would want for their mother.

Healing Hospital recognition has gone to a diverse range of hospitals including, The Cleveland Clinic, Parrish Medical Center, Bingham Memorial, Boston’s Beth Israel, Mercy Gilbert, Baptist-Saint Thomas Hospital & The Mayo Clinic.

About Dignity Health

Dignity Health, one of the nation’s largest health care systems, is a multi-state network of 10,000 physicians, more than 60,000 employees, 41 acute care hospitals, and 400-plus care-centers including neighborhood hospitals, urgent care, surgery and imaging centers, home health, and primary care clinics. Headquartered in San Francisco, Dignity Health is dedicated to providing compassionate, high-quality, and affordable patient-centered care with special attention to the poor and under served. In FY 2019, Dignity Health provided more than $1.1 billion in patient financial assistance, unreimbursed costs of Medicaid, community health improvement services, and other community benefits. For more information, please visit their  website at www.dignityhealth.org

Days 46-50 Culture-Changing Stories - Raising The Light

.  For thirty years the night staff exiting towards The Toledo Hospital parking lot could count on a morning ray of love.  In summer light or snowy darkness they regularly received a cheerful greeting from a unique fellow caregiver with a short body & a tall spirit.  

   As Martha Chapman walked towards the information desk to begin her day she would say a bright, "Good morning!" to every departing night-shifter.

   "It seemed to help," Martha told me. "But, one person always walked by with her head down. I greeted her anyway."

   Why send rays of kindness into indifferent shadows?

   "One cold morning the silent woman handed me a note & kept walking," my sister shared. "It said, 'I am so shy that I could never answer your greeting. You kindness every day always meant so much. Thank you.'"

   We underestimate our potential impact. For decades, Martha changed her hospital's culture by raising the light - not by being a doctor injecting 50 cubic centimeters of medicine but by improving everyone's brain chemistry with her thousand-megawatt smile (on display in this picture) & her loving presence. 

   Harried caregivers often say, "I haven't got time to give loving care." Help them by sharing this story.

   Martha's daily kindnesses illustrate what Radical Loving Care is all about. In precious moments each day her rays of love ignited hope in others - including one shy & grateful being. 

-Erie Chapman

Note: Martha just celebrated her birthday on February 15. 

Days 315-319 - Caring for the "Crazy" - The Challenge of "A Fine Madness"

...For that fine madness still he did retain,/ Which rightly should possess a poet's brain. - Michael Drayton

   Imagine a Christmas without Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker," the ballet that has brought joy to millions since 1892.

   Imagine growing up never knowing American literature's finest novel: Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn.

   What if your eyes had never seen Van Gogh's "Starry Night"? 

   Without one genius our ears would never know "Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better), composed by the legendary Irving Berlin. 

   A single soul named Michelangelo transformed the bare ceiling of the Sistine Chapel into a masterpiece.

   What a loss it would have been if there had never been an Emily Dickinson. 

   Each of these giants was labeled "crazy." Their mood swings often inflicted misery on others. It was the price of their kind of genius.  

   Today psychiatrists would diagnosis them with what the public loosely calls Bipolar Disorder. Caregivers understand that diagnoses spans a wide spectrum from Bipolar Type I at one end to Depression, a unipolar illness, at the other. 

   The illness is not limited to artists. The often energetic Abe Lincoln suffered profound bouts of depression. The mood swings of the legendary Steve Jobs made him a difficult boss.

   It is the unique energy in the positive phase of mania that can open the door to the chambers of magic. There, the disciplined may create wonders & we owe them our gratitude & understanding.

   The saying is that "not all artists are bipolar but most bipolar people are artists." 

   A few years back this illness became personal. My unusual energy had caused some to label me a "Renaissance Man." I had always wondered why I could do many disparate things at once: host an Emmy-Award winning national T.V. show while founding & running a multi-billion dollar, multi-hospital system.

   How could I attend Vanderbilt Divinity School full time while running a second hospital system full-time, then compose music, create award-winning documentaries, write the best-selling Radical Loving Care, write poetry & create photo-art?

   Strangest of all, why did I secretly suffer dark days & display irritability inconsistent with my loving care beliefs? After all, wasn't I "successful?"

   In 2008, a psychiatrist took only fifteen minutes to discover the answer. I had Bipolar Type II -  a version that enables creativity at the hypomanic level but generates mood swings.

   Of course, that might be tolerable if I was a genius. Instead, I am not multi-talented, just multi-interested. 

   Treatment helps. Understanding & appreciation help. Ever since a psychologist told me that I had an "artist's temperament" I have thrown myself even more completely into my artwork. 

   A few month ago, I asked my son, a family historian, who he thought might have been the oddest of our ancestors. "You," he said instantly. 

   I felt complimented.

   We owe deep gratitude to those who care for the "crazy." It is taxing, often confusing & can be as depressing as the disease itself.

   Thank you, mental health caregivers.

-Erie Chapman  

Photograph by Erie

Days 194-198 - Sensitivity Plants: Releasing Old Pain

(20 second video) 

   Stroke the leaf of a Sensitivity Plant (Mimosa Pudica) & witness one of nature's vivid miracles. The insulted leaf shrivels. Often, the plant sheds it. 

   At seven, during an argument with my four-year-old sister, I slapped her on the rear & shouted, "I hate you." Taking me by the arm, mom showed me the red mark I'd left & said, "You don't hate her, you love her. She's your sister!"

   We love our siblings, right? We share the same blood. So why is sibling rivalry the stuff of tragic dramas from ancient Greece, through Shakespeare to soap operas. One psychologist told me, "Guns don't kill. Family insults do."

   The struggle for parental approval is inborn. Your parents can say they love you all equally but kids wonder: Do Mom & Dad love my sibling more?

   If that is kid's stuff why do countless adults harbor the same resentment anxieties they had as toddlers?

   Dr. Eckhart Tolle says we store hurt feelings in our "pain body." Every insult we ever experienced is trapped there. The more "sensitive" we are the more our pain body poisons us. 

   Tolle advises releasing old slights by recognizing that it is our ego that is hurt & we are not our ego. Step back. Observe your pain body, how it is fed by self pity & starves without it. You can empty it using Jesus' solution: Love every person who ever wronged you - starting with yourself! 

   Tough work - especially if Forgiveness is gift-wrapped with Condescension. Arrogance is a sword I have carried too often - always unlawfully - by not practicing the love I preach.

   Of course, Love does not shirk responsibility. In fact, be accountable for harm you caused - real or imagined. Resentment is a hundred pound back pack. Revenge adds two hundred pounds. Free pain from the other & your weight also eases.    

   A tough truth remains. Some agonies are beyond our reach. That cure is harder because hate is easier than love. Live love, not fear. Start by finding self-love. 

   My younger sister & I nurture deep love. The same goes for our other two siblings. We love through common blood shed in pain & shared in joy. Yes, we still joke about who's number one. But, neither Love nor our parents care about that. 

   Sensitivity plants release leaves insulted by clumsy human touches. Then they grow new ones. 

-Erie Chapman