Radical Loving Care: Journal of Sacred Work

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 280-284 - A Unique & Sacred Gift

   The gift came a week before Christmas, 1990. The giver was friend June Ammons. Fully aware Death's Angel was flying near she took time to select it for my wife. 

   When June died four days later at 62 the unopened present became  especially meaningful because of an unusual choice. My wife decided not to open it.

   "Wrapped it remains an unforgettable memory of June & a mystery," she said.

   Thirty years later the gift still sleeps in the green box & red ribbon June tied around its waist.  One day she may open it. But maybe not.

   Imagine a friend spending one of her final hours buying you a gift. Opened, it may soon end up in the closet of the forgotten. Wrapped it could, in special cases, become unique, sacred & a holy expression of one of Love's sweeter mysteries.

-Erie Chapman

Note: Since I could find no picture of June here is her beloved husband, Reverend Edsel Ammons, who was Bishop of the Methodist District that oversaw Riverside Methodist Hospital & OhioHealth when I was President of both. 

   

    

Days 203-207 - NEW MESSIAH?

"God is a boy. God is a boy's name. God is not a girl." - Michael, age 4. 

   This is what one of ten children I interviewed at a nursery years ago told me. I might have answered the same at his age when, looking around, I saw a church dominated by males.

   God is "He," not she. The Pope is male (as are Catholic priests.) The Old Testament prophets are men. The New Testament disciples are males. 

  For Jews & many others, of course, the Messiah, male or female, has never arrived. For Christians, He appeared two thousand years ago.

   Across an uneven history, Jesus's radical new message, God IS Love, has endured. The evidence shows, however, that Christianity in the western world has been losing followers for decades.

   Is it time for a new Messiah - one who brings God's Love through a spiritual descendent of Jesus? The long-sought Daughter of God? That question is posed by an exhibit planned at Vanderbilt Divinity School's Art Gallery this September.  

   As the featured artist (who proposed the topic & will give the opening talk) I will not be there to answer but to pose the questions.

   Do we need a new Messiah? What gender & race, what message, how presented?

   Would a female Messiah need to perform miracles for her message to be heard? What would be the difference, if any, in a woman's version of God's word presented in today's world?

   Do America's faith-based hospitals, offering care beneath the cross, need a new Messiah to reawaken Jesus' message of Love in an environment where money may be crushing mission?

   In what is now acknowledged to be a Post-Christian Era, can Christianity survive with Jesus as the solitary savior?

   Please let me know your thoughts.

-Reverend Erie Chapman

Painting - Transfiguration, Raffaello

Photoart - "New Messiah?"- Erie Chapman (2019)

Days 190-194 - Etched Not on Stone but in Hearts

 It has taken all of my long, varied & intensely reflective life to distill a few ideas of import including these two:

   Love rewards the expression of inner truth not outward praise.  Recognition can come at a terrible price because praise is a never-satisfied appetite & is often offered by those of limited vision & alternative motives. 

   Second, the creations of truth-writers are durable only if they have been "framed," recognized and promoted by advocates. Without these our contributions, no matter how "truthful" & beautiful, have little chance of surviving.

   Others must experience our work in a way they can absorb or it evaporates into the ether. 

   I thought of this for the one thousandth time as I framed a few of my pictures today. Of course, framing hardly guarantees survival, but it increases the opportunity that our best efforts will find purchase in the hearts of others.

   William Blake (1757 – 1827) is a prime example. The immortal English poet, painter, polymath and printmaker, recently described as "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced," was ridiculed as a "mad man" during his life & was unrecognized by contemporaries. We would not know him were it not for an obscure patron named Thomas Butts & the loving curatorship of his widow, Catherine, who communed with his spirit & preserved the work framed in paintings & words. 

    It is not that the boats we launch into Eternity's river endure forever. Their voyages simply last longer when they are built with Truth, sail on Love's winds & are cheered along by the living. 

   We "frame" pieces of our creations in manifold ways: books, art, philanthropy, movements, inventions & more. Importantly, these contributions matter whether we are recognized. Helen Keller understood. One way we recall her is through framed words.

   And we send messages to the future through our children, friends & others whose names we never know & who may not recall us as the ones who ignited some light within them. 

  In 2 Corinthians 3:1-3 Paul wrote a message as hard to appreciate now as it was two millennia ago: "Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need...letters of recommendation...? 2 You yourselves are our letter, ... 3 ...written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on...human hearts."

-Rev. Erie Chapman 

Painting - "Lot & His Daughters" - William Blake

Days 160-164 - City of God, City of Man

Saint Augustine developed the concept: We roam the City of Man with feet treading streets we know & eyes on a City of God we know not. 

   We are the only beings that imagine our soul's next home. Yet, however much we prettify Paradise, Death frightens us. 

   Every life is fraught with longing. It perfuses our existence as blood through our heart.

   Example: Adults pursue plastic surgery to fool peers: "Pick me, I'm young," then try to fool the Grim Reaper by reversing the trick: "Don't pick me, I'm young."

   Death makes some bad choices but physical beauty never stays his scythe.

   Decades back a surgeon friend sought to look older so patients would trust him. At seventy he dyed his hair to look younger for the same reason. 

   In the City of Man we want our surgeon middle aged, our children healthy, our minister wise & our partner pretty. We want to look "great." Our souls? We might work on them when God's city seems imminent. 

   Yet, one is not "now" & the other "later." Eternity occupies both, gradually razing earth while protecting himself. 

   Does anyone think that Heaven's gate is patrolled by beauty experts, bank examiners or border guards checking citizenship?  Our soul knows the right answers. Our body often argues otherwise.   

   As I bathe in this inlet on Eternity's sea & remember time wasted on new clothes instead of my old soul. As the shower steam clears & the mirror reveals my half-shaved face I see dimly: Truth, the home of wrinkled skin & revealed secrets; Compassion, nursing our starving at her breasts; Love, the hand that frees the artist’s fingers & liberates arias from the poet's heart; these three swim us close enough to brush the ruffled hem of Beauty & hear the silence that holds everything.

  And only Death, drawing near, permits us to whiff the fragrance that perfumes the City of God.

-Rev. Erie Chapman 

NOTE: Radical Loving Care has just been released as an audio book (as well as paperback & Kindle). Download your copy & listen in your car (or let it put you to sleep at home:-). All proceeds benefit the non-profit Erie Chapman Foundation. Thank you!

Days 268-272 - "Room at the Top of the World"

   "You are missing so much by not traveling!" a friend chastised me, using a stridency that rings in my ears a year later. Her misunderstanding of my travel-aversion infused her warning with guilt & disdain. 

   Shamed, I wondered what she saw that I was missing? She produced a fine array of photographs she had made of rock formations in the Baja. Amid compliments I asked her husband what he thought of his wife's artwork. "It's just a bunch of rocks," he said.

   What if we do not have the freedom to traverse the world as do my friends? What if we are bound to a caregiving role that calls us to reach into diseased bodies at work & nurture children at home?  

   Fortunately, beauty dwells nearby now. The intricate pansies float in a tiny pool in my back yard. What lies near you?

   The scarfed angel cloud-dances with the moon. She knows that we are all sometimes desperate to escape but cannot abandon our work. Instead, we imagine.

   Tom Petty gave us a pretty option in the opening lines to a searing song: "I got a room at the top of the world tonight/ I can see everything tonight...I got a room at the top of the world tonight/ and I ain't comin' down."

   Our "room at the top of the world" is not thousands of miles away but within - or not at all. I have found mine & I ain't comin' down. 

-Erie Chapman

   Photoart - erie

Days 192-196 A Land of Oneness?

"It is easy to turn away from a stranger, the unknown other, from the faceless in a crowded sea of otherness." - Liz Wessel

   In her weekend essay (& exceptional painting) Liz Wessel answered a question that I also address here: What can we do to transform the "sea of otherness" into a land of oneness? 

   Today, millions watch children huddled in a cave in Thailand & pray for their safety. Others glance at the same group, see "otherness," & decide they are not worth prayers.

   Every day & night, caregivers are called to care for "strangers." For true healers, their is no "otherness."

   Many learned of thousands of children separated from their parents by order of our American President & labeled the innocents "a bunch of illegals." Others, including the present First Lady & her four predecessors, condemned this kidnapping.

   The line on the screen above is wrong, one of many lies told to innocent people by government agents. American law does NOT require separating children from parents who may have immigrated illegally. This was an arbitrary decision by President Trump proven by his equally arbitrary decision to unwind it. 

   Another lie came from some officials (remember how Nazi's spoke to Jews) who conned parents into releasing children by saying, "We're just taking them for a bath" & then not returning them. 

   The President relented, not from love but from political expediency. He changed his order because, as he said at a ludicrous signing ceremony,  "I didn't like the sight or the feeling of families being separated."

   Apparently, Trump did not mind causing suffering, he just did not want to see it. Prior Presidents may have acted similarly. Thousands of Iraqi children suffered after W. Bush bombed Bagdad. He can at least claim he was blinded by false information & has a heart.

   Trump lacks one & thus suffers a disability (do some supporters also?) Consider his comments attacking George H.W. Bush. "What was it with [H.W's] thousand points of light," he jeered to a Montana crowd recently, "I never quite got that." 

   Lacking a heart, Trump could not understand. Those "points" represented compassion. 

  We think we are a country of oneness, not otherness. Our Statue of Liberty poem (by Emma Lazarus) says, "“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free...Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

   We help those "yearning to breathe free" - especially children, right? That is who we have been. That is whom we may be once again. That is not who America is right now. 

   Trump's cruel degradation of those swimming in the "crowded sea of otherness" has snuffed Liberty's light & rendered us unable to claim that we are a nation of loving caregivers for terrorized children. 

   Can we relight "the lamp beside the golden door"?

-Reverend Erie Chapman

Days 185-189 - Life was not wasted on her...

   She was one of those rare people whose presence was so dazzling that the moment my sister Ann introduced me to her dear friend I knew: Gretchen Minnhaar was unique.

   She was an Argentina-born architect who changed the face & the feeling of her adopted Grand Rapids. And she was an internationally known artist whose paintings live in homes & buildings around the world. 

   I hate using the past tense. Gretchen died suddenly June 29.

   The news of her passing is hard for Ann to absorb. The two were so close for so long: nearly five decades. She designed Ann's house & even created a work of art out of plaster in the entry hallway. Of course, her paintings hang there as well. 

   So often, our friends are our caregivers. They show up when things are tough. They let us cry on their shoulders. They help us celebrate weddings.

   Ann's & Gretchen's friendship was often healing for both. For Gretchen's husband Luis, a world renown heart surgeon, the loss is incalculable. 

   As I have written in prior Journals of Sacred Work, great artists give us Radical Loving Care. Look at how Liz Wessel's art, seen here each weekend, comforts you.

   Consider the way artists decorate our lives: They bring beauty that makes us love our eyes. Sometimes they provoke (Picasso, Max Ernst, the photoartist Man Ray) by changing how we think. Often they heal by painting what we cannot express. 

    It is not fair to say Gretchen was like Evita Peron just because both were from Argentina. But it is true that Gretchen's powerful persona put her in a league with people that are classic strivers: ones who are compelled to create (and have the talent to do so), to make things happen, to spice up our existence. 

   We can thank our lucky stars for all artists that have worked courageously (& often suffered) to venture into unknown realms to bring before us bits of the holy grail.

    Many of us squander our gifts & our time on earth. We are more unwilling than we are unable.

   Life was not wasted on Gretchen. She embraced it, drank its champagne, painted it the color of Argentina (she seemed made of color), changed a city & impacted the lives of hundreds of thousands.

   Heaven is glad to have this new resident. She is already at work decorating some new clouds. 

-Erie Chapman

Photo from online archives

Days 115-119 - Gentle Light, Gentle Night

  She shows such elegance in her pink nightgown & polished nails that it seems okay to share this picture of my mom in her last days. Eyes closed, her ears are wide open to a violin solo being performed by one of her ten great grandchildren (who is playing at the foot of her bed.)

   During the months since I saw her last, my mother's body has turned from the work of living & entered the path to dying. Yet in spite of her astonishing age (105 2/3) she is so long in the habit of living that her spirit's profound energy keeps nudging her body to hang on.

   But that body that clearly wants to quit. Symbolic is the small stroke a week ago that shut her left eye blocking part of her view of an earth that she will soon depart.

   Her mortal mind has begun to forget names & places she has held dear.

   She also remembers.

   In a barely audible voice she recollects things like the sea breeze blowing through her hair on the deck of the ship her family took to Europe in 1930. And she offers her favorite memory: "Whenever the whole family sat around the table" & her sadness that everyone "always left that table too soon."  

   When I leaned down to greet her this past Friday she opened her remaining eye, gave me one of her heavenly smiles & spoke my nickname: "Oh Chip, Chip, Chip...," she said, "Hello."

   By the time I began to leave two days later we had shared some of the finest moments of my life including her reminder of what a "hellion" I was as a child: "You couldn't sit still," she smiled (& I still cannot.)

   Then, haltingly, she spoke words every son hopes to hear: "You...have...done so much...good, my Chip."

   I leaned close. We sang "Jesus Loves Me."

   Tonight I wanted to tuck in the woman who so often put me to bed & to say to her, "May your eternity be as gentle as you have always been, oh, mom, mom, Mother. Goodbye."

-Erie Chapman

photograph by erie, April 20, 2018 

Days 101-105 - The Crushing of Individuality

 

   In this 11-second video my fifth grandchild experiences his first bite of solid food & turns up his nose. Then his mom makes him laugh. Will his subconscious record that experiencing bad tastes can become fun?

   Are we our truest selves as babies? Does the pulse of society confuse who we are?

   Sydney Lumet spoke for millions when he said, "Everything conspires to crush our individuality."

   Society grounds our survival on our ability to pretend to like the dislikable. Indeed, to love our enemies.  

   The majority defines tastes. It will drown individuals at odds with it & thus pollute some of our most creative streams.

   How do we preserve our unique voices?

   My brilliantly profoundly caring writing partner lives in far off California. Mission leader Liz Wessel & I have met only twice in ten years. We rarely know the content each other's essays prior to publication.

   Nevertheless, we often hit the same topic simultaneously. Her last weekend essay touched individuality, the same subject I address here.

   Liz quotes Yevtushenko, "The most beautiful aching work of this world is to be yourself."

   We do not have to sell the complexity of our souls to meet every simple shout for conformity. We can keep the light illuminated in the rooms of our individuality. 

   How?

   Some caregivers think Radical Loving Care calls us to sacrifice the voice of our needs to meet the needs of another. But caring for others also requires self care. Love holds both truths. 

   We can preserve the sacredness of our secret voices by honoring them. 

-Erie Chapman

video of my 5th grandchild by his mom. 

Days 62-63 Hope

To All Caregivers Far and Wide,

May you come to see your life as a quiet sacrament of service,

which awakens around you a rhythm where doubt gives way to the grace of wonder,

where what is awkward and strained can find elegance

and where crippled hope can find wings, and torment enter at last unto the grace of serenity.

 

May Divine Beauty bless you.

 

John O’ Donohue, excerpt from Beauty -The Invisible Embrace

 

With gratitude for your compassionate care and dedication and for the lessons you have taught me through your "sacraments of service" for the sake of others.

Fondly, 

Liz Sorensen Wessel

Mandala By ~liz

Days 36-40 - The Harmonic Cosmos

   When Einstein encountered roadblocks while developing his theory of relativity he would  trade his pencil for a violin. He did this, he said, "to reconnect with the harmonies of the cosmos."  

   Scientists explain rainbows. Artists paint them.

   Gladly, we do not have to be geniuses to understand this idea & how to apply it. Everyone has hit resistance while trying to solve problems. 

   The moment we forget a name we start struggling. The tension created interrupts the harmony the mind needs to deliver the answer. That is why the name comes when we let go. 

   Einstein engaged the approach more broadly. Like Leonardo Da Vinci, Einstein knew that science & art are married & that to divorce them disturbs the best energies of each.

   Caregiving engages science to cure. Art offers different harmonies. Radical Loving Care is a theory of caregiving. It posits that healing is grounded in God's love. Thus healing flows when  science & art join to connect "the harmonies of the cosmos."

-Erie Chapman

Photograph by Erie

Days 29-33 - Symbols of Love

 

Caregivers engage countless ways to relate to each other as well as to patients. Words are only one bridge. Symbols speak eloquently depending on how they are offered, shared & interpreted.

This Gulf Coast setting was beautiful before I photographed it. The small tree at the horizon drew me to this point of view - not standing at the beach but back far enough to include more.

The original photograph is not the actual sunset, of course. The camera is a filter that offers a representation of what I saw.

Adding fire, hawk, stained glass & misplaced waves creates a different experience. Every element & the image as a whole has the meaning we choose for it.

Stained glass symbolizes sacredness. We can worship here as deeply as in a formal church.

Symbology impacts caregiving. Pictures of loving caregivers lining a hospital's halls support both compassionate cultures & the confidence of patients. A cross, Star of David or the non-denominational symbols of Radical Loving Care reinforce loving missions.

Joseph Campbell defined a symbol as "an energy evoking and directing agent." Hospitals & hospices signal anxiety. The right symbols help Compassion defeat Fear opening the door to healing.

-Erie Chapman

Composite photograph, "Surreal sunset" - copyright erie chapman 2017 

[This column originally appeared here in April, 2017]

Days 272-276 - Where the Temple Begins

   On my way to retrieve the morning paper I discovered different news. It is suggested, but not portrayed, in the accompanying video shot by one quicker with his camera then was I.

   The news I heard was shouted by a solo reporter speaking with practiced authority. But I saw nothing. He spoke again, reporting the imminent arrival of a great show.

   Beauty & grace are a fine duet. Their appearance is especially pleasing when they dance on stage unexpected. 

   The reporter & his entire troop suddenly appeared not twenty feet above me. Ten geese, five on each side, displaying that thrilling V we view with awe.

 

   Leaders love to cite the geese formation as a metaphor for teamwork. What struck me this morning was that only one goose, the temporary guide, was honking.

   There are hundreds of lessons that can be gleaned from the gorgeous phenomenon of geese in flight. Yet, the most important one appears in three lines from Mary Oliver's poem, "Where Does the Temple Begin, Where Does It End?"

   "There are things you can't reach. But/you can reach out to them, and all day long./The wind, the bird flying away. The idea of God."

   Temples begin & end everywhere - especially in the sky. 

-Erie Chapman

Video by 2TiedUp 

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

Days 139-143 - America's Newest Healing Hospital - Bingham Memorial

   Every patient wants to be treated in a healing hospital and every hospital wants to be a place of healing as well as curing. But, very few hospitals are successful in achieving both distinctions: to be places of high competency AND high compassion. 

   The foundation I run has recently revived the national Healing Hospital certification program. Through a process of intense analysis, consulting & onsite visits we evaluate whether a given hospital has created a culture of Radical Loving Care™. Those who are deemed to have succeeded are designated Healing Hospital Certified™ by the foundation.

   The following press release reveals the latest hospital to have achieved certification. A big congratulations to Bingham Memorial Hospital and special thanks to Mark Baker and Michael Harris for guiding this process under the direction of BMH's CEO & COO. 

Press Release

         Erie Chapman Foundation, Nashville, Tennessee, is pleased to announce that it has officially certified Bingham Memorial Hospital, Blackfoot, Idaho, as a Healing Hospital for the calendar year 2017.

         “Healing Hospital Certification means that our board recognizes that BMH has met the basic standards required of a culture that practices Radical Loving Care (RLC),” according to Erie Chapman, M.T.S., J.D, President of the Foundation.

         “Every hospital claims to be healing and caring,” Chapman said. “Radical Loving Care asks a harder question: ‘Is every single caregiver someone you would trust taking care of your mother? We call this The Mother Test and it is an extremely difficult standard to reach.”

         The Foundation advances the view that hospitals that can pass it’s Mother Test will deliver improved patient care (and thus patient satisfaction) in every area by enhancing the human experience for everyone facing a healthcare challenge. Employee morale goes up, physician satisfaction improves, clinical outcomes improve, even financial performance typically strengthens, the Foundation believes.

         The recognition of BMH also acknowledges the exceptional quality of the hospital considering its relatively small size. “You don’t have to be The Mayo Clinic to deliver great care,” Chapman says.

         The certification review process for BMH began in December, 2016. In addition, the Foundation sent a representative, Todd Meador, for an onsite visit May 10 & 11 of this year. “We are very impressed with the work that leaders, including outgoing President & CEO Jeff Daniels and has chosen successor, Jake Erickson, are doing in enriching workplace culture,” Meador said. “There was already a good culture in place. But, BMH has hundreds of employees and physicians so the big goal here was to develop a culture where everyone passed The Mother Test. The only way to do that is with a strong culture supported by exceptional leaders.”

         The Foundation review determined that leadership at BMH understood that loving care is not only about compassion but is also centered in competence. BMH recently adopted a vision statement emphasizing High Competence & High Compassion. “This is the kind of thing we like to see in healthcare organizations,” Meador said.

         The Foundation emphasized that the Healing Hospital Certification is issued for one year at a time and subsequent certifications turn on whether a given hospital continues to develop & sustain a culture of Radical Loving Care. “Organizational behavior change is never a “quick fix.” It takes a long time to build a culture that is deep enough to influence the actions & attitudes of every single caregiver.” Chapman said. “BMH has now met the basic standards. It is up to them to build from here.”

         Erie Chapman Foundation, based in Nashville, Tennessee, is a non-profit trust set up to advance and support the principles of loving care. The concept of the New Healing Hospital was launched at Nashville’s Baptist Hospital in 2001 during the time Mr. Chapman was President & CEO. High success their lead to the best selling book, Radical Loving Care, written by Mr. Chapman in 2003. The culture-focused philosophy has since been expanded and supplemented in four other books.

         Organizations previously recognized as “Healing Hospitals” include Parrish Medical Center, Titusville, Florida; Mercy Gilbert Hospital, Gilbert, Arizona & St. Vincent Hospital, Billings, Montana.

         The Foundation has also recognized The Mayo Clinic, The Cleveland Clinic, Riverside Methodist Hospital (OhioHealth) & Baylor Scott & White health systems as examples of peak performing organizations where Radical Loving Care is part of the culture."

-Erie Chapman

 

Days 30-34 - Who Should Lead Caregivers?

   It happens routinely with often tragic results. Nurses & doctors train hard & pass multiple tests to gain certification in their profession. But, those promoted into leadership roles often have neither the training nor the potential for leadership. Some "D-" leaders were straight "A" students. 

   Thus tens of thousands of people who are not directors become one because the system misunderstands something crucial: Leadership requires completely different skills.

   Mark Twain wrote, "The difference between the right word & the nearly right word is the difference between lightning & a lightning bug." In leadership, the difference between the right leader & the wrong one is the difference between the sun & gloom. 

  So what? Every study shows that the biggest influence on caregiver satisfaction & performance is the boss. How caregivers feel & whether they respect their supervisor determines culture & performance.

   A bad boss sabotages morale & success. The right manager brings out the best. Effective caregiving is so crucial that bosses should be trained, selected & tested using enlightened methods.  

   This is so logical that one wonders why bad bosses survive. Why? Famed educator Sal Khan uses a simple analogy. In some martial arts beginning students are awarded a white belt. They only progress to yellow when they have demonstrated competency. Higher levels up to the black belt are progressively more difficult. 

   Of course, our school system is the opposite. Elementary & high school students are routinely promoted to the next grade regardless of whether they have mastered the material. This system also taints the school leadership process. Some gifted teachers are promoted to principals whether or not they possess leadership skills.

   Passing this column along to senior leadership & board members (& recommending the book pictured) can begin to help change this insidious process. Meanwhile, too many patients & caregivers suffer.

-Erie Chapman

Days 353-357 - The Gifts of Canine Caregivers

 
  If one dog brings happiness then two must deliver double joy, right? Not always. But it's hard to beat the fun one man can have with father-son Goldendoodles. 

   We all know the saying about dogs as best friends. Why?

   Years ago I stood with Alive Hospice caregivers as they freed single balloons into the morning sky in honor of each patient that had died the past month. The reading of some names brought sighs. But, when the last name was read groans & tears ripped the air. Several were unaware that their hospice dog had died during the night. 

   These caregivers know how patients bond with canines. "The dog doesn't care if I've lost my hair & look like a skeleton," one patient shared. "They love you no matter what."

   We yearn for unconditional love. Our judgement-free pets offer that. People cannot avoid noticing how disease deforms & patients often apologize for their appearance. Canine caregivers require no apology. 

   All we need to know about how dogs deliver joy beyond happiness is to conjure one image: A child bursts in on Christmas morning. A new puppy scurries from under the tree & into their arms. 

-Erie Chapman

Photos by Gary Odom

Days 318-323 - "The Divine Blueprint"

   What shines through when we express our truest self? As always, John O'Donohue points the way. "The mystery and magic of being an individual," he writes, is "to discover and realize the divine blueprint in the soul."

   This is the life challenge for all of us just as it will be for my oldest granddaughter. Here, she gazes skyward as do all of us when we search the air for answers. 

   She bears the natural naïveté of her age. It is remarkable how many seas she will sail & disguises she will wear before she will know if she has found her way back to truth & fulfilled her individual calling. 

  If the blueprint of her soul is radically different from others she will still need to adapt to some of society's demands. Patterns will tempt her towards complacency. She may fall victim to hiding her finest talents in favor of safety. Hopefully, she will live her truest beauty. 

   The more variegated & unusual our soul's blueprint, the more courage it takes to live it. And the more dazzling the result if that courage & that destiny are embraced. 

-Erie Chapman 

Photograph: "Autumn Girl" -by Erie

   

Days 310-315 - The Body Electric or the Electric Body?

    Recently, I said to my iPhone , "I am sad."

   "Its OK to cry if you want to," Siri replied, "My aluminosilicate glass surface is tear resistant."

 

   In 1855, long before robots were imagined, Walt Whitman spoke to us through his Leaves of Grass, "I sing the body electric..." he wrote, "And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul?/And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?" 

 

   One hundred sixty years later the questions still earthquake our hearts. Would we prefer a reliable "electric body" over a passionate but vulnerable "Body Electric?" When will we become more robot than human? If the robot crushes humanity "what is the soul?"

  

   Science fiction is now science possibility. Thoughtful people probe the core of compassion. Is love truly unique to humans? 

   

   Caregivers labor to cure disease & relieve pain. They have a third role: to offer healing. Do we wish we had an "aluminosilicate glass surface to catch our tears?" Who among us would not sell their souls for a body free of disease, injury & pain?

 

   Can love's healing be replicated? Love is grounded in intent & only we can form such a complex emotion, right? I asked my son-in-law, a computer engineer with a genius IQ, about this. His answer stunned me. "Maybe," he said.

 

   The camera aiming at us in the picture is a computer. Are the body & soul of the photographer replaceable? Can a robot paint a masterpiece or write an immortal poem?

   

   The Japanese have been testing caregiver robots. Programmed to say kind things they provide comfort to the elderly & the autistic. 

 

   Scientist Prakash Presad writes, "many a time we are unable to tell if the human to whom we are speaking really cares about what we are saying." He wonders if a robot could be a better listener.

 

   We can argue our uniqueness. Still, the "electric body" might, within this century, so threaten our humanity that we may ask: Where is our soul? 

 

-Erie Chapman

Photographs 1 & 2 by Erie.

Photograph 3, Shutterfly