Journal of Sacred Work

Days 109-113 - When Water Falls

  We began life in Water's womb. Her waves, or lakes, her streams are poems. Especially when water falls. 

    The link below takes you to a brief meditation on waterfalls including a poem that I wrote & narrated in the hope it would bring some serenity to your life. 

   May you enjoy the peace that a marriage to the water can bring. 

   Click on the link below:

https://youtu.be/MJZx5eNThng

-Erie Chapman

Photograph by Erie from "When Water Falls" includes image of me with my mother.

The Day I Won The Lottery

 

Naturally, I recall that day's anticipatory joy.

   The memory evokes a seven centuries old sentence: Dante's opening to, The Divine Comedy,*: “Midway along the journey of our life I woke to find myself in a dark wood, for I had wandered off from the straight path."

   The sentence matters because we wonder: "Where am I in my life?" Or, when older, "Where have I been?"

   In the middle of my life I won the lottery. No dark wood but a sunlit dream.  Greeks coined such epiphanies Anagnorisis**

   The day the prize was delivered, July 1, 1983. At thirty-nine, I walked through the doors of not just any hospital, but Riverside Methodist, the largest in Ohio. I was too immature to imagine the depth of the victories ahead including becoming a top ten hospital and reshaping RMH into a flagship as founding president of OhioHealth.

   Thousands of other caregivers walked through those same doors. I was their CEO. What an incredible privilege it was...and remains so to this day.

   Ten years later, my son said: "Dad! You are at the top of your career!" Still not getting it, I told him, "No. I must go higher."

   Such ambition blocked my grasping that good luck in the moment. Yes. There were more successes, mixed with agonizing personal defeats. Yet, my son was right. 

   Some say in the middle of their lottery-winning days, "Thank God it's Friday." Or, "I can't wait until retirement." 

   If you are any level caregiver today and hear yourself wanting "out" you have "wandered off the path" or are under-appreciating your riches. Each day you awake in the middle of your chance to help heal others.

   Realizing your calling is better than winning the lottery because it is a lifetime gift. I finally appreciate that. We tried our best to help thousands. And did.    

-Erie Chapman

Photo: Riverside 2024 and circa 1980s

*Also contains Dante's Inferno describing the nine circles of hell. 

**Anagnorisis a moment in a play...when a character makes a critical discovery...recognition not only of a person but also of what that person [or moment] stood for. 

Radical Hope Starts With Reality

 "Hope starts with reality," Dr. Clay Stauffer intoned, "and Fear is a bad advisor."

   I would have said, "No. Dreams father Hope." Clay is right. The launchpad for dreams is made of concrete. 

   Hope and Fear dominate most lives.    

   Easy to hope if we are healthy and safe. How could cancer's reality bring buoyancy? What about betrayal? What about any loss, especially when hopes for national unity seem distant?

   No depressed person says, "I feel so hopeful." When flattened by life, optimism was as unattainable for me as Pluto.

   Radical Loving Care^® ("Radical," meaning love beyond expectations) encompasses radical hope. Both live outside the box.   

   Caregivers know what once startled me. That many cancer say, "It was the best thing that ever happened to me."

   Miles* (pictured), a profoundly mature 20 year-old also surprised me recently by reporting, "My parent's divorce was one of the best things in my life."

   These radical hopers found joyful surprises beyond the box. How?

   The cancer survivor said, "I learned fearlessness." Miles (pictured) acquired "two great new step-parents and three siblings."

   These two show us the path to Life's fountainhead: Hope. 

-Erie Chapman

*Miles Chapman, my oldest grandson - 9/23

  

Does A Hospital Leader Matter?

     A month before I departed as CEO of Riverside Methodist Hospital (RMH) and OhioHealth, questions arose about new leadership. As a lame duck CEO, I was powerless to delay layoffs initiated despite the system's booming bottom line and sky-high morale.

    I asked a doctor his thoughts.

   "Not sure the leader matters that much, Erie," he said.

   Months later a colleague called, "Did you hear about Marcy?"

   "No, how is she?" I answered.

   A thirty-year veteran, Marcy Alton* (pictured) whose HR role was organizing events, was one of RMH's most well-loved employees. Her perpetual smile raised everyone's energy. 

   "She was fired," my friend reported.

   "What?" I said.

   "It gets worse. Several employees saw security escorting her to her car. Staff-cut," he said with disgust. "Every eliminated employee is escorted to their car."

   "If they treat Marcy like that, what about me?" staff wondered. Instead of saving money, the bottom line went down as did patient/employee satisfaction.   

   Culture determines behavior. Leaders determine culture. Only the board can remove them. Staff, including doctors, have no vote. 

   Sadly, this story returned eight years later. As I prepared to turn over the reins of Nashville's Baptist Hospital System** to a new President, a neonatologist saw my dismay.

   "Don't worry," she said. The leader doesn't make much difference."

   "What about workplace culture?" I asked

    She shrugged. And was wrong.

   Once again, my successor needlessly cut staff. Once again, satisfaction scores and finances tailed down. 

   Like it or not, every leader, like every parent, store owner, coach and President, impacts energy. Radical Loving Care^® matters. 

   We ignore that truth at our peril. 

-Erie Chapman

*Marcella "Marcy" Alton (1948-2020.) I told her story in 2021 and retell it today.

**Renamed St. Thomas Midtown

NOTE: Please support our mission of loving care via http://www.eriechapmanfoundation.net  or by check to Erie Chapman Foundation, 112 Dunham Springs Lane, Nashville. 

   

Change or Revelation?

   Near the end of a long and unusual career, it is affirming when caregivers say, "Erie, you changed my life. You discovered a strength I didn't recognize."

   Today, I realized those two sentences signal very different processes. The first implies "changing" another. The second honors what was already there. 

   The second approach rings truest today.   

   Kirsten, my profoundly encouraging wife of 58 years, elicits my best. Her ability to expose my weaknesses highlights better paths. 

   The best aspects of parenting our children Tyler and Tia, honored their potential. Luckily, that offset some mistakes. 

   We are grateful rather than proud of them and the parents they became.  We did not change them. We encouraged. 

   Good leaders, like OhioHealth's first HR Senior VP Mark Evans, mirror good parenting. He focused his team's energy on strengths rather fault-finding. 

   For years, I have campaigned for leadership that catalyzes positive powers. This Journal contrasted this Presidential campaign's leadership styles as a learning for all leaders.

   In fact, this election taught a huge lesson I did not foresee. 

   President-elect Trump, the same leader who incited a mob to stop the Senate from certifying his loss, recognized that America's frustration was not a trickle but a raging river. He opened the floodgates for Americans, who were "mad as hell and wouldn't take it any more!"*

   Anger's energy can be converted for good. What Trump does with the immense resource of American's frustration is far more important than winning the election.

   Will he lead like President Theodore Roosevelt who saw the potential of America's natural resources and founded our national parks. Or, had he been President then, would Trump have envisioned the Grand Canyon as a real estate development?

   Will he change our lives by revealing our best, like Lincoln, or incite our worst like Jefferson Davis**? 

-Erie Chapman

Photo: National Park Service/M. Quinn

*Paraphrase from "Network" (1976) 

**President of the Confederacy

 

      

Charity Toward All, Revenge, or Bless Them, Change me?

I. "Bless them, change me"

   My friend, perfectly named Ed Goodrich, changed my life today. He knows my distress amid our national leadership crises and how it may impact caregivers.  

   "There's a four word phrase that could help," he said. "When insulted, pray: 'Bless them, change me.'" 

   Instantly, I felt better. No more saying "I'll pray for you." That sounds like I'm asking my God to change your "wrong" into my "right." Bless you. Change me. 

   Beware of political brain fog. Because we support Trump or Harris does mean we ARE either. 

II."With charity toward all"

Cursing fellow Americans while refusing to practice love can be deadly.

  "We are not enemies, but friends," our most admired President told 25,000. "We must not be enemies," he begged; passion may strain friendships, but, "it must not break our bonds of affection."

   Listen to "the better angels of [y]our nature," Abraham Lincoln implored.

   The crowd agreed and fatally failed to heed.

   It was March 4, 1861. Just thirty-nine days later, April 12, 1861, Confederate soldiers fired on Fort Sumter. Deafness to the new President's appeal triggered the most tragic display of homicidal idiocy in American history.

   March 4, 1865, precisely four years later, a victorious and heartbroken Lincoln, appealed once more to the best angels among his 40,000 listeners. Millions had died or suffered other unspeakable loss. Northerners wanted what men's darkest demons always seek: Revenge. 

   Lincoln, would have none of it. "With malice toward none, with charity for all" he told the startled crowd "...let us bind up the nation's wounds, care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan...do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace..."

  April 14, 1865 the calendar again tolled tragedy. Four years and two days after Rebels fired canon balls into Fort Sumter, a revenge-poisoned Rebel fired a single bullet into the head of our finest President.  Lincoln had joined the list of the Civil War dead.

III. "Ultimate and absolute revenge"?

  The same revenge-devil that poisoned Lincoln's assassin now darkens the voice of former President Trump. Increasingly over recent days he has repeatedly promised "ultimate and absolute revenge" against anyone, including Republicans, who opposed him. The list grows by the hour and now includes not just Harris and Pelosi but numerous former members of his own cabinet. A few days ago, he said former Republican Congressman Liz Cheney, should be "shot in the face" by a 9-person firing squad.  

   Will we choose a champion of "Charity toward all" or break "the bonds of affection" by choosing an advocate of violence by Americans against Americans?

   Yes. Trump remains a child of God. May God's blessing quiet hate from both sides, and change us. 

   Meanwhile, why wait for leaders to unite us? Regardless of party, why not heed the voices of our better angels?

-Reverend Erie Chapman, M.T.S., J.D. 

 

   

 

Can Hope Conquer Fear?

   Every patient wants from every caregiver confidence and hope. Every caregiver seeks the same from every leader.

   During my many years leading Riverside Methodist, founding OhioHealth, leading Baptist Hospital System and several other healthcare organizations this has always been my goal. Strategies unfold from caring about caregivers and the work they do and building cultures that sustain that.

   Leadership is sacred work. Trump's approach is threatening to undermine this kind of leadership. 

   How does a leader impact your energy?

   March 4, 1933. 91 years ago. Imagine it today. Americans were terrified. The stock market crash and Great Depression meant America was drowning in an insidious disease: Fear. 

   On that day, President Franklin Roosevelt (FDR) delivered a massive dose of what every American required to cure Fear. Hope. 

   One line rings Hope's bell today: "The only thing we have to fear," FDR intoned, "is fear itself." 

   FDR's energy exudes from the 45 second video. As he spoke I imagine "Fear itself" shrinking. (click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjhPozIeyoY )

   Across the sea Germans, drowning in the same Depression, heard the opposite. Hitler's message: Germany is falling apart. Only I can save you!

   Sound familiar? In 2016 Trump, painted an America in ruins (he still does) and declared, "I alone can fix it."

   In 1933, Fear found a foe in America and an ally in Germany. In 2024, Fear found a criminal ally in America - Donald Trump. Hope found Kamala Harris. 

  "America is strong. I believe in us," Kamala Harris says, like Reagan, Obama, Clinton & most Presidents before. 

   Harris is Hope and Love. Trump is Fear and Hate. 

   Experts say fear is more powerful. Prove them wrong. 

   Cowards prefer bullies.The courageous always choose hope.

   Good leaders always bring out the best in us. Bad ones elicit the worst. 

   If Trump wins, I will, like Kamala, still lean into love...And dread the firehose of hate, lies and fear-mongering he will pour on our country.   

   Should Kamala win, Hope will make "A Comeback.

   That is what happens when Presidents lead with love. 

-Erie Chapman

Poster: Artist unknown

    

News Flash! You Can Leave Your Presidential Ballot Option Blank!

   The two wildly contrasting pictures share an odd relationship. The first is from the riveting opening scene of World War II film "The Resistance Fighter." It shows a mother, arms around her 6-year-old, shivering in both snow and the fascist presence of a Nazi officer. 

   "There is only one right way!" the officer shouts at her. "Pick!"

   "I don't understand," the young mother stammers.

   "We will decide by a coin flip," the officer says, as the mother realizes she must choose Hitler* or be shot.

   The second image is just a snapshot of me playing peek-a-boo with my mom. But it is from the same time period, 1944!

   I sat safe because Americans had chosen democracy and were fighting to save it. Millions of other children sat terrified because Germany had chosen a fascist, Hitler.  

  On October 22, Trump's longest serving Chief of Staff, Marine General John Kelly told The New York Times, "Trump fits the definition of a fascist."** 

  Meanwhile, I discovered a flaw in counting "undecideds." I kept hearing Republicans complain about Trump but thought they had to vote for him.

  Finally, I asked one: "Why not leave the top spot blank?" 

  "If I could, I would!" he answered.

   "You can," I said. "So, you will!"

   Over the past two weeks, I found ten more college-educated men who mistakenly thought you had to check a box for each race. One was also fuzzy about what fascism meant.**

   After I explained it he laughed, "Now, I can say I didn't vote for the fascist!"

   He joins seven more of that ten who will leave the top spot blank. Could there be more?

   Americans currently face no punishment for their voting choice. Millions living under dictators today do not have that luxury. 

   Trump's handling of COVID and his false FEMA conspiracy theories threatened caregiver-safety. This tells me Harris is best. Others now know another choice: neither. 

 -Erie Chapman

*"VP Nominee, Sen. J.D. Vance has previously called Trump, "America's Hitler." 

**"Under fascism, a government ruled by a dictator controls the lives of the people in that society, and allows no dissent or disagreement." - Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

NOTE: Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Trump, General Mark Milley, agrees with Kelly. 

 

 

The Perfect Crimes? So What!

 "If the Democratic Party wants to stand with anarchists, agitators, rioters, looters, and flag-burners, that is up to them, but I, as your president, will not be a part of it. We must always have law and order." -Trump speech at the 2020 Republic National Convention.

   Law and order? Trump hopes we give up and ignore his crimes.

   After becoming a hospital CEO, I was surprised by how many hospital leaders commit "perfect crimes."  Some CEO's, Vice Presidents and prominent doctors get away with taking kickbacks or escaping sexual assault charges or embezzling money, and more.

   As a federal prosecutor in the 1970's I saw criminals every day. But hospital leaders? How could they get away with crimes?

   Not hard if the facts are ignored. 

   I remember my debut trial. "Not guilty" the foreman pronounced to a shocked judge, me, and even the defendant's own attorney. 

   A bigger shock came when the jurors said later. "Sure, he did it. So what?," one mentioned. "It was just a bomb threat," scoffed another. "He's a kid (19)." 

   The "kid" committed a perfect crime because jurors ignored the facts. Lawyers call it: "Jury nullification."

   Recently, I asked you to be a leader deciding if you would hire someone with a serial criminal background. Now, you are a juror. 

   Americas will soon deliver a verdict in the world's most important case:  Which candidate will lead the free world?

   If you choose the former President you must ignore his conviction on 34 felony counts, his liability for rape, his guilt for bank fraud, and the four other major criminal cases pending against him. 

   One is Election Fixing. After the votes showed a Biden victory, Trump called Georgia's Republican Secretary of State (pictured) and ordered him to, "Find me 11,880 votes!"  

   January 6, 2021 is now among the darkest days in American Constitutional history. The former President faces obstruction of justice and other crimes for agitating the rioters looters, and flag-defacers. Over 1200 other participants have been charged and 750 convicted. 

   If elected, Trump's pardons will free him of everything possible and release hundreds of January 6 convicts. Law and order?

   Detectives seek a criminal's "MO" (modus operandi.) We know Trump's con game. 

   He wants to commit the perfect crimes on the biggest stage possible and then sneer, "Gotcha!"

   Will you think "So What" and let him get away with it? 

-Erie Chapman

Hope and Joy or...?

   Some people spark such hope in our hearts that even a glance at a picture of them brings instant joy. That is what happens when I see this image of my wife and daughter on my son's porch. 

   As an executive coach I challenge leaders with this question: What is the impact of your presence on others? When you "round" in your hospitals, does energy go up, down or sideways?

   Leaders set the tone. Hope or fear? Confidence or chaos?

   Radical Loving Leadership means taking care of the people who take care of people by being "tough-minded and tender-hearted."*

    Some leaders disagree. "I want my staff to fear me," the CNO at Baptist Hospital told me when I arrived as CEO. "Otherwise, they won't obey me."

   "We can't build a caring culture by scaring caregivers," I told her. She quit.   

   This story is why I feel so strongly about America's leadership. We cannot be a great and loving nation with a bullying Presidential candidate who arrogantly threatens that only he can save what he calls "our failing nation." 

   Policy aside, choosing hope and love matter. Our top-ranked Presidents: Roosevelt, Reagan, Clinton, Obama raised America's energy. Trump, now ranked our worst President, lowered it. Every Presidential expert now ranks Trump as our worst President.

   Lincoln preached "malice toward none."  The former President preaches malice toward all.

   Vice President Harris champions peace and progress. Trump promises chaos and doom. 

   He calls his opponent a "mentally ill, radical Communist," while preaching the odd idea that democracy needs him as "a dictator on day one." His disastrous resume of bankruptcies, felonies and fraud convictions features dangerous election denialism.  He tells women, "I am your protector" thinking they will overlook his own predator's record of serial sexual assaults. 

  How can we tell when Trump is lying? Every time his lips are moving. 

  Do we really want more chaos from a new President bent on revenge? Another "January 6"? Or someone who will lead us forward? 

  I admire and respect people that lift us up. Like that pair of women above do.

-Erie Chapman

*Martin Luther King

   

 

Both Sides Now

You know Joni Mitchell's song: "I looked at clouds from both sides now..." She sings delicious childhood images. 

"Rows and floes of angel hair/ And ice cream castles in the air/ And feather canyons everywhere/ I've looked at clouds that way."

If you were a dreamy child you remember when you could see clouds as "ice cream castles." You carried those dreams into kindergarten and immediately noticed you had to figure out how to act and checked other kids for cues. Mostly, they looked at the biggest adult in the room.

What is right or wrong? Check the teacher. 

Culture determines much of our behavior. Every hospital caregiver knows that leaders determine culture. 

While running three hospital systems a key decision was picking a team to advance Radical Loving Care. The first leaders I let go were bullies. We want loving caregivers. Not scared ones. 

Interviews and background checks are crucial. Hiring fast and wrong causes pain.

Try this hypothetical: Someone you interview for leadership previously held a huge title and was fired.  His resume says, "Convicted of fraud, liable for rape, a chronic liar, never admits mistakes, routinely insults people, disloyal, chronic womanizer, degrades women and immigrants..." 

You like some of his views so you check references. A flood of letters from top people who worked directly with him say they liked his policies but now believe he is "incompetent," "unstable," "dangerous," and "should not be hired for anything."

Would you hire him? 

No! But some change their mind when I say, "That's Donald Trump's resume."

If you think I'm getting political, would you want Trump running your hospital? This is about supporting loving leadership for caregivers!

"What signal does it send to every healthcare leader in our country if we endorse a bully for our highest office?"

Is one of us chasing an illusion the way Joni Mitchell started to see clouds? "...now old friends are acting strange/ They shake their heads, they say I've changed/ Well something's lost, but something's gained/ In living every day."

What wisdom have we "gained" with cloud games or life experience? Is Joni talking to me when she ends: "It's life's illusions I recall/ I really don't know life at all."

I still believe leadership character matters. Especially in this election. Do you? If not, maybe "I really don't know life at all."

-Erie Chapman

-Album cover: Both Sides Now 

 

"The Complete Book of Caregiving"

Like any good poem, joke or aphorism, the best cartoons say so much with so little. Thank you New Yorker cartoonist, "Warp,"*  Thank you, older-but-looks-younger sister, Ann, for spotting this and sending it with the note: "Right down your alley, Chip" (my nickname.)

If there is more to say, it would be that empathy for caregivers is why this Journal is dedicated to you. At its best, we feature stories that honor your sacrifices and help the general public understand why you might become deeply tired.

Every job can generate fatigue. The best caregivers experience many layers of exhaustion. Beyond the physical comes the cascading emotional toll on those that deliver Radical Loving Care^®. 

One story highlights a solo caregiver's challenge: loneliness. My brother-in-law, Chris Lokvam, now suffers with a Parkinson's-like condition that renders him paralyzed and imprisoned in a chair 24-hours a day. His wife is the single caregiver 95% of the time.

Imagine Jackie's life through the lens of this heart-searing specific: She is called on every 20 minutes of every hour, day and night, to rise and reposition Chris or help him "shuffle" a few feet. 

Sure, she could write a book were she not profoundly exhausted down to the bone.

Thank you Jackie. Thank you Mr. Warp, for helping caregivers smile by wrapping a powerful truth inside a brilliant cartoon.

-Erie Chapman

*Educational Use copyright exception

**Yes. We are part of a family and friends effort to secure help for Jackie and Chris. 

 

Finding Joy in Mixed "Realities"?

An advantage of early childhood is fantastical thinking. Santa, for example. Encroaching adulthood explodes those fantasies. 

I once found it peaceful to imagine a Christmas where Santa Claus' sleigh glided through the night sky overflowing with presents. If you thought like that, did you feel tricked when you found out there was no Santa? 

That news struck me hard enough so that, at 8, I asked my dad, "If Santa is fake, what about God?"

In my artwork, I've been creating fantastical "worlds" ever since. It is a way to reclaim joy.

Surreal art, where recognizable things are rearranged and fantasized, can open new pathways to peace. I made a mixed media video  for you ((revised from a prior posting) using sites like rain falling on roses and the glorious back yard of a rich Massachusetts estate* in ways I hope bring you delight.

Click Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOzbblQIXdk

-Erie Chapman

*The Crain Estate (altered), now open to the public. 

What Sparked Joy Today?

“Many of us have made our world so familiar that we do not see it anymore," the great John O'Donohue writes.

He adds a delightful challenge: "An interesting question to ask yourself at night is, What did I really see this day?”

Ever since, the energy in my always searching eyes has been even more alert to sudden moments that spark joy.

One struck today. A new friend fell from the sky into my eyes. He appeared first as a flame, acrobating the air as a tip of lightning. Then a flying leaf. Finally, a brilliant, solid yellow butterfly.

Botanists call them "yellow sulfur" butterflies. I call them sparks of joy.

Odd as it sounds coming from a tough, 80-year old former trial lawyer and hospital CEO who spent his career in florescent-lit battlefields, this little fellow with the always sun-drenched wings, who flitted by and vanished in a second, did something for me. He sparked joy.

When I slip into bed tonight and ask myself "What did I really see this day?" my dashing flash of a yellow friend will again ignite light in my heart.

Click here to see a 30 second video I made for you from online clips. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=926j-8DbyyM

What sparked joy for you today?  

-Erie Chapman

The blurry pictures and video YouTube prove that these beings are, well, sparks. 

Does Blame Block Forgiveness?

Every caregiver encounters them. "Bedpan throwers," are a great test to professionalism.

Is it similar for parents with an "unruly" child? Problem children suck an enormous amount of family energy. The following sounds common but is unusually dramatic. 

Nearly six decades ago, two of our oldest friends introduced us to their beautiful children, "James" and "Johnny." James grew up well-behaved and successful. Johnny? A nightmare. 

Johnny became a drug addict. Horrified, his parents poured enormous resources into interventions and professional help.

They continued to flood both sons with love. Especially Johnny because, as his mom said, "He seemed to need so much more love while James was fine."

Across decades, Johnny whiplashed in and out of rehab and jail. Like the father in "The Prodigal Son," they forgave but tried to be firm. 

Al-Anon advised, "Keep your prodigal son at a loving distance." But, Johnny had a fatal gift: huge charm.

One Christmas Eve, he showed up unexpectedly. "I'm so sorry, mom and dad. May I join you?"

Swallowing hard, both parents said, "No." Yet, Johnny's charm prevailed. They had a happy evening.

Christmas' dawn delivered a shock. Johnny had stolen one of their cars and all their credit cards. 

One afternoon, the nightmare reached a conclusion. When Johnny's mom drove to check on him he was dead of a drug overdose.

Long before, Johnny's mother had found peace through a crucial understanding. "I forgave Johnny repeatedly. But, I could not forgive myself," she says, "until one day I realized: "Blame blocks forgiveness for me as well as him."

When a caregiver stops blaming a patient, a co-worker or anyone else, relief flows both way.  

-Erie Chapman

Painting: "The Prodigal Son," Pompeo Batoni, 1773

What's in the Frame?

One of Nashville's most delightful locations is unconnected to country music. Cheekwood Gardens' 55 acres are flooded with an astonishing array of every kind of flower, plant and tree. Walk the forest behind its 30,000 square foot mansion and you will be greeted every so often by a world class sculpture.

The thing that fascinates me most, though, is not the framed paintings inside the mansion or the gardens without. It is a single empty gold frame. 

What is in the frame? Nothing...or everything. The blank space symbolizes what we cherish, Possibility, and thrills her companion, Imagination. 

Frames fascinate. They focus our attention and lend instant importance to their contents. Empty frames long for fulfillment. 

Artists see possibilities others miss. Among zillions of canvases and wood panels I sometimes wonder about one. It is 21" x 30" and once laid on a table in a 16th century Florence studio.

Blank it was worth a few cents. One day it was struck by lightning. A genius touched it. Today the DaVinci's "Mona Lisa" is visited by millions and is worth billions.

The years we have lived are already painted and framed. The years ahead? A blank canvas.

Paint them with love everyday and you will fashion masterpieces worth far more than that mysterious face framed at the Louvre. That is what caregivers do.  

That is what you can still do!

-Erie Chapman

*Many years ago, I saw the Mona Lisa in person along with hundreds of others and noticed something strange. There were a couple dozen other masterpieces hanging on adjoining walls: All beautiful. Each ignored. 

**And Leonardo's masterpiece was painted on a white poplar wood panel.  

A Special Presentation for Caregivers

   How do we find rest? I created this special short film for your rest and refreshment...by taking you on a visit to water - especially the kind that cascades over cliffs.

Waterfalls do no laboring, have no bills, no worries or troubles. They do not even know their names. They just are. 

I stood so close to the falls to make some of these pictures that I could literally feel the electricity and power of the water as it crashed down. Thrilling.  

PLEASE CLICK ON THIS LINK (BELOW) so we know whether we are reaching you!

Happy Labor Day! :-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NRSYyoxFYs

Thank you, 

Erie

Is Peace Red, Blue or White? Ask Kathleen - August 26-30

  My friend, nurse Kathleen Grannan (left), wrote in a beautiful Facebook post. "We can do better than just hate and anger. It’s on us to breech the divide."

   Her truth is as wise and as hard as Radical Loving Care. Everyone loves white clouds puffing up a blue sky. Storm clouds demand attention.   

   We all love peace. Some paint it red. Some blue. White absorbs all colors. 

   The red/blue divide is exactly that: a divide. A tragic one that only "white" can absorb.

   My trial lawyer training demanded "fighting" injustice's, storms. Three years in law school, seven as a trial lawyer, and eight as an acting judge, taught how to "win" arguments. 

   Outside court, I noticed that victory using lawyer's arguments generated resentment. Divinity school training years later taught me pathways to peace. My years of ministry in hospitals and to Death Row affirmed patients and prisoners as people, not numbers.

   What about Aesop's 3000-year-old fable of how the sun bested the North wind? And the message 500 years later to "love our enemies"? 

   "Please, red and blue," Kathleen pleads, "if you can share a moment of really listening, really reaching across the divide, please do so...We owe it to our country to try."

   Peace asks more than silence. It seeks Reverend King's balance of "tough-minded/tender-hearted." Unity marries listening presence with respectful response.

   My peaceful-politics failures have severed some friendships. Thank you, Aesop and Kathleen...I am trying. 

- Rev. Erie Chapman

   *Want to support the mission of Radical Loving Care^®? Donate-a-dollar - www.eriechapmanfoundation.net. (You can use the Donate button but we cannot acknowledge your name unless you donate by check to Non-profit Erie Chapman Foundation, 112 Dunham Springs Lane, Nashville, 37205. THANK YOU! 

Be Still And Know...

As people raised in the Judeo-Christian tradition know, the full phrase is "Be still and know that I am God" from Psalm 46. I truncated the sentence to make it universal regardless of faith.

My experience teaches that stillness expands "knowing." The gift of the God of my understanding arrives when I surrender to God's centering energy.

Yes. There's all that noise out there. No, we do not have to compulsively add to it.

Yes. Music can be calming. No, we don't need to play sound 24/7.

Yes. I have learned that when I ask any audience to close their eyes for three minutes some cannot do it. "Too scary," some say. "To many thoughts," ("monkey mind") others report. 

Silence itself becomes noisy. Tasks, fears, compulsions to "do" not "be" defeat Silence.

Can the God of our understanding squeeze through the noise to heal us? Must the radio always play while driving? Can we sit, eyes closed, for five minutes every day? When did you do that last?

Here's a proven way to quiet the monkey mind: Hire security guards called Repetitive Prayers or Mantras. Let them clear your path to rest. 

No one needs to be reminded to breathe. We all need to be reminded to notice our breathing. One way I "catch my breath" is to observe my breathing. To practice exhaling noise and breathing in peace. 

To be still and know. 

-Erie Chapman 

Photo by Erie

 

 

Courage? August 5-9

There are so many kinds of "courage" that a question mark accompanies the word.

The oddness of being recruited from courtrooms to hospitals in 1975 thrust me face to face with bravery beyond anything I had seen. Caregivers calmly facing bloodied accident victims, screaming drug addicts, patients throwing bedpans... It takes courage for hospital or hospice workers just to show up. 

We are born with survival fears. Courage must be learned. It took me into adulthood to begin honing a calm that leaders (and trial lawyers) must show under fire.

Bravery's most infamous showcase? War. In the life-changing World War II film series "Band of Brothers" one soldier tells another, "The only way to survive is to understand that you're already dead. That's the way it is in war."

That is one path to courage. Soldiers are routinely spotlighted. Courageous caregivers never secure either the credit or the empathy they deserve. 

The stereotype: Males start wars. Females heal. 

Want to see five shades of courage? Study the eyes of America's first black female nurse. Civil War caregiver Susie King Taylor (1848-1912) : 1) chose caregiving, 2) in wartime, 3) as a black person 4) a woman, 5) was a teenager. For all that, she was attacked.

"There are many people who do not know what some of the colored women did during the war," she wrote. "There were hundreds of them who assisted the Union soldiers by hiding them and helping them to escape. Many were punished for taking food to the prison stockades for the prisoners."

This week, on August 6, pioneering battlefield nurse Susie King Taylor would have turned 126. Take a moment to honor her Radical Loving Care™.

-Erie Chapman

Please also take a moment to support our mission. Donate-a-dollar via the "button" at: www.eriechapmanfoundation.net

Photo: Wikipedia

Does Life Guarantee Joy?

   It occurred to me today for the first time. Life guarantees suffering, but not joy.

   Instead, from the moment of birth, pain is assured. Why is a baby's first breath often used to cry? Do they know this already?

   Empathy helps healing. Judy Herendeen (pictured) is one of the most empathetic people I know. A former Riverside psychiatric caregiver she describes, with stunning eloquence, her childhood exposure to Appalachian poverty during her early Children's Services work and through her Doctor-dad:  

   "I couldn’t believe people lived in such poverty. I would go on house calls with my Dad. He’d pull in a driveway to a wooden shack. Does someone really live here? Men with long beards and shot guns were sitting on the porch. I stayed in the car. I heard them greet Dad. “Hi Doc, the boy is in here”. Dad would go into the house followed by the men. When he came out, the men who looked scary to me now were smiling. Dad would be carrying a bottle of dandelion wine and a homemade pie... I saw people who wouldn’t let my Dad leave without being paid...Generational poverty and its cycle of destruction of the human soul is something you understand when you care enough to see it for what it is. Really see it."

   The legendary poet, Walt Whitman saw it while caring for Civil War soldiers: "...Returning, resuming, I thread my way through the hospitals,/ The hurt and wounded I pacify with soothing hand,/ I sit by the restless all the dark night, some are so young/ Some suffer so much..."

   Suffering is guaranteed. Joy is elusive. 

   How well do non-caregivers understand other's suffering? A grieving expert teaches, "The worst thing to say to sufferers is, 'I know exactly how you feel."

   Regardless of our agonies, other's pain is profoundly personal. Yet, we can, like Judy, learn to empathize and thus offer sufferers a caregiver's gift: Joy. 

-Erie Chapman

Photo: Judy Herendeen, by Molly Muth