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.

"I Own Everything I See" - Days 267-271

 The title quote is from my saintly, mother-in-law, Marian Lokvam.* As a hyper-visual "see-er" that line became a favorite. I did not have to own a field of flowers to smell them or a car to enjoy riding in it. 

  Is seeing enough or do we have to "own"? When we own, what do we have actually have?

   The power in Marian's comment arises when we ask more deeply: What do we own? And its companion suggestion that maybe we never really own anything or anyone; that the very idea of "pride of ownership" triggers murders, wars and personal agony.

   Look at our ownership language: My house. My car. My job.

   Of people: My wife. My children. My sister. My friends.

   What happened to "my" mother, you first-borns, when the your sibling arrived?

   In a hospital, "My nurses" sounds different depending on whether it is spoken by a nursing director or a patient. 

   When I disagree with a doctor's recommendation I am always surprised when they say, "Well. It's your body." Were they subconsciously thinking my body was theirs?

   Why did the feminist movement gain traction with the phrase "It's My Body"? Because my fellow males so often abused women's rights that consciousness needed to be raised and laws changed. 

   Ownership requires at least two adjectives: "privilege and permission." I never really owned any "thing" or "person."  I was simply granted privileges and permissions for some period. 

   So long as I thought too literally that Tyler and Tia were MY children, their successes and failures became "mine." Marian's enlightened "owning-by-seeing" frees up healthier relationships. It sends jus again, and always for the first time, to Kahlil Gibran's oft-stated and rarely followed wisdom, quoted in part: 

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you... 

-Erie Chapman

P.S. Since writing this a thief named Covid stole "my" sense of smell and should return it, right?

Photo: Marian Lokvam, at right, helping Kirsten on our wedding day - 1966

"Eating the Sun" - Days 260-264

For caregivers, light is an energy cultivated for curing. Managed channels of electricity enable doctors to diagnose with imaging and to treat with lasers. 

The greater Light of Healing beyond curing preceded and supersedes all of that. Scientists may have sought to diminish its spiritual aspects. But they are powerless to diminish its meaning in the broad arc of human existence.  

A contemporary writer whose work has captured my spirit is Maria Popova. Her book, Figurings, is transformative. Her gifts continue through her weekly column in Marginalian. I recommend it to anyone interested in seeing how one writer, regularly offering her gifts and those of other artist's. She and they lift life's quality as they dissect important ideas and illuminate Many of Beauty's most exquisite details. 

This week, Popova aimed the the laser of her genius at the subject of how we see, and cited an expert unknown to me. One with a spectacular gift and a terrible curse.

First, his gift:

"No one has written about what it takes to see," Popova wrote, "— and how to do the looking — more poignantly than Jacques Lusseyran (September 19, 1924–July 27, 1971) in his stirring memoir And There Was Light.

"Looking back on his blissful early childhood, Lusseyran recounts his formative enchantment with the world:

  "'Light cast a spell over me. I saw it everywhere I went and watched it by the hour… flowing over the surface of the houses in front of me and through the tunnel of the street to right and left. This light was not like the flow of water, but something more fleeting and numberless, for its source was everywhere. I liked seeing that the light came from nowhere in particular, but was an element just like air. We never ask ourselves where air comes from, for it is there and we are alive. With the sun it is the same thing.
   "There was no use my seeing the sun high up in the sky in its place in space at noon, since I was always searching for it elsewhere. I looked for it in the flickering of its beams, in the echo which, as a rule, we attribute only to sound, but which belongs to light in the same measure. Radiance multiplied, reflected itself from one window to the next, from a fragment of wall to cloud above. It entered into me, became part of me. I was eating sun.'"

Then, Popova reveals the curse. Lusseyran, the genius of light, had been struck blind at the age of seven.

It is the answer to stories like these, and the questions they raise, that sends me to her column every week.

We cannot look directly into the sun. But Lusseyran says he could eat it. In the summer of 2018 I photographed someone doing that. Today, I named that image "Eating the Sun".

-Erie Chapman

"Eating the Sun" - by Erie Chapman, 2018

The Superiority of The Feminine Divine - Day 245

   Although raised male in a male-dominant world by a great dad who taught me "how to be a man," I always wondered about the role of women.

   "Always respect them," Dad sternly instructed. But was I really "superior" as society implied? 

   Nope.

  Fortunately, the "male" assertiveness I developed was balanced by my mother and two sisters. But as a boy I wondered why men dominated the world. Even religion. With the exception of the Virgin Mary, where were the women?

   Thank heavens we are in an age where the sexes appear to be entering balance. Indeed, gender identification is in dispute. 

   In 2019, I explored The Feminine Divine in my two-month-long film art show at Vanderbilt Divinity School's Art Gallery. No one objected to the nudes. Only that I was not gender-inclusive enough. 

   In early 20th century England, feminist Francis Swiney advanced the fascinating notion that "all life, spiritual as well as physical, begins as female. [Evolutionarily] the masculine was only a temporary and transitional phase, between the eternal feminine cause and the eternal feminine effect."

   For Swiney there was only one sex, the feminine...Men were simply imperfect women, both physiologically and spiritually," she argued. (emphasis added)

  This is about energy difference not body parts.  Society adapts slowly. How much longer can we tolerate the violence routinely caused by men? We desperately need balance.

    Balance is what happens in the best healthcare settings. Healing occurs only when male assertive-energy (via man or woman) is balanced by feminine nurturing (via woman or man).

   The time for men to recognize the superiority of the feminine divine is not only here, it is long overdue!

-Rev. Erie Chapman 

Poster-art Courtesy, Vanderbilt University Divinity School

Stepping Off The Path - Days 228-232

   A video including my 5 year old grandson defines "stepping off the path." While adults and older sister conversed politely above him, Reed traced a circle 8 racing in and out and around them, laughing, bumping and...being a little boy. 

   Next month he will be six. Every teacher and other adult around him (except me) will work to "get him on the straight path." 

 We have traveled that journey. We must learn the "safe" path, before considering alternatives. 

   Stretching the analogy, what is more interesting, straight line or figure 8? A great artist would not only choose the "8" but create an innovative portrayal.

   It is like New York. It  can be a jungle, or great if you walk the safe streets. Take an alley and you may end up hospitalized or imprisoned.

   Travel your career safely and gold stars for attendance and long service will come your way. We need safe-pathers. They are the majority.

   Fifty years in courtrooms and hospitals trained me to help those whose path led to trouble. Searching for innovative approaches constantly sucked me off the safe path on behalf of clients and, in healthcare, using an unheard-of practice literally called radical. 

   Loving care looks like the safe path. It is not. Look at Jesus, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Lincoln, Van Gogh, Dickinson, Nightingale. Even ET?

   Patients need Radical Loving Care^®. Caregivers who live it will break rules: some visitors stay beyond visiting hours, a nurse exits the ER to help a patient, a staffer stands up to leaders who compromise care for money or doctors that engage in patient-harming treatments.

   Radical Loving Care's requirement of exceptional service causes off-path pain: My younger sister's boss's reprimand: "Stop doing so much and making other staff look bad," and board criticism for her older brother for refusing to cut caregivers to save money.

  Renown storyteller Minton Sparks (above) summarized my life long off-path approach in just two bold sentences: "I love your odd take on the world, in Radical Loving Care and the arts. It is incredibly brilliant, incisive, and can be very scary at the same time." 

  Radical Loving Care delivers only one sure reward. It comes from your heart, not your paycheck. 

-Erie Chapman

Standing Strong Against Wrong - Days - 223-227

    One recent American story is so terrible none of its sordid details will be retold here. The headline is horrible enough: In January, six white Mississippi police officers broke into a home and viciously and repeatedly tortured two innocent black men for hours.

  All six have pled guilty.

  Not one or two but six officers actively planned and carried out this racist and sadistic attack. I wonder if any of them had second thoughts before or mid-crime but could not stand strong against his "buddies."   

  What does this have to do with caregiving and leadership? How often have you seen co-workers, including doctors, leaders, board members, or others engaged in wrongdoing and said nothing? 

  Standing strong against wrong. We are all love that idea. Still, under peer pressure, we routinely "go along to get along" and thus, actively or passively, end up endorsing cruel behavior.

   Yes. We need to know when and where to draw the line. Sometimes (not always) I have openly argued with others when they make racist or sexist comments. Many think I speak up too much. "Just let it go, Erie," I have often been told. "You aren't going to change anything."

   But silence can imply endorsement. 

   How many others in that Mississippi town's subculture of hateful rhetoric stood silent, went along to get along, let it go?

   When you look at the chart, which "zone" is your favorite? We all love comfort. Can we enjoy our comfort if we always just "let it go?" It we entered the Challenge zone more often and stood strong against wrong instead of sitting silently in the Comfort zone, could we save someone from suffering?

-Erie Chapman

Note" Screenshot of Six from CNN

   

Spotting The Hidden Light in Others - Days 216-220

It is a story reported here before and raised again to highlight a crucial truth: We hide many of our best gifts from ourselves. Jesus, in his universal role as a prophet and leader, advised not to "hide" our light.* When leaders spotlight gifts hidden in others it can sunrise success.

   In the mid-1980s Ohio's largest hospital needed a blue ribbon leadership team. A CEO is like a football coach or orchestra conductor - not just recruiting talent but helping players shine.

  The light coming through that mid'-'80s time-window revealed multiple leaders-in-hiding that would take top spots in American healthcare. "Hiding" here, meant that none of them had top leadership experience in health care. 

   Mark Evans was working for a retail department store chain. Hiring him as Senior Vice President for Human Resources was one of my best decisions. Tracy Wimberly, R.N., was a first line public health nurse in Toledo when I noticed her. She became our Senior Vice President for Patient Care. Jeff Kaplan, who was a top assistant to a university president when I recruited him to help lead Riverside Methodist Hospital. 

  These three had one more thing in common: Profound talent beyond what they recognized in themselves. That had also been true of our Senior V.P. Steve Garlock when I hired him from the Faultless Rubber Division of Abbott Labs. He did not appreciate how good he was until he helped us become so strong that by 1994 Riverside was among America's top ten hospitals and the flagship of the burgeoning U.S. Health system (now OhioHealth.) 

  I get too much credit for Riverside, OhioHealth's and Baptist Hospital's booming successes. Part of what I did was simply recognize that each star could shine more brightly if I could help them trust their talents and practice them. 

   A leader's job is not simply to hire. It is to develop a culture that nurtures the best talents in everyone! We are all stronger than we think we are. But often takes someone else to recognize our hidden gifts. 

   When that happens, Love triumphs. 

-Erie Chapman 

*Neither do men [sic] light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.” (Matthew 5:15)

How "The Pink Panther" Changed YOUR Life - Days 202-206

I. The impact of unexpected careers 

   Over 48 years so many have asked, "How did you go fr0m criminal prosecutor to hospital CEO?" The answer is so absurd many disbelieve it. 

   In 1975, my life was a river flowing predictably. Bruce Trumm (aka "Pink Panther") earthquaked that river diverting it into the lives of thousands I would never have encountered and delivering me to hospitals with river names: Riverside Episcopal* and Riverside Methodist. 

   Bruce touches you who read this. Absent him, there is no Journal and absolutely NO chance I would have run three hospital systems, started giant OhioHealth, launched an international T.V. show seen by millions, put out best-selling books, produced four televised healthcare documentaries...

   No one would know of Radical Loving Care, The Mother Test or this writing. There would be no Riverside-based hospice in Columbus or "Thursday's Baby" in Nashville. Baptist Hospital would likely have gone bankrupt.

   II. "Pink Panther?"

   We expect family to shape us, not casual contacts. I knew Bruce vaguely as a fellow church board member.  The polio that crippled him caused him to shuffle and he would sometimes approach unheard. He loved his nickname: "Pink Panther." He ran the Toledo hospital named Riverside (no connection to Riverside Methodist.) I was a federal crimes prosecutor headed back to private practice.

   It took three tries for Bruce to convince me to accept his outlandish offer to help him run Riverside. I knew nothing about healthcare.  

   "Why me?" I asked Pink Panther. "I have zero training. You have hundreds of other choices."

    "After polio slowed me down, I studied people more carefully," he said. "I watched you in board meetings. You're a leader."

   It was the only reason he ever gave.

   Caregivers and leaders change so many lives. Did someone unexpected change yours?

-Erie Chapman

*Shockingly, Google produced NO pictures of Bruce, who died in 1984. After 119 years the hospital, pictured, closed in 2002 (reopened elsewhere as St. Ann's). The building where we worked was demolished in 2018.  

When Motive Matters Most - Days 190-194

   Sure. Motive matters in criminal cases. But, "motive" has a different relevance here.

   A recent pitched battle in Nashville erupted when Alive Hospice explored selling the beloved, 48-year-old organization to a for-profit company. A huge segment of the community was horrified, launched a campaign ("Keep Alive alive") and a petition that drew 6000 signatures. The board backed away, fired the CEO and retained their non-profit status.

   Why does this matter?   

   Healthcare must focus first on best care, not highest profit. That does not mean for-profits automatically give bad care. Sometimes for-profits outperform non-profits and too many non-profit hospitals are over-focused on money.

   But hospice seems different. Data from a large Rand Corporation study proved that non-profit hospice care is better. Is that because non-profit hospices have kept their motives closer to mission? 

   Yes. The larger issue is motive. Organizations with cultures of loving care attract the best caregivers and give the best care. 

   The board of "Alive" faces a big challenge: To pick a new CEO whose motives align with mission first, not money. To succeed, they must first model their own mission. 

-Erie Chapman

Automatic Legacies - Days 177-181

   Whether or not you wish it, your life will leave its legacy.

   As I watch friends retire I know that the vast majority will leave a great legacy. Especially the caregivers.

   A given nurse, therapist or housekeeper touches many lives a day. Not just their patient but families, fellow caregivers, visitors and the family they return to after work. 

   We cannot control what anyone says about us; at work, or anywhere else. There are even debates about how much of our behavior we "control."

   What Marc Antony says in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar is true of all, especially the famous. “The evil that men [sic] do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.” 

   On CBS Sunday Morning, Paul Simon was asked about his legacy. "I don't care," he answered. Perhaps, he understood he could not control it. But the correspondent followed up: "What about your music?"

   "The music has its own life," Simon continued. "If it lives on, it was meant to. If not, well, it's out of my control."

   Whether our legacies last years or seconds we want, like Simon, to be able to say that our "music", our presence in this world, enriched the lives of others. That is why career caregivers are so far ahead of the rest of us.

-Erie Chapman

Photo by By Matthew Straubmuller (imatty35) Wikipedia

 

 

 

Good News! Days 172-174

   Twenty years after its broadcast I decided to update the Foundation's iconic film "Sacred Work", post it on our YouTube Channel, and submit it for recognition to film festivals. We are pleased to announce that a London festival announced today the recognition of "Sacred Work" as 2023's "Best Short Documentary."

   The award matters because it honors caregivers!

   What does a real hospital's 2002 truth look like in 2023 ? Seeking inspiration today? Even doctors shed tears watching this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bO_Ul2FlFw

   Using the documentary approach, the film's "stars" are actual patients and caregivers shown experiencing the continuous work of healing. The film was created in-house to highlight our New Healing Hospital™. Van Grafton delivered superb cinematography and editing as did Andrew Haege. 

  Leaders ask me, What advances loving culture? Documentaries help. Yet, most leaders fear the truth and order sycophantic ad agencies to produce phony pieces where every caregiver smiles and tells the world "We're the best." Only the "boss" is fooled.

   What message matters? Honest portrayals of caregiving that mix groans of suffering with a newborn baby's cry are what proves that Radical Loving Care^® matters. 

-Erie Chapman 

Thrilling Portrayals of a "Servant's Heart"

 He was a long shot for medical school. How did he get in?

   "The thing that caught my eye was a line from his college advisor: "Roderick has a servant's heart," he wrote. "Beyond his basic qualifications, that's what mattered," Keith Hagan, M.D., told me. Keith was on the admissions committee.

   What is a Servant's Heart? This video offers the best response. If you want to encourage yourself and FELLOW caregivers CLICK HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Twl_IBGlAVU

   A Servant's Heart is one of three keys in Radical Loving Care^® (the others are The Golden Thread and Sacred Work.)

   Because of Dr. Hagan, Roderick got in. "Roderick made the best of his chance and became a first class internist," Keith smiled. 

   All caregivers are evaluated for outcomes. What is often overlooked matters most: Does the caregiver have a servant's heart? Healing Hospital Certification™ awarded by Erie Chapman Foundation requires that each leader answer that "yes" before they hire anyone.

   A Servant's Heart enables healing beyond curing. 

-Erie Chapman 

www.eriechapmanfoundation.net 

250,000 "Visitors" to Journal of Sacred Work!

    "Hey Erie, why don't you start a weblog?" The question came from Rollie Mains, a friend and former colleague at the Baptist Healing Trust. It was spring, 2006.

   "What's a weblog?" I asked. We forget how uncommon a "blog" was back then. 

   On June 7, 2006, the "blog" appeared with an announcement and my first column, "A Mountain Lake Experience." Since then, over 250,000 of what are called "specific visitors"* (versus "page views) have come to the Journal of Sacred Work to read the over 2500 columns posted.

   Over 12,000 comments have been posted. Who was among the very first three visitors? You guessed it. Liz Wessel! My dear co-writer, who will hopefully continue to write and edit the Journal when I am no longer able to do so, became regular weekend columnist and has contributed eloquently and artistically to the energy and quality of the foundation's enterprise. 

   And other guest contributors have helped us including Dr. Terry Chapman, spoken word artist Minton Sparks, and former Alive Hospice Sr. VP Karen York and former Healing Trust leader Cathy Self. Thank you. 

  When I left BHT (now The Healing Trust), the blog and all of our Radical Loving Care materials to Erie Chapman Foundation. It resides there today and will hopefully continue in perpetuity. 

   Most readers, we hope, have found in the Journal what we seek to offer, support for caregivers around the world. In any case, THANK YOU, to all 250,000 of you!

   Live Love Not Fear,

-Erie Chapman

*specific visitors denotes individual readers who have come to the Journal. 

Bone on Bone - What Does ABC NEWS "Revolution at Work" Tell Us TODAY? - Days 155-159

Maria Popova's comments in her must-read weblog The Marginalian reignite our profoundest conundrum: “The hardest thing in life isn’t getting what we want, isn’t even knowing what we want, but knowing what to want."

Why is the 1994 ABC News Special, "Revolution at Work," so riveting in 1994? It shows us what we want at work. This clip says everything: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe1Ea6-aGns

We all seek a workplace flooded with meaning, joy and connection like the one documented by ABC. Thirty years later such a workplace remains not only uncommon but even rarer!

Why? 

The brilliant Popova offers this: "We think we want connection, but as soon as contact reaches deeper than the skin of being, we recoil with the terror of vulnerability."

Creating a meaningful workplace requires risking vulnerability! "There is no place more difficult to show up than where marrow meets marrow," Popova continues. "And yet that is the only place where two people earn the right to use the word 'love.’

Since most healthcare CEOs I know hate the word "love" in work settings (thus forfeiting the right to use it anywhere) they recoil at living "where marrow meets marrow." Yet the caregivers they lead work there every day! 

If hospital and hospice leaders truly seek mission fulfillment, the only path is the one offered in "Revolution at Work."

-Erie Chapman

Screenshot: Erie with Renee Speelman, R.N.

OVER 5000 SIGNATURES! Has the Tide Turned to "Keep Alive ALIVE?

   Thousands of citizens in and around Nashville, Tennessee, are fired up. Why? It is a community and national issue. Which is best, non-profit or for-profit hospice care? 

   See success in Alive's non-profit model (currently at risk of flipping to for-profit) by glimpsing the classic 2008 documentary, "A Place Called Alive" now online. Listen to the voices of profoundly committed caregivers under the leadership, at the time, of Jan Jones. HERE IS THE LINK:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfyjiSijTIY

   Over 5000 have voted to KEEP ALIVE HOSPICE NOT FOR PROFIT.  Wherever you live, you can sign this petition.

   The first five thousand signers agree with a recent Rand Corporation study offering proof that non-profit models give better care. Erie Chapman Foundation's board also believes that Radical Loving Care^® is more likely to be practiced in charity models developed for the primary purpose of serving the suffering. We gave thousands to Alive. The nearby Christy-Houston Foundation gave millions and wants their money back if Alive goes for profit. 

   Meanwhile, the leadership of Alive Hospice, apparently including current CEO Kimberly Goessele, keep actively considering whether to sell the beloved community asset called "Alive," founded in 1975 by Drs. David Barton and the late John Flexner as America's third hospice! The group, "Keep Alive alive" has called for Ms. Goessele's resignation. 

   Neither the board members nor the CEO own "Alive." At least not now. 

   The national trend is disturbing. Non-profit health care, including hospices, are at risk from sometimes predatory corporations. If you believe in Radical Loving Care^® please join this effort by signing Denise Alper's petition. 

https://www.change.org/p/keep-alive-hospice-not-for-profit/u/31576345

Thank you,

Erie

Photo/Screen Capture of Jan Jones from "A Place Called Alive" (2008)

 

CONNECTION & Vulnerability: Days 148-152

 "Wish the good old days could have lasted forever," dear friend Dr. Nick Baird texted me after watching "Acts of Caring" on the new foundation YouTube channel (600 site views in 7 days). To go directly to "Acts of Caring" (click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLYPoFrf5qM

    Aging means memories matter more. Memorial Day demonstrates that every hospital needs a Facebook site like RMH Alum. But any hospital veteran can connect with the loving care portrayed in Jeff Kramer's BRILLIANT documentary. 

   The new YouTube site is drawing a crowd because it offers a feast to those who hunger for and wonder about what Radical Loving Care^® looked like at Riverside Methodist (1983-1995) and Baptist Hospitals (1998-2002.) Such care is threatened with extinction unless current leaders nurture it! 

  Maria Popova captures our cravings in the opening of today's spectacular weblog The Marginalian:  "The hardest thing in life isn’t getting what we want, isn’t even knowing what we want, but knowing what to want. We think we want connection, but as soon as contact reaches deeper than the skin of being, we recoil with the terror of vulnerability. There is no place more difficult to show up than where marrow meets marrow. And yet that is the only place where two people earn the right to use the word “love.”

   I claim love for the caregiver relationships across the past 48 years. As Dr. Baird said at the end of his text: "Thank God for our days in the sun."

-Erie Chapman 

Screenshot - Erie with cardiac nurse Renee Speelman from "Acts of Caring"

"Thursday's Baby" - How A Tiny Infant Saved A Giant Hospital

This is how the ORIGINAL Thursday's Baby came about at the former Baptist Hospital (now St. Thomas Midtown).  CLICK BELOW FOR video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mq8-bV8lmuQ

   BACKGROUND: When I saw the video of the birth of tiny Nicole Renee Brady in 1999 I knew she had saved the life of Nashville's biggest hospital, Baptist. When I arrived as its new CEO in 1998 the first news I was handed is that the supposedly thriving hospital would report a $73 million loss. 

  We were on the edge of bankruptcy. 

  No single action can turn around a loss like that quickly. But three years later we reported a $1 million gain.

   It took many changes and initiatives. But Nicole started our turnaround.

   One of my first decisions was to focus resources on women's health. With no budget for ads, I created one, composed the music and we put it on the air in early 1999. 

  The response was spectacular. Our women's health program began as run that took us from delivering 52% of Nashville's babies to 65% three years later. 

   Here's the story in a short video.

   Thank you, Nicole. You're 24 years old now and I hope your life is booming!

-Erie Chapman 

 

 

   

Punched in the Face - Days 141-145

   It is one of the best quotes ever. Second only too, "Where attention goes, energy flows."

   "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth" The star who created the quote punched people in the face so well that he became world heavyweight boxing champ: Mike Tyson.

 Ninety-five percent of the thousands of organizations I have worked for and with have a "strategic plan." Usually it covers three years. What plan can survive the certainty of endless uncertainties.

   As a trial lawyer I was driven by ethical values. But, my days were filed more with tactics on winning than overall strategies. Entering the structured hospital world in 1975, I learned that a written strategy was required. Eventually, I learned that the "punch-in-the-mouth" phenomenon sabotaged every plan.

   The living, breathing part of any strategy, its heart, must be as flexible and dynamic as the counter-punching world. Thus, principles matter most.

   Missions are nice and frustratingly fraudulent. Hospitals offer "the best care anywhere." When they fail staff say, "That was just our goal." 

   Tyson's career proved why principles matter. He won championships, but was a failure because he fought dirty. In one bout , he literally bit his opponent's ear off! 

   Mission without vision is useless. Vision without effective action is failure. Action without values bends ethics.

   Leaders only succeed with a culture of peak competence and deep compassion. Caregivers succeed the same way. 

   The Mayo Clinic, everybody's gold standard, succeeds not because of mission or vision. They succeed because every staff member is held to the famous "Mayo Way" of doing things. 

   Such a culture survives "punches in the mouth" and wins the championship every year. 

NOTE: Tune to the new Erie Chapman Foundation YouTube channel for prize winning videos of caregiving in action! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrUaWlrnmC0-K2Mnf51bwXg

-Erie Chapman

Tyson-Holyfield photo copyright Daily Mirror

   

The Mother Test™ on Mother's Day WEEK - Days 132-137

I remember watching a 5-year old, mid-tantrum, kicking his mother in the shins and spitting at her. Expecting her to hit him, I was stunned when she simply picked him up and hugged him. 

The Mother Test challenges leaders to ask, "Is everyone I supervise someone I would want caring for my mother?" And the follow-ups, "If there IS someone I don't want caring for my mom why are they still on my team, " and, "What am I as a leader doing to honor the stars that do give best care to all patients?"

The Mother Test™ helps define the practice of Radical Loving Care^®. But why that name?

Mothers Day offers the single most important celebration of any other being on our calendar. As a recognition of a person, it ranks number one.

Even if we dislike our own mom, the image of "mother" identifies what our hearts honor most.  Thus, "Mother" is a proxy for every patient, not just moms. We want t
o be sure that every person, even if we hate their behavior, receives deeply compassionate and completely competent care.

So the big challenge is really, "The Bad Behaving Patient Test." Are we delivering Radical Loving Care^® to hostile patients?

Mothers find ways to nurse and love a child who may seem to personify a devil. Thus, the saying, "That kid is so terrible only a mother could love them,"

But what about strangers? A patient hurls insults and the bed pan at you. Live love here and you do what God asks: loved an enemy. 

-Rev. Erie Chapman

1.  "Nursing Mom" 1973" by Erie 2. Mom Nursing - Today's Parent Magazine 

How Temptation Can Steal Our Identity - Days 126-130

Hospitals, careers, bosses, any one of these can swallow up our identity by using a particular tool: temptation.

Homer's ancient epic, The Odyssey, offers stories of Bible-like temptations as instructive today as they were 3000 years ago. The ancient Sirens used a particularly insidious version. 

On his Mediterranean journey, Ulysses' ship approaches the home of the Sirens, gorgeous maidens whose irresistible songs tempt sailors to jump overboard and swim to them...and to their death. Ulysses knows the danger. To protect his sailors, he blocks their ears with wax.

But he is both wildly curious to listen anyway. He has himself lashed to the mast so he cannot jump overboard.

The moment the Sirens' songs enter his ears, Ulysses begs to be freed. The Sirens promise themselves and a bigger gift: absolute knowledge and power. In return, Ulysses must yield to their captivity. 

Does this sound like addiction? Does it smack of vanity? 

Pavlina Vagioni writes: "The Sirens, as their name in Greek implies, (Σειρήν, σειρή=tie up and drag) are expert manipulators....The victims...will become dependent on their manipulator."

So what? "Many people like being victims because they enjoy others taking care of them," Vagioni continues. "When we transfer to someone else our self-sovereignty because “they know better”, our lives then slowly decay. When we let others 'take care' of our...security, health, or existence, we guarantee that we will have an undignified ending."

The warning embedded in the myth is profound: "The sailors’ eventual death symbolizes the stagnation that occurs after surrendering to others our capacity to think for ourselves," she claims. "For safety or convenience, we have surrendered ourselves." And may not even understand "because we become accustomed to the superficial comfort of being in...“expert” hands..."

Life's temptations can threaten our safety. Can today's Sirens hijack our voice, seduce us into drowning our identity and dissolve what makes us unique? 

-Erie Chapman

Quotes © 2020 Pavlina Vagioni 

Painting: John Waterhouse, Ulysses & Sirens 1891

 

"When the world is mud-luscious..." Days 119-123

Spring can thunderstorm rainbows as well as bloom flowers. But my photograph may look as odd and abstract as the grammar and the poetry of e.e. cummings.

   cummings, however, was a genius.

[in Just-]

BY E. E. CUMMINGS

in Just-

spring          when the world is mud-

luscious the little

lame balloonman

 

whistles          far          and wee

 

and eddieandbill come

running from marbles and

piracies and it's

spring

 

when the world is puddle-wonderful

 

the queer

old balloonman whistles

far          and             wee

and bettyandisbel come dancing

 

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

 

it's

spring

and

 

         the

 

                  goat-footed

 

balloonMan          whistles

far

and

wee

 

   Every spring since I encountered this poem a half century ago has been "mud-lucisous" and "puddle-wonderful." And every spring that "goat-footed balloon man whistles far and wee" and so do I.  

 

    Thank you, ee. 

 

-Erie Chapman

Photograph - "The Spring of Raining Rainbows" 2018, by Erie