Journal of Sacred Work

Days 191-193 - Opening & Enjoying Your Gift of Praise

 Back when my daughter (left) was a teenager, she noticed an important way to figure out what presents to give to someone else. "Notice the kinds of gifts they give to you. It's usually a clue to the kind of thing they want."

   Okay. I admit I'm one of those guys that likes electronics. But, I also know not to give my wife something like that. I made that mistake once about forty years ago. I haven't made it since, at least with her. But, there is another side to my daughter's wisdom.

   In three decades of running hospitals and health care organizations, I've noticed that most people love a particular kind of gift: sincere praise. Some need it much more than others. How do we know which ones like this "gift?"

   If you know someone who offers lots of praise, that's probably a signal that they appreciate receiving it. The confusing thing about this is our western tendency to deflect praise. If I tell someone they're great and they say, "Well, not really," does that mean they are they throwing away my gift without even opening it?  How do I know if I should keep giving this person this gift?

   The answer is that the gift of sincere affirmation is rarely wasted and hard (but not impossible) to give away too much. We all like to think we're self-sufficient and don't need praise. It is also true that in order to live in society, we need to find clues that help us determine if our actions are pleasing in the sight of others. The balance can be tricky.

   As someone who grew up with a father who heaped lots of praise on me (and occasional blame) I may have come to depend too much on what others thought and to crave their approval. Love, as always, provides the best answer for us. Accepting ourselves as loved enables us to know how to affirm the divine in others.

   In case of doubt, give the gift of honest praise. If you are one who has trouble doing this, think of something about the other person that is genuinely appealing. When you share that, you will have done your part in affirming the gifts of another. By the way, this gift has a special magic for the giver that is a part of all sincere gifts of Love.

   Caregivers are chronically under-praised. Today, and everyday, thank a caregiver you know.

-Erie Chapman 

Day 190 - The Grace of Letting Go - The Case of the Monkey Trap

[Editor's note: Cathy Self is on vacation.]

Ah, mon cher, for anyone who is alone, without God and without a master, the weight of days is dreadful. - Albert Camus 

   Most of the world's great religions teach a practice that can be deeply difficult for many. Jews, Christians and Muslims are commanded to "surrender" to the higher power of God.
   As a youth, and into adulthood, I have always been uncomfortable with that "surrender" word. Most people, particularly young males, are raised to secure victory, to triumph. We are taught that "giving up" suggests retreat and weakness. But, I wanted to live my faith.

   How do we surrender to God and still succeed in a world that shouts at us to compete and rewards us only if we win? It turns out that the first kind of surrender is the only way the second type of victory becomes meaningful.

   One day, I settled on the phrase "letting go." What this meant, for me, was simply letting go of the idea that it was up to me to gain a given "victory". There's nothing new about this notion. Sometimes people use the phrase "give it to God."  Still, this is difficult for many to do because it requires so much trust.  
    My friend, Dr. Tom Knowles-Bagwell (left) told me a powerful old story I had never heard. He said that long ago an African tribe developed a unique kind of cage to catch monkeys. They built the cage with an opening just big enough for the monkey to reach in. A large piece of the monkey's favorite fruit was place inside inside the cage. The monkeys would reach into the cage and grasp the fruit. But, they would be unable to remove their hand while still holding the fruit because the combination of hand and fruit was too big. The monkies would absolutely not let go of the fruit and were caught.
   How many different ways are we "caught" along our life journey because we "won't let go of the fruit?" I know that I have been no wiser than a monkey in holding on to some things and some ideas until I am trapped.

   Perhaps grace is defined by our ability to let go and trust Love.

   What do you think?

-Erie Chapman

Day 189 - Chemistry & Our Soul

   Many years ago I heard a fascinating lecture by an ophthalmologist on the impact of failing eyesight and other eye diseases on the work of major artists. This physician contended that the work of some artists changed, and sometimes became richer, because their changed eyes caused them to use odd color combination's and distorted angles.
   Did Rembrandt's age affect the genius of his work? In another way, was it Van Gogh's distorted brain chemistry that caused him to create some of the most striking and beautiful masterpieces in history? Did cocaine help Edgar Allan Poe scare us with his horror stories? Did alcohol influence the creation of some of F.Scott Fitzgerald's finest stories?
   Some psychiatrists might contend that we are our brain chemistry. Certainly, our personalities including our moods and the way we behave are enormously impacted by our state of mind.
   As an assistant district attorney, I often prosecuted criminals who claimed they were "out of their minds" when they committed a particular violent act and that their criminal action was not "who they really are."   

   How do you see the patients who come to you for care? I believe our concept of the humanity and soul of another often has a big impact on the quality of care many receive.
   If you, as my caregiver, can understand that my irritability and anger is a function of my fear and not a personal attack on you, than perhaps I can give you better care. If you hear my anger as a personal attack on you, how might it affect your care of me? Will my call light be ignored? Will I be labeled as a "problem patient" on your chart and be discriminated against by other caregivers?
   The thing I've never liked about the brain chemistry idea is that it always seems to demean human individuality and accomplishment. If I'm not responsible for mistakes caused by my brain chemistry than I guess I don't get any credit for any good stuff I've done. My good acts, after all, must have been because my brain chemistry was balanced just right.
   Should we praise Van Gogh for his genius or write it off to brain chemistry? Should we honor Mother Theresa or just say she was driven toward sainthood by some kind of obsessive disorder?

   Classifying people by disease states can be hazardous to the humanity of both patients and their caregivers. If a sick human being becomes merely "the gall bladder in 4028" then who is the caregiver? If we think of ourselves as simply a combination of chemicals, than how does our soul find expression?

What do you think?

-Erie Chapman  

Days 187-188 - The "Intimate Sensitivity" of Quiet Angels

The most demanding part of living a lifetime as an artist is the strict discipline of forcing oneself to work along the nerve of one's own most intimate sensitivity. -Anne Truitt, sculptor (quote supplied by Liz Wessel, R.N.)

 

   Dr. Elizabeth Krueger is one of this world's quiet angels. She works in an area of medicine that is so challenging people often shake their heads when she tells them her specialty. "I could never do that," they tell her.

   Dr. Krueger is a neonatologist. A high percentage of her patients are among the tiniest people on earth. All of them are in critical condition. She and her collegues are routinely asked to guide these fragile beings, some weighing less than a pound, along the dangerous pathway to health and stability.

   On most days, this exceptional doctor deals with a second group of patients. They are the parents of critically ill babies who look to her for help, for healing, and sometimes for magic.

   Dr. Krueger is living "along the nerve" of her "most intimate sensitivity" as surely as is any artist, sculptor or poet. It requires not only "strict discipline" but impressive courage for her to perform at her peak across the twenty-four hour shifts she works. When she can, she catches rest in a room down the hall from the unit when her patients wait. But, how do you rest when you know that at any moment the phone will ring? The calls are rarely good news.

   "Sometimes I feel like kicking a hole in the wall," she shared with me once. She has plenty of reasons to. Even with today's medicine, many premature babies are born with permanent problems.

   Instead of "kicking a hole in the wall," Dr. Krueger chooses to open her heart as well as her skilled hands. Across nearly a quarter century of working "along the nerve" of her deepest sensitivity, she has had plenty of moments of exhaustion and frustration. She always overcomes.

   I attended Divinity School with Dr. Krueger. She was a top student in that setting just as she had been in medical school. Her hard work and extra education are part of the tough training she has pursued so that she can apply her best potential to solving critically important, life-and-death problems.   

   Elizabeth is one half of a remarkable couple. Her husband, T.C., is a surgeon who has worked extensively and heroically with the Nobel Peace Prize winning program Doctors Without Borders. He was featured recently in the spectacular documentary "Living in Emergency." If you want to see more angels in actions, be sure and see this film. Amazingly, T.C. also graduated from Vanderbilt Divinity School like his wife. Perhaps Divinity school has helped both of them go even deeper in engaging God's Love in their work.

   Whatever the case, the Drs. Krueger are among the quiet angels of medicine. They extend their magic touch in the center of the day and in the middle of the night; in Nashville and in distant lands. And In every case, they offer healing as well as curing in a very special ministry of Love.

 

-Erie Chapman   

Day 184 - Open Forum

Happy Fourth of July weekend.
-erie

Day 183 - Listening with Love

Today's meditation was written by Cathy Self, Senior Vice-President for the Baptist Healing Trust.

      Listening with the ears of our hearts, recognizing need before it can even be expressed is surely a great gift of the Servant's Heart. This week I have listened for the sounds of a 20-month-old's awakening, sometimes in the middle of night, always at daybreak. Often the sounds are clearly a search for the familiar face and sweet smile of his mom; other times this young adventurer-explorer awakens with abject joy in the dancing light that sneaks its way through the shutters making patterns on the wall that tell a great story. He hears airplanes so distant my ears and eyes cannot even conceive of and points, looks, and he waits . . . until my attention and my understanding can meet him at his place of wonder.

     Both my 95-year-old mother in law who lives with us and my young grandson visiting for a few days are teaching me to to watch, to wait, to listen in new ways. Poet William Stafford writes of listening with ears that must be of the heart:

"My father could hear a little animal step,/ or a moth in the dark against the screen,/ and every far sound called the listening out/ into places where the rest of us had never been.

More spoke to him from the soft wild night/ than came to our porch for us on the wind;/ we would watch him look up and his face go keen/ till the walls of the world flared, widened.

My father heard so much that we still stand/ inviting the quiet by turning the face,/ waiting for a time when something in the night/ will touch us too from that other place."

Watching shadows cross the face, translating syllables into words, asking and then asking again so that need may be met - is this not what our days of giving care are all about? What does your heart hear today that touches you "from that other place?"

Day 182 - The Ears of the Heart

All those years/forgetting/how easily/you can belong/to everything/simply by listening... - David Whyte 

   When I was five, my father (with me, at left, when I was two) sustained an injury that almost killed him. After seven days in a coma from a blow to the head while playing handball, he lay at home in his bed recovering. The doctor had given strict instructions that he was not to move from that bed.

   One day in 1948, I found myself playing alone in a room nearby his with a knapsack and knife - one whose blades he had warned me not to open. I opened one and it closed on my thumb.

   As I watched the blood pour from my gashed thumb (I have the scar to this day) I knew I should not disturb my father. He was dangerously ill. I only had a cut.

   Hiding my bleeding thumb behind my back I asked Dad if he could reach a bandaid in the cabinet above my height. Listening with the ear of a caring father, he knew there was something else going on. "Why are you holding your hand behind your back?" he asked.

   When I showed him my thumb, I watched him struggle to his feet to help his tiny son. It took all of his strength to help me deal with my little cut. I will always remember this act of his caring heart.  

   It is in the "listening" that caregivers discover the need of others and the nature of their role in meeting that need. What a gift lives in this power each of us possesses and infrequently uses - the power to listen with our hearts!

   Of course, listening symbolizes every other way we connect to the need of another - through seeing, through touch, through tasting another's agony, through smelling the fear that lives in those who have become vulnerable, and most of all, through listening with our hearts.

   "Listening" here, means listening and seeing with through the eyes of our hearts. It means reaching back through everything we have learned to touch the core truth of what we knew, intuitively, as children - the truth that lives beyond our mere senses.

   My dad died in 1995. One of my many sweet memories of him is how he rose from his sick bed to care for his little son - a thing he could do only because he heard a need beyond the words I spoke to him.

   Today, someone will speak their need to you. They may use other words. They may seek to cover their true pain. If you are "listening" you will hear what gift of love is needed from you to meet the unspoken desire of another.

   Live Love, not fear.

-Erie Chapman 

Days 180-181 - Love That Surpasses Understanding

"Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love." – Monet

 

   The eyes of the nurse meet the eyes of the patient in pain. "I feel so terrible," the patient says.

   "I understand," the nurse replies. But, does she? Can we truly understand the complex pain of another when we are not experiencing it ourselves?

   When deep pain is an agony of body, mind and spirit it is difficult to reach through simple analysis. Heartbreak does not appear on any EKG. Fear does not register on an MRI. It may be easier to meet pain with understanding than it is with Love. For Love asks something beyond understanding.

   Doctors try to fix pain by diagnosing it and relieving it with various kinds of treatment including medication. Yet, pain often creates another kind of attack on the spirit. The agony of heartbreak and melancholia can generate a kind of isolation and loneliness that lives in some deeper part of the forest.

   Claude Monet invited us to the image on the canvas. Others ask us to love the words shaped as poetry, or plays, or novels. This love seems to mean accepting, appreciating and embracing. Most of all, it may mean loving what we do NOT understand.

   Do we truly understand why we feel love for some person or some experience with art? Indeed, reducing an encounter to something we need to "understand" may mean that intellect can sometimes dilute love. Think of the way most medical school professors describe doctor-patient relationships by warning doctors to maintain "professional distance" from patients. To maintain such a distance may imply to medical students that they will need to objectify patients - to treat the disease, not the person.

   Similarly, converting a painting to an analytical model may be like dissecting a joke. Jokes that are explained, analyzed and "understood" have been drained of their ability to make us laugh. Think of the response you hear when you explain a joke someone else doesn't "get." After the other person undestands your explanation, do they laugh at the joke or do they say, "Guess you had to be there."

   Love does not ask us to understand every aspect of someone else's agony or sadness. It asks us to love the sufferer even more because they are experiencing deep pain.

   When we can do this, when we love beyond understanding, we have given the gift of healing.

 

-Erie Chapman

Days 177-179 - Open Forum

Day 176 - Doctor Woman

Today's meditation was written by Cathy Self, Senior Vice-President for the Baptist Healing Trust.

      She was twenty-eight and her engagement to be married dissolved. In a "fever of decision," she abruply announced "I'm going to be a doctor." Four years later, Dr. May emerged ready to settle into a private practice deep in the South, in Atlanta. And then she met, married, and followed Professor Wharton first to New England and then to the rural area of Pleasant Hill nestled in the Appalachian foothills of Middle Tennessee.

     The story might not surprise us today, but in 1922 the presence of a doctor in the foothills was rare, even more so as a woman. Too often Dr. May Wharton was called in to help the people of the mountains when it was too late - when the herbal concoctions had failed, when prayers seemed of no use, and only then "Doctor Woman" would be called. Long treks by mule and wagon were required for every call, her payment almost always what few pennies could be spared; heavy tiredness became her constant companion. Yet she committed to making a difference, to help the mountain people to better health and better lives.

     When her husband died suddenly and unexpectedly, friends and family members tempted Dr. May to brighter places of health and healing--a clinic in New Hampshire filled with supplies, a hospital newly built and standing ready in Phoenix. She faced a reality of no money, no house, no supplies, "no anything," supported it seemed only by a faithful nurse who remained by her side. And then the knock at the door, neighbors appearing--"We come to tell you how sorry we are, Dr. May. We'd all be proud to he'p you with your movin'." He paused and fished in his pocket. "We brung you this paper to read," he said, handing her a crumpled sheet:

"Dr. May Wharton, In behalf of the town and surrounding community we wish to express our sympathy for you in your trouble and we feel we have suffered a great loss in the death of Professor Wharton. The people here wants you to stay here as their Dr. and pay you monthly and also help you with your hospital. We feel we cannot do without you."

At the bottom of the letter were the signatures of fifty heads of families. Dr. May writes of the personal response she had to the letter: "That night I resolved solemnly to do as much for them as they had this day done for me. I resolved that mothers should be saved; that little children should be given a fair start in life; that pneumonia, pellagra, diabetes, anemia and all the rest should not go on and on until no medical skill could cure them; that the old and invalided should have some comfort and care even when they could not be mended; that those far from doctors should have medical aid brought within reach--of their homes and their thin pocketbooks."

     One doctor woman and a faithful helper could not do all this. But they could make a beginning. And they did, serving their community well into their 80's. Today the Pleasant Hill community is blessed by the presence of Uplands Retirement Village and the Wharton Long Term Care facility, both graced with caregivers committed to compassionate, loving care. No one of us can do it all, but each one of us holds in our hands the Golden Thread of legacy and hope for those we serve now and for those caregivers who will walk in our footprints. Dr. May's heart and words seem reminiscent of the hearts and words shared in these pages by so many of you: "perhaps in time there will be no forgotten ones among us . . . and even the least of God's children scatted over our hills are no longer in danger of being passed by." We still have much to do, yet hope calls us by name. When your constant companion is heavy tiredness, and the need is so great, how do you find the strength and resolve to continue so there will be no forgotten ones among us?

Excerpts taken from Doctor Woman of the Cumberlands (1953), May Cravath Wharton, M.D. Published by

Uplands

Retirement

Village

,

P. O. Box 168

,

Pleasant Hill

,

TN

38578

.