Journal of Sacred Work

   When staff feels called to meet the unusual needs of patients they are living out radical loving care.
-Erie Chapman

 The story is told at America’s premier Healing Hospital, Parrish Medical Center in Titusville, Florida. A patient was dying. His last request was that someone come sing to him one of the world’s favorite hymns – Amazing Grace. But who would sing to him? Word of the dying man’s request sped around the hospital until it landed in the ears of a member of the environmental services team. Within minutes, the housekeeper appeared to sing at the dying man’s side and the words to the immortal tune filled the room.
   The patient did not pass away that day. So each morning, for five mornings, the housekeeper reappeared to spread his rich-voiced rendering of the song across the departing spirit of this patient. On the fifth morning, as the housekeeper reached the final verse, the patient passed away.
   Did the housekeeper offer the music of grace because he was paid? Of course not. Did he sing because this was part of his job description? Again, the answer is no. In a Healing Hospital like Parrish, stories like this are common…

   I heard a similar story from Katie Skelton, Chief Nursing Officer at another Healing Hospital,  St. Joseph Medical Center in Orange, California. In fact, every hospital in the country should be telling stories like this because these stories reflect the music of grace.
   Whenever staff feels called to meet the unusual needs of patients and rises to meet those needs they are living out radical loving care. When these stories are told by leaders, the signal has been sent that the hospital’s mission matters – that caring counts.

    It is interesting to note that the genesis of the "Amazing Grace" song provides further inspiration to inform these stories from Parrish Medical Center and St. Joseph Hospital. Why is this song so powerful? Reportedly, the song was composed by John Newton (left) in the 18th century as he traveled the pathway of conversion from captain of a slave ship to
pastor and abolitionist. As you reflect on the words, you can see how powerful the context must have been for a man who became ashamed of his slave-trader days and sought redemption.

   Yet we all seek redemption. We all hope for the kind of epiphany that will help us transcend our own needs to meet the needs of others. Sometimes, many of us feel like lost wretches who hope to be "found." We pray, also, that we may find new sight through eyes that "see" our encounters with others as sacred opportunities:

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,

That saved a wretch like me!

I once was lost, but now am found,

Was blind, but now I see.

   Look at this stanza in the context of your own life. If you feel like a wretch (an image I often have about myself) then look at the salvific quality of the last two lines. We are lost and then found, we are blind and now we see. But how? Why? Because we have received the great epiphany of some vision of truth in our lives. Have you ever had a glimpse of this? Have you had a moment when you felt lost at the bottom of the well and then, suddenly, sensed an image of light that lifted you into another realm. This is the sense of a true epiphany of the kind that will come to us if our heart is soft and open.   

          ‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,

          And grace my fears relieved;

          How precious did that grace appear,

          The hour I first believed!

   And upon our epiphany, we live inside the hour when, in the face of lifelong doubts, we, like John Newton on his sailing ship filled with a cargo of suffering human beings who we have failed to help, finally come to a new way of seeing. We discover that our own salvation comes not in seeking for ourselves, but in reaching out to help others. A sacred seeing arrives in our hearts. It is an old light that that was always there but suddenly seems new as this morning’s sunrise.

Through many dangers, toils and snares,

We have already come;

‘Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,

And grace will lead me home.

   In the illumination of Love’s truth, we discover, somewhat to our surprise, that it is not all our hard work or our fighting and contention that leads us home. It is in the peaceful surrender to Love that gives birth to grace. And gratitude is a practice that sustains this light.
   Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. And that is the sound we hear when, after all of our struggles as caregivers, we finally feel saved by our gifts to others. We were blind and, almost suddenly, like the housekeeper at Parrish, and like the dying patient before him, we see.
   This is the music of a caregiver’s grace.