Journal of Sacred Work

There can be no question of making "helpful" books. The help must not be located in the book but in the relation between the reader and the book… Rainer Marie Rilke

   My three-year-old grandson is a child of light. The way I know this is that whenever he enters a room, the light goes up – as if light encircled him, shinning forth into the faces of adults he encounters with his happy energy. Adults break into smiles at the sight of him. Sometimes, I start to laugh out of the pure joy at his arrival into my presence. But this can also be true of any child, or any person including you! It depends upon our relationship to that person.
   You are a carrier of energy that can illuminate (or diminish) the light in the lives of others. Your presence lifts those around you whenever you let Love’s light shine through you.
   How do caregivers learn to be good carriers of light?  As Rilke writes, books don’t teach us. It is our relationship to the book that may awaken some new understanding or appreciation…

   For some, the Bible is a source of light. For others, it’s the Koran.
For a third group, it is the Torah. But none of these books would
necessarily illuminate the lives of someone in the mountains of Tibet for whom
these books may represent nothing more than paper to burn in the
campfire from which they seek warmth.
   This is the challenge of teaching Loving Care. Caught in the grip of old school models, we imagine that if we could just find the right book, we would become better at loving others. If this was what it was about, millions of Christians would be living the Bible’s teaching instead of treating people who follow the teaching of a different book as their enemies.
   Loving care is learned by a process of caring engagement with others, not by following canned instructions. As true as this may be, it is stunningly difficult for many leaders of charities to understand this. 
   Across America, caring people seek answers in books. I’ve written a few myself, and I’m always
interested to learn what effect they may have on readers. To understand this, I need to ask what effect books have had on my own ability to be a "carrier of light."
   Think of all the books that have ever been written, from crude stories told in cuneiform g on stone, to the philosophical works of the Greeks, to the dramas of Shakespeare, through all the treatises on science and math and astronomy, right down to the words you are reading right now. Consider which of all the millions of books out there have entered your consciousness and which of this group have illuminated your life.
   Many people like to say that the Bible has helped them to be a better person and I think that can be true. For example, it really does help me to think of the Good Samaritan when I look out at a world of people in deep need.
   Books may be of the biggest help to us when we engage them as potential reflections of our the world and our place in it. As a child, Oliver Twist helped me to empathize with the plight of mistreated children, a biography of Abe Lincoln helped me see what noble leadership looked like and Moby Dick taught me something about the nature of obsession. Mickey Mouse, a cartoon character hatched from the imagination of a single person, illuminates all of our lives.
   And the books that first brought light to me were the ones my mother and father read to me. Like millions of children, I traveled the pages of children’s books struggling up the railroad tracks with the Little Engine That Could and down into soft green meadows with Hansel and Gretel.
   With full respect for all the self-help books out there, it is the story books (children or adult) that illuminate energy in us. In Divinity School, I learned that much of the power of Christianity depends upon the strength of what is called The Christian Narrative. This is nothing more (or less) than the beautiful accumulation of a great story of love that has survived a journey of twenty centuries to enter our hearts today. Whether this narrative is a part of your life or not, there are many stories that are.
   How do we become better carriers of light? We may choose to listen to the teaching of books. More powerfully, we may listen to the stories of those around us and make them part of our lives. And we tell others our own. Each person carries many life stories to tell. In the resonance between speaker and listener, love’s light will shine through if we open our sacred eyes to see it.

-Erie Chapman