Journal of Sacred Work

The most important things we believe are mystical, miraculous & invisible. What matters most cannot be seen.   -Erie Chapman

   It is the heart of truth. God, Love, is what matters most. God, by definition, is invisible.   
   This truth shakes contemporary notions of what is important. After all, we live in a world where business and technology are kings and the computer is queen. Science disdains what cannot be proved.   

   This is the centerpiece thought of the Age of Reason, the time of Descartes (see his image, left, on money) and the other great rationalists who sought to free humankind from the grip of the Catholic hierarchy of the time. It was the 15th and 16th centuries when thinkers rose up to challenge the overweening power of the church. That age has ruled for at least four centuries.
   But our generation is evolving toward a new truth.  In this new truth we discover what all true caregivers know: Love is what matters. And Love cannot be measured in cubic centimeters or milligrams…

   For more than a century, healthcare has been dominated by the notion that all the answers to illness live in the power of science. If an illness cannot be cured, science will one day unlock the answer.
   That this is only partly true has been lost. And lost, as well, has been the understanding of the power of something greater than science.This is the power of healing. This is Love.
   Healing is much larger than science. Healing reaches beyond science into the greater realm of the invisible.

    Who comprehends, other than, perhaps, artists like Renoir and poets like Neruda, what secret energy travels between those who love? Yet, we know that this Love is what matters most in our lives.
   Each of us, intuitively, knows that our largest problems can only be addressed, successfully, by an understanding that transcends the visible world of microscopes and MRIs. But the art of healing faces an enormous obstacle.
   Science has seduced and enchanted the world. Anyone who advances the role of healing must face the crossfire and abuse of those who idolize the world of what is visible only to the five senses.
   The least appreciated of the medical professions is psychiatry. Yet it is psychiatrists and psychologists and social workers and other counselors, including clerics, who are most likely to be in touch with the invisible yet powerful scars and sufferings of the soul. And they are also in touch with its greatest truths.
   The most important things in our lives have to do with who and what we love and hate. The objects of our love and hatred can be seen. But the energy which moves between us and our loved ones can never be measured by any technology.
   Love is the most powerful and most meaningful energy in the world. Love is beyond measure because it is beyond the senses.
   Love is as invisible as God. And it is miraculous.

-Erie Chapman