Journal of Sacred Work

   As school children, we all sat in wonder at the courage, hardship and risks which Columbus and his sailors took as they sailed "toward the end of the world." I heard a comedian say recently that perhaps the natives would have been better off if they had employed some form of immigration control since the discovery of the Americas was at best a mixed blessing for the existing inhabitants!
   Putting this wry observation aside, it is remarkable to imagine what happens to explorers of any kind when they seek to tell us what they have discovered in their travels. Do you ever feel like this as a caregiver? If you have traveled close to a suffering patient with a heart filled with love, then you have experienced something that is very hard to retell. If you have tried to create anything meaningful you know the challenge of the artist…

   The best story to illustrate this is a famous allegory framed by Plato five hundred years before the birth of Christ. It is the Allegory of the Cave. As I recall this important story, some prisoners are tied to a rock at
the bottom of a cave. We are asked to imagine that everything these men know of the world is confined to what they can see in front of them in shadows cast on the cave wall. They are bound in such a way that they can’t even see each other. Accordingly, to these men, the world is two-dimensional.
    One day, a guide appears, releases one of the men, and introduces him to the fire that is casting the shadows. The guide leads the man up out of the mouth of the cave, all along describing to him the wonders of the world. Finally, the man emerges into the light. As his eyes adjust to new brightness, he sees trees, birds, and other beings. He continues to discover more and more until he reaches "full knowledge" symbolized by his ability to stare directly into the sun.
   Now he reaches a courageous decision. He decides to return to the bottom of the cave to share his discoveries with the two men that remain. Instead of being amazed and overjoyed, the two men react with ridicule and disgust and they accuse their former cave mate of being crazy. (for more, click on image, left, and visit the Cornell University web site as well as numerous others.)
   This, of course, is what happened to Socrates. When he shared his brilliant insights with ancient Greeks, he was forced to drink poison. The same kind of fate has befallen courageous "explorers" across history. When someone sees something we don’t and tries to tell us about it, we may choose to brand them crazy because it is so hard for us to leave the comfort zone of what we know.
   We often describe great artists as crazy. We sometimes treat heroes of caregiving the same way. Mother Theresa was initially ridiculed for pursuing a mission of serving India’s untouchables. Albert Schweitzer was branded as a ridiculous idealist for opening a hospital in the middle of a primitive part of Africa.

  My own father-in-law, Dr. Leif Lokvam, a successful surgeon, chose to carve six months from his Wisconsin medical practice to go to Viet Nam. He was sixty at the time. He wasn’t interested in politics. He just wanted to help. What do you suppose his fellow doctors thought? Many of them considered him a fool to do such a thing because his courageous act made them uncomfortable. Personally, I think some of his colleagues resented him for making them feel like privileged cowards (although he never, of course, said any such thing.)
   We underestimate the courage of Lovers. Great artists venture far beyond the boundaries where most of us would turn back. Lovers insist on keeping their hearts open even though they know they will often be broken.
   There are so many more forms of courageous exploration than those represented by people like Columbus. It can take as much courage to fully engage with any suffering being as it can to climb Mount Everest.
   And that is why Lovers are my ultimate heroes.

-Erie Chapman