Journal of Sacred Work

Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived.   Helen Keller

   Helen Keller sent a powerful message to us. Most of us never comprehended it. It’s hard to understand a life experience we haven’t lived. What Keller shared with us is the miracle of what happens when we are fully and intensely present to a single one of our five senses. What happens if we focus all of our energy, for a set of moments, on, for example, our sense of smell or our sense of touch?…

    People marvel at the acute hearing of the blind or the remarkable ability of the deaf to see things the rest of us miss.
But what Keller wanted us to know is that any one of us can experience
the same thing if we understand the power of presence.
   And there was something more. Much more.

  What Keller (at left with her companion, Annie Sullivan) was really trying to tell us comes clear in her own words: "The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt within the heart."
   And this is what it’s all about, isn’t it? Presence has to do with the full use of the sacred potential beyond our senses – the miraculous soul of our humanity.
   All great painters have achieved a transcendent expression of their visual ability. Musicians have drawn close to the power of their ears. Sculptors are deeply in touch with their sense of touch. Great chefs are fully connected to their sense of taste and their ability to smell.
   To live deeply, as great artists and great caregivers have all done, we need to engage a power beyond our senses. We need to experience life with our sacred self. Great caregivers have the gift of holy intuition. They are not only in touch with the suffering of others, they are able to engage the gift of healing.
   For Christians, the most obvious example of this was Jesus’ ability to connect with and heal human disease. But Jesus was interested in something much more important than our physical ailments. He sought to heal the deep scars that come from our experience of life. Some part of us has been hurt by the gift of life. Some part of us suffers for reasons beyond our knowing. Jesus offers relief to Christians. Mohamed offers help to Moslems. Moses and David offer a sort of salvation to Jews. The Buddha asks us to release our hold on the material world so that we may achieve a higher level of existence.
   Amid all of this, Helen Keller, deprived of sight, hearing and, initially, speech, calls out to us to understand that the most important truths of life live beyond our senses. We know what she means. She is talking about Love.

-Erie Chapman