Journal of Sacred Work

I’m not absent-minded. I’m present minded somewhere else.  – Professor William James (left, 1842-1910))

    With all of my writing about the importance of being present, I confess that my mind, like Professor James’, is often present somewhere else. I have been a chronic day dreamer since the first grade. That was when I discovered that the regular way of teaching school was designed for those patient, organized little girls in the front row.
   Somehow, I managed to learn anyway. But it was mostly by unconventional pathways. And it is one of these pathways that I offer to you as something to consider as you contemplate presence to patients…

   What if the patient before you is a disoriented ninety-year-old who is in the tenth minute of retelling the same story? The census is light today and you have already completed all of your charting. You know that this patient yearns for your presence but you’re bored.  The temptation to run for the door feels over powering. But you look into your patient’s eyes. She needs you to listen.
   The choices are challenging.

• You can easily excuse yourself and escape into some other task.
• You can choose to stay in the room and be "present-minded" somewhere else – pretending, like an actor, to pay attention.
• You can choose to listen with compassion and full presence, even though you’ve heard the story before.

   We have all taken each of these choices. And if we choose to stay, we will likely drift back and forth between choices two and three.
   When I am able to stay present-minded to someone who has seemed boring, I have sometimes cultivated a different kind of attention. I would compare it to watching a movie I’ve already seen. Instead of tracking the story line I already know, I notice things like the way the light comes through the window behind the actors, the acting decisions the players are making, the furniture in the room. All of these things are ways of staying present to the person before us because each of us offers more than our voice when we are telling a story.
   I have seen "Casablanca" at least a dozen times. But I still find interest in studying the environs of Ric’s American Cafe and the way Ingrid Bergman looks at Humphrey Bogart. I’ve seen "It’s a Wonderful Life" more than two dozen times, but it’s always fun to see JImmy Stewart lean his face down to Donna Reed as they first fall in love and to watch his charming exchanges with his angel, Clarence.
   And there are the pictures that hang on the wall of your office or in your home. When is the last time you’ve really looked at them?
   Pick a movie you’ve already seen and watch it again. Forget about the story line. Just watch the interactions of the actors and see what else you find in the film that you didn’t see the first time – or want to see again. Perhaps this exercise will not only help you with a new kind of present-mindedness to patients, but a richer quality of life.

-Erie Chapman