Journal of Sacred Work

Caregivers have superpowers! Radical Loving Care illuminates the divine truth that caregiving is not just a job. It is Sacred Work.

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Former President & CEO of multiple hospital systems and founding president & CEO of 20-hospital OhioHealth, best selling author, film artist, ordained minister, composer, published poet, syndicated T.V. host, trial attorney, federal prosecutor and Municipal Court Judge. Erie is internationally known as the founder of the Radical Loving Care(R)movement. He also heads Erie Chapman Foundation, Dane Dakota Productions, LLC, and Chapman Health International, Inc.

Recent Posts

About

Former President & CEO of multiple hospital systems and founding president & CEO of 20-hospital OhioHealth, best selling author, film artist, ordained minister, composer, published poet, syndicated T.V. host, trial attorney, federal prosecutor and Municipal Court Judge. Erie is internationally known as the founder of the Radical Loving Care(R)movement. He also heads Erie Chapman Foundation, Dane Dakota Productions, LLC, and Chapman Health International, Inc.

Day 58 – Finding Our Way to Faith

Gibran04
Faith is an oasis in the heart, which will never be reached by the caravan
of thinking.
  -Kahlil Gibran (Gibran also created the drawing at left.)

   
Our minds play stunning tricks on us. The greatest trick he plays is his persistent suggestion that somehow, we will be able to figure it all out; that our minds can solve anything if we are just smart enough. Yet, the smartest among us say differently. Einstein, for example, persistently advised that the great truths are beyond the ability of the mind to penetrate.
   Great caregivers know this. They understand that great as their curing gifts may be there is always a power that transcends all…

Doctor
   The doctor by the bedside, the nurse in the operating room, the chaplain holding the hands of a bereaved family member, the social worker sitting with a rape victim, each of them senses that there is something rich and beautiful beyond the suffering before them.
   Great caregivers understand that those among us who are healed are not necessarily those who are cured. Instead, they are the ones among us have found a transcendent faith.
   How do we find such a faith? It is so difficult for us to comprehend that, as Gibran says, faith is not found by thinking. Why not? Our minds are grounded in the world. Our brains have been trained in logic. And it is these same minds of ours, the ones that are so marvelous at figuring out so many of the world’s complexities, that fail us when we ask them to solve the mystery of faith.
   Faith calls for surrender. Our minds are troubled by this idea since it means that the mind must suspend all of its complex powers of analysis. Yet, it is only through surrender that we have the chance to experience the great and divine light that accompanies faith; the faith that passes all understanding; the faith that comes in living Love.

-Erie Chapman

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4 responses to “Day 58 – Finding Our Way to Faith”

  1. liz Wessel Avatar
    liz Wessel

    Father Jim offered this wisdom within a small group gathered for an evening of contemplative prayer. He encouraged us to approach our practice as the Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki taught, “With a beginners mind.” The ‘expert’ will learn little, but with receptivity and childlike wonder, our spirits open to perceive in new ways we discover a wellspring of joy deep within us.

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  2. Tom Knowles-Bagwell Avatar
    Tom Knowles-Bagwell

    For several years, now, I have been using the practive of substituting the word “trust” when I read the word “faith.” This has been helpful to me in getting past some of the problems I have with that word, “faith.” Yes, it’s a good word . . . a great word, really. But it has been taken over by a lot of uses that are guided by the mind’s refusal to surrender to its limitations. Through the years, there have been many who have defined “faith” as a particular way of thinking . . . a product of the mind’s reasoning.
    So far, I’ve not found the word “trust” to have been taken over in this way. It still carries the meanings that Gibran and Einstein understand. Trust is not a way of thinking, but a way of living that the mind simply can not ever fully grasp. Trusting is always acting and living beyond the range of reasons.

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  3. Karen York Avatar
    Karen York

    Some of my most enjoyable and rewarding moments are found in a state of surrender.

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  4. Diana Gallaher Avatar
    Diana Gallaher

    For those familiar with Centering Prayer, “trust” is the word I use to center when my mind is taking off on one of its thought processes during centering prayer. Tom, your words about trust are very meaningful to me. This meditation reminds me of my grappling to get my mind around the God concept. I experience God as closer to us than our own breathing, yet God as ultimate mystery. My mind says, “Say what?” My heart says “Yes!”

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