Journal of Sacred Work

We have a choice about what we are going to project, and in that choice we help create the world that is. Consciousness precedes being. – Parker Palmer (left)

   On the first day of April, we are reminded of our fear of becoming fools. Parker Palmer is one of the world’s most insightful observers of organizational relationships. He understands how we relate to each other in teams and he knows about our fear of humiliation and what we do to avoid it. Often, what Palmer sees disturbs him. And he is constantly appealing to us to raise our consciousness, to understand how we project ourselves into the world. He wants to help us choose to project light rather than shadows…

   Palmer understands that we have the capability to do either. "We share responsibility," he writes, "for creating the external world by projecting either a spirit of light or a spirit of shadow on that which is other than us. Either a spirit of hope or a spirit of despair."
   Why would we, especially as caregivers and/or leaders ever project "a spirit of shadow"? Perhaps it is because we carry so many shadows within us. These shadows are hard and painful to bear. One of our shadows is fear about our identity.

   I discovered this shadow within myself when I left my position as founding President & CEO of nine-hospital OhioHealth and President of one-thousand-bed Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus. After twelve years in the job, I had begun, perhaps subconsciously, to feel like a big shot. When you have nine hospitals, 11,000 employees and two secretaries under your "command"  your sense of self-importance is constantly being fed – and this food can be poisonous.
   In my own case, I lost my identity and became my job. When I lost my job, I lost my identity.
   Palmer knows about this shadow. He writes, "We have an identity that is so hooked up with external, institutional functions that we may literally die when those functions are taken away from us."
   What does a doctor do when he or she loses their license or their ability to practice? What does a mother do when she loses her child or children? What does a nurse do when she/he gets fired?   
   Fear becomes a dangerous shadow when we try to eject it from ourselves by projecting it onto others. Palmer suggests a solution he learned in a motto from Outward Bound. "If you can’t get out of it, get into it!"
   What does this mean? Perhaps, it suggests that when we face our fears rather than trying to transfer them to others, we become more fully human and more in touch with Love.
   I agree with Parker Palmer when he says that "the great insight of our spiritual traditions is that we co-create the world." And we do this, in part, he says, "by projecting our spirit on it – for better or worse."
   To what extent do you believe you have "become" your job? What if the entire role you occupy, even including your license to practice or perform, was taken from you? How would deal with this loss and still seek to project light into the world?

-Erie Chapman