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 211 – How Do We Hear Beauty?

Rose_also_2  The rose speaks when we are silent. It’s difficult for us to hear her song when we’re making noise about ourselves. 
   
Anything or anyone can speak beauty to us. Or, if we are doing what I’m doing now: offering analytical comments, we may be deaf to beauty’s voice. 
   The refusal of most people to open to true beauty in the ordinary is the same problem that afflicts many caregivers. Opening to the sacred experience of caregiving can feel, to some, more exhausting rather than enriching. To sit silent by the bedside of an Alzheimer’s patient, listening with respect and love to someone we know will forget, can feel useless and draining. But it also holds the potential for love.
   The person with Alzheimer’s may seem to be someone whose personality has been stolen. Family no longer see the mother, father or other loved one they thought they knew. How does a daughter show love to a mother who has forgotten who she is?
   The caregiver who sits with full presence and love for a patient with dementia is alone with God. There, in those moments unseen by anyone else, Love’s light shines as quiet as an unnoticed star.
   The rose speaks when we are silent. Stop. How would you describe what you hear from this rose?

-Erie Chapman

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7 responses to “Day 211 – How Do We Hear Beauty?”

  1. Karen York Avatar
    Karen York

    Within the context of your entry today, the rose speaks as the soul of the mother with Alzheimers. She represents all the vitality that once was, and the person who still is, locked inside this disease. When the eyes of our loved ones no longer flicker with delight and recognition at our presence, we can remember the rose of their health and all the love that exists. When we are silent and get out of the way, love’s insistence brings us to the rose in each of us.

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  2. ~liz Wessel Avatar
    ~liz Wessel

    Come, rest, sit with me a while
    Do not be afraid, as there’s nothing to fear
    Gaze upon Love’s magnificent beauty
    Remembering the purity of who you are in me
    Drawn by Light into unfolding wholeness
    Accept Love’s grace
    A gift received only by sharing it

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  3. Yvonne Ginez-Gonzales Avatar
    Yvonne Ginez-Gonzales

    Erie you ask how I would describe what I hear from the rose. I believe I am able to hear the wonder of life, not so much death at end-of-life in each person that I encounter. It is being able to listen and finding peace in being present to absorb such wonder.
    While I would encourage the behavior in the following lines written by Erie about, “The caregiver who sits with full presence and love for a patient with (any diagnosis) is alone with God,” and “opening to the sacred experience of caregiving can feel, to some, more exhausting rather than enriching”, I believe that there are some caregivers that do refuse and/or are just afraid or fearful to allow such a connection, not realizing the magnitude of personalizing their care during those sacred encounters. Maybe they are present but never hear the rose, and are therefore left with a feeling of unexplainable loss.
    I am not sure if this makes sense, as I am finding it difficult to formulate my thoughts into words this morning. So I welcome any thoughts or clarity in what I am trying to express or relay.

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  4. ~liz Wessel Avatar
    ~liz Wessel

    Yvonne,
    Thank you for reaching out to risk expressing ideas as they begin to take shape in your mind. I wish to respond and continue your thread to see where it might lead. Perhaps, when we are with someone who is ill it reminds us of our own vulnerability. So it can be scary to open our heart to feel what it might be like for the other person. We may attempt to self-protect by distancing ourselves from the person or focusing on mundane tasks that can begin to feel like drudgery and sacrifice. Yet, when we approach another with our full presence a sacred space opens up for our humanity to shine a Light that mutually nourishes us. We reach beyond form to hear exquisite beauty in the holiness of the moment. does this resonate for you? Is this some of what you are eluding to?

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  5. Diana Gallaher Avatar
    Diana Gallaher

    This difficulty in being with the beauty that is always present is an experience that the loved one’s family and friends also experience. My own experience recently with a family member who struggled to sit with her mother in the final months of her mother’s life taught me this.
    I was warned that I would find her mother much changed before I visited her at Alive Hospice. And I did. But after observing the change, I saw the beauty that was beneath the change. The beauty that was there when she was named Homecoming Queen had not vanished after a stroke and seizure. I can’t remember exactly what I said to this woman who blessed my family with a wonderful daughter who wed my brother about her beauty. I said something like, “You are still so beautiful.” Or maybe I said, “You are as beautiful as ever.” She wasn’t able to communicate verbally. Her eyes didn’t seem to argue with me.
    It makes me think of my father after his heart by-pass surgery about 11 years ago (he can tell you the exact date). When he awoke hours later from the surgery, he told the nurse that was present to him that she had beautiful eyes. My father is an optometrist. He has looked into thousands of eyes in the 57 years he has been practicing optometry. He conveyed to the nurse that he had looked into many eyes over the years, and her eyes were beautiful. He was letting her know he was a professional eye gazer, not just some sentimental old fool waking up from anesthesia. This difference would be important to him, I think.
    My father doesn’t express emotion well most of the time. I’ve always thought he was expressing gratitude for life – And the beauty of life – By looking into the eyes of his nurse after awakening from life saving surgery and commenting to her on the beauty of her eyes.

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  6. Yvonne Ginez-Gonzales Avatar
    Yvonne Ginez-Gonzales

    You captured my thoughts Liz… I feel like the rose at this moment and you are the caregiver, who is able to hear my thoughts through my words. I love that this journal provides a such a safe forum to be able to “ME”, and that I can find comfort in knowing and sharing even when I am not sure if what I am writing has anything to contribute.

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  7. ~liz Wessel Avatar
    ~liz Wessel

    Wow, thank you Diana and Yvonne for sharing the beauty of your thoughts and experiences!
    After getting off the phone with my sister today, and again tonight with my friend Marilyn I feel I’ve been catapulted into reality within the burning sting of pain and loss. I recognize how difficult it is for people living within the day-to-day crisis of a life threatening illness as everyone is thrown off balance. All the stress, and the strain, of an unfamiliar roller coaster ride with worried emotions escalating and spilling out in anger and pain and vacillating in denial. Trying to navigate strange territory without knowing the way is treacherous. I wish I were near to take your hand and I’d not let go. I know that is what you need most in all this turmoil, not talk, just the warm comfort of a caring touch.

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