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.

Days 225 & 226 – Our Soul’s Desire

Orientalrug
"The personality’s wish [is] to have power over experience, to control all events and consequences, and the soul’s wish [is] to have power through experience, no matter what that might be." – David Whyte

   There is nothing more difficult for the human mind to comprehend than the notion of soul. Still, we try. After all, if our soul’s represent the essential and eternal within, why wouldn’t we want to understand what they are? And isn’t there a deeper way to understand the soul than through some phrase on a Hallmark card?
   What David Whyte appears to be telling us is that the soul does not seek to manage the height of our joy, the depth of our pain, or the flat nature of our boredom. Instead, the soul grows through our life experience.
The wider and richer our life, the more our soul is enriched.
   This actually makes a beautiful kind of sense and may be helpful to caregivers caught in wondering about God’s "willingness" to allow suffering in the world. Whyte writes, "For the personality, bankruptcy or failure may be a disaster, for the soul it may be grist for its strangely joyful mill…"
   Perhaps our souls benefit from the widest possible range of life experience flowing through us. The soul can be seen as a sacred oriental rug – the denser the thread, the deeper the dyes, then the richer the rug…

Gravesoul   This is such a challenging subject. Yet, after years of wondering about it, I am more convinced than ever that Whyte’s description offers a hopeful pathway for each of engaged in living Love. What he tells us is to live the full breadth of our passion. No matter how things turn out, the soul will benefit so long as we actually experience the fullest experience of life we can.
   The soul shrinks only when we turn away from life. We don’t need to fight the winds that buffet us about. The soul simply wants us to face into them. This is not, perhaps, a new idea. But it is a new understanding for me.  Does this idea suggest a sort of consolation for the likes of Job? Might he have thought, "I such deep agony as well as joy and through all of this, my eternal soul was enriched."
   What do you think about the soul way of understanding pain?

-Erie Chapman

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3 responses to “Days 225 & 226 – Our Soul’s Desire”

  1. ~liz Wessel Avatar
    ~liz Wessel

    The first thing that comes to mind as I read your thought provoking meditation is this familiar quote by Joseph Campbell. “People say that what we’re seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”
    This is how I am seeing it, today. Whenever I shrink away from life, it is because fearful thoughts enter my mind that may not be true but I perceive them as real. I turn around to “face in” when I replace those thoughts with Loving ones. I have a decision to choose Love or fear in each living moment. (sound familiar, my dear teacher?) I think when we open to ourselves and to other people our lives become as the tapestry you describe, rich and full with new depth and breadth.
    I really like the vivid image you offer in “the facing in.” Perhaps, you speak of courage to face in to our lives and challenges, to experience and embrace them. I like this idea. I wish to bend with life forces; not break, yet not oppose or resist. Cambell says it so well, “To make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature. We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come.”
    I believe much of our worlds suffering originates from fearful thoughts. God heals through us as vessels of Light. We can help heal our world by being open and receptive to the gift of healing offered to us as grace. Knock and He will answer, ask and it will be given, forgive and be forgiven, Love and be Loved.
    I leave off with this beautiful wisdom. “The miracle is not to walk on water, but to walk with love on earth –as if your feet are kissing the ground. We must remember that our presence alone is a miracle. We must learn to say ‘Yes’ to the miracles of life.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

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  2. Diana Gallaher Avatar
    Diana Gallaher

    I like this Erie. This understanding resonates with me. It seeks to understand life in a way that acknowledges the richness of life and its inherent beauty – which includes terrible suffering and death – and boredom.
    One day, we are playing hopscotch with children and eating popsicles under a canopy of trees with a breeze that is heaven. The next day we get tragic news of the untimely death of, in my friend Lisa’s case, a wonderful boss, a man who spent his life in service to the poor and marginalized of Nashville. The reaction is to say no and run from such tragic news. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that initial reaction. But our souls and the universe somehow say yes to even this.
    I’ve always thought we were asking the wrong question when we ask how God can allow suffering. Although I understand the question. It seems to me that in that question, however, we are limiting both our concept of God and of suffering.
    I write this in the spirit of your meditation, never wanting to minimize the personal agony of pain and loss.

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  3. Victoria Facey Avatar
    Victoria Facey

    What a in-depth overview of the soul and how it is affected by life, love, sorrow and experience.
    I’ve seen people with a shrunken soul; they seem to wander through life, with no desire to actually participate with anyone or get involved doing anything. What a loss.
    I enjoy the challenge of making friends with a quiet, keep-to-myself type – trying to get past their “rusty” edges to know and find the warmth of them. But sometimes we don’t get that extra time. If only they could learn to open up a little, that’s a present waiting to be opened…

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