Journal of Sacred Work

Today's meditation was written by Cathy Self, Senior Vice President for the Baptist Healing Trust.

     Some scholars refer to the phenomenon as emotional labor – the effort it takes to live when feeling or acting differently than what is experienced within. The greatest movements of our country have taken place when, as Parker Palmer has noted, isolated individuals who suffer from a situation that needs changing to decide to live "divided no more." They come to a juncture where they must choose between allowing selfhood to die or claim the identity and integrity from which whole living comes.

     Many of us know what it feels like to live a divided life. Inwardly we exprience one imperative for our lives but outwardly we respond to very different ones. Our complex world makes that a reality for a great number of us, but sometimes the extreme of "dividedness" becomes intolerable and action is required to bring the outer life into congruency with the inner life. When that happens to one, and then another, and then another individual we see and experience the birth of change in our society. This is not, however, a strategic or planned decision made in order to achieve a particular goal. According to Palmer, the power of such change lies in the fact that it originates in naming and claiming one's identity and integrity rather than accusing one's "enemies" of lacking the same. Palmer calls this a "Rosa Parks decision." Her decision was to begin living a life as she understood her self to have been created – fully human – and no longer relegated to the back of the bus. In her own words, Rosa Parks was just tired, or at least no more tired than she usually felt at the end of work day: "No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in."

     The dream of changing the heart of healthcare, of returning to our roots of being and ministry, has been nurtured for years, and is nurtured every day in each of your own hearts. But I wonder what it will take for all of us, any of us, to finally be tired of giving in. When will we decide to live our lives undivided no more? Most of us speak courageously in these pages and find community here. Some of us have been willing to take our dreams to a greater public, sharing our hopes with those who lead and have power in our healthcare organizations. Such dialogues inevitably attract conflicting influences, but there is where we will find our hearts' reward.

     The influence of Rosa Parks' decision was not an overnight transformation of society but rather modest steps that have taken years to unfold. Stories of racism and hate are still told every day, and every culture is touched. The power of change, of Love, lies within each one of us and communes in co-creation as we, one by one, make small and large "Rosa Parks decisions" every day. The question we must face is whether we will step out with courage, over and over, to live our lives undivided. Loves calls us out of the shadows and waits for us there, in the Light. Be bold, dear Lovers! Live Love, undivided no more.