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 65-67 – Face to Face Meetings?

Faceof
   It's hard to write a poem, a play, a situation comedy, or a
contemporary movie screenplay today without including a cell phone. Face-to-face conversation, even for caregivers with patients, has a whole new set of distractions. In person encounters now require that we compete with not only cell phones but texting, instant messaging and the incessant noise of others doing the same at nearby chairs and tables. How are we to sustain presence in the presence of such clatter?
   Knowing of my concern over this my longtime friend, Emily Fluhrer, who lives in Greenville, South Carolina, sent me this poem which I pass on to you.

Bridal Shower

by George
Bilgere

Perhaps, in a distant café,
four or five people are talking
with the
four or five people
who are chatting on their cell phones this morning
in
my favorite café.

And perhaps someone there,
someone like me, is
watching them as they frown,
or smile, or shrug
at their invisible friends
or lovers,
jabbing the air for emphasis.

And, like me, he misses the
old days,
when talking to yourself
meant you were crazy,
back when
being crazy was a big deal,
not just an acronym
or something you could
take a pill for.

I liked it
when people who were talking to
themselves
might actually have been talking to God
or an angel.
You
respected people like that.

You didn't want to kill them,
as I want to
kill the woman at the next table
with the little blue light on her ear
who
has been telling the emptiness in front of her
about her daughter's bridal
shower
in astonishing detail
for the past thirty minutes.

O person
like me,
phoneless in your distant café,
I wish we could meet to discuss
this,
and perhaps you would help me
murder this woman on her cell
phone,

after which we could have a cup of coffee,
maybe a bagel, and
talk to each other,
face to face.

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6 responses to “Days 65-67 – Face to Face Meetings?”

  1. Karen York Avatar
    Karen York

    This is wonderful!

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  2. Victoria Avatar
    Victoria

    How light, fun, but true is today’s post. I wonder how our older population must feel with disgust to see/hear “cell-phoners” behave rudely, selfishly and often loudly, when on these devices. Yes, I have a cell phone, but I use it as needed, to play catch up (hands-free) while driving, and not as an outreach for socializing.
    The poem was funny and insightful; I often wish I could push the “end” button on my cell phone, while pointing it at those nearby obnoxious “holding court” people who need to disappear (another fantasy).
    Since I’m always preparing for my later years, I remember as a child, and now as an adult how it was/is to spend time with others, in a coffee house, outdoors/park, restarants AND even movie theatre and not have to deal with nearby people with one-way chatter, fixated eyes and hands, committed to anything but those in their company.
    As my grandmother would say (20+ years ago), “if you talk on the phone all the time, you won’t have anything to say when you see them.” I get it now…

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  3. ~liz Wessel Avatar
    ~liz Wessel

    So true! Hymn… how to maintain presence, amid the clutter? I guess to avoid it when possible. Living in sprawling a metropolitan area, I find solace in places where noise and people are not. What a grand poem, thanks for sharing it. I especially love the part about the days when people talked to themselves it was because they were crazy, or might have been talking to God or an angel! It’s all just a mystery to me. 😉
    Wishing everyone a peace filled weekend!
    Love,
    ~liz

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  4. Diana Gallaher Avatar
    Diana Gallaher

    🙂 Great poem.

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  5. ~liz Wessel Avatar
    ~liz Wessel

    I took a walk in the hills this afternoon to surround myself in nature. It was a marvelous cool sweater day, sun shining, hills covered in green clover and sprays of spring flowers. The moon visible, luminous and nearing fullness. The sky pristine blue, with colors so bright and clear I mused, this reminds me of a Claratin commercial or better yet a scene from Startrek on some utopian planet. We walked up to a look out point and sat down on an inviting bench. I closed my eyes and focused my mind on the ebb and flow of my breath. I began to notice a cacophony of sound, a variety of birds’ songs, crickets and frogs croaking, a cyclist riding by, an occasional bark of a dog in the distance, an airplane overhead. Yet, with all these sounds, none were intrusive on my private peaceful experience. I guess that’s because there was not one cell phone in sight….

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  6. George Tracy Roberts Avatar
    George Tracy Roberts

    Sometimes my cell phone doesn’t vibrate, it goes straight to my voice mail without making a sound; and my life has not changed…

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