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 83 – The Golden Thread of Faith

All existence seemed to beat with a lower pulse than her own, and her religious faith was a solitary cry, the struggle out of a nightmare…  – George Eliot, Middlemarch

George_Eliot
   George Eliot (1819-1880) wrote in a time when women writers were so disdained that Eliot (nee Mary Ann Evans) had to adopt a male identity in order to be published. She must have often felt like her character, Dorothea, bereft and discouraged with only her faith to sustain her.
   When my friend Rhonda was undergoing the horror of chemotherapy (for two different kinds of cancer) she tried to describe to me the loneliness of this kind of agony. "When life drags you down that far, you feel worse than s— there is no one there for you. It's then that you discover it's just you and God."
   Exhausted caregivers may sometimes feel the same way. In the solitary hours of the night shift, with too many patients and too little staff, or in the middle of a hard day, the golden thread of faith may feel frayed.
   Ancient Greeks thought of the body as being pulled toward the ground. The only connection to God, they believed, ran along a slender thread that extended from their hearts to the heavens.
   We imagine friends and family as real and God as intangible. After all, in the middle of our darkness, how can God give us a hug? Yet, the presence of God is the only unconditional Love we may know. God is pure Love and attaches no conditions. God is present to us. Are we present to God?
   Is this Love enough for you when you have lost hope? How do you sustain the thread of your connection to God when life seems empty?

-Erie Chapman

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2 responses to “Day 83 – The Golden Thread of Faith”

  1. Karen York Avatar
    Karen York

    Often, being in the presence of darkness is the best time to feel god. When I’m busy I don’t always allow myself to be quiet enough to hear love’s whisper. Rilke says, “We become so accustomed to you we no longer look up when your shadow falls over the book we are reading and makes it glow”. For me it is always returning to my quiet space where I can reconnect with the divine.

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  2. ~liz Wessel Avatar
    ~liz Wessel

    Karen, What a lovely gift is offered in your reflections.
    Today’s meditation invites us into deep contemplation. In response to your inquiry, Erie I wish to share the following teachings, which I find helpful from the “Course in Miracles.” “Love is content and not form of any kind.” For some reason that particular message has continued to echo within my mind this past week. The Course teaches that we seek in others what we think we lack in ourselves and explains, “Your task is not to seek love but merely to seek and find all of the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” In faith as “you hold your brothers hand also hold mine, for when you are joined to each other you are not alone. You have found your brother, and you will light each other’s ways. And from this light will the Great Rays extend back into the darkness and forward into God.” We see ourselves as unworthy to receive Love, yet we need not prepare, just have a little willingness to accept and receive the gift that is meant for us.

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