Journal of Sacred Work

   In case of fire, what things would you seek to save from the flames? I'm assuming that human life comes first. What comes next?
   For me, the Baby Book, whose cover appears above (with my nickname, "Chip" pasted on by my dad) would be at the top of the list of things to be saved. It was lovingly assembled by my mother and father in the mid 1940s.
   How do caregivers first experience Love? For me, one of the ways I felt loved was when I discovered that my parents had kept this record of the early years of my life. They gave this gift to each of their four children. Of course, I don't really know the baby and little boy that appears in these now-ancient pages except by scattered memories of things young senses captured. Although I know it's me in the photos, how can we know the one year-old that was once us?
   What caregivers often encounter are patients who are passing through some of the most critical moments of their lives. Caregivers meet patients who may be close to the end of their lives or right at its beginning.
   Because I worked close-by the caregivers at the hospitals I led, I sometimes attended births. In a few cases, I encountered mothers and fathers who were remarkably indifferent to the arrival of the new lives they spawned. Perhaps life had been hard on them. My guess is that it was difficult for them to pass along Love which they had not felt in their early lives.
   Objects are of no importance unless they connect us to Love's eternal stream. That is one of the things I experience as I turn the yellowed pages of my own baby book. I can feel my mother's love as she wrote, with her fountain pen, her record of her first son's first months. And I can feel the hand of my father as he clipped headlines of the day to paste in the book as if, somehow, his son was a part of the world news.
   What caregivers can do is to serve as pathways for Love's entry into the world. Because of the exquisite vulnerability of humans in pain, caregivers have a unique opportunity to heal by letting Love flow through them. This happens when caregivers are truly present to the need of the person before them.
   Who is it we call for when we are in pain? Is it not our mothers? And when mothers cannot be present, caregivers may fulfill this role by offering the kind of selfless love a mother gives.
   Whether or not you were fortunate enough to have parents who kept a record of your early years, you can seek to discover some key things in your life: How do you think you first experienced Love's gift? How did you learn of Love as you grew from baby to young child to adult? How do you pass on this gift of Love to the patients or fellow caregivers who fall within your touch each day and night?

-Erie Chapman

p.s. At left is a photo of two pages from my baby book that includes, at right, a lock of my hair, preserved as if I was some kind of rock star. Perhaps, for my parents, I was. What a lucky baby I was.