Journal of Sacred Work

  It's a hard truth for me to face. I am often better at living Love in work settings than I am at home. During my years of running hospitals, I worked hard to provide a loving example to the thousands of employee partners I was privileged to lead.

  Upon arriving home, sometimes exhausted and still on edge from work, I would be startled at my own irritability and impatience. Obviously, I wasn't the CEO at home and couldn't direct operations through a phalanx of vice presidents and directors.

   Fortunately for me, I was and am blessed with a caring wife who has stuck with me for forty-three years. We have two marvelous children and each of them has children. Somehow, all of them have survived even in circumstances where I did not always live the Love I so often preach about.  

   I've spoken with many caregivers who struggle with this kind of challenge. At the end of a twelve hour shift, many nurses and housekeepers go home to a place where they are also the primary caregiver for small children and sometimes for aging parents. Obviously, this can place a terrific amount of pressure on already tired mothers and fathers.

  All of this points up the terrific importance of self-care. One nurse told me that she has a five-minute self care practice that has helped her enormously. Her family knows that as soon as she arrives home from work, she needs five minutes alone to rest, pray and prepare herself to join her husband and children.

   So many people tell me they don't have time for self care. How hard can it be to find five minutes once or twice a day? In this five minutes, the goal is not to review to-do lists. The best five minute relaxation involves closing your eyes and listening to your breathing. Let everything else go by focusing on the magic and rhythm of your breath.

   It's hard for God to be present when we're caught in the middle of noise – noise from the radio or televion or i-pod or computer; noise from the lists running through our heads and the noise of worries about whether we have done everything we need to do. Five minutes of quiet, focusing on breathing, can do wonders in helping us open our hearts to God's Love.

   Do you think five minutes a day would help you? Can you find that five minutes of quiet? What if you thought that five minutes would, indeed, help your heart make way for the presence of God – at home as well as at work?

   Called or not called, Love is present. Are we present to Love?

-Erie Chapman