Today's meditation was written by Cathy Self, Senior Vice President for the Baptist Healing Trust.
Three decades ago, Dr. Jerome Groopman began his journey to understand the power of hope. As a hematologist and oncologist Dr. Groopman, by his own admission, failed to consider the impact of hope on his patients' wellness and illness. Like so many of us, it took a very personal experience to awaken within him the possibility that hope matters. He discovered that something indescribable by scientific norms can and does exert a potent and palpable effect. What Dr. Groopman discovered was an "authentic biology of hope." Hope changes us profoundly in spirit and in body.
As I walk through the hallways in many of our places of health caring I have to look closely to find hope in the eyes of caregivers. For many the fear is palpable – will we survive the economic threats, will the next wave of change overtake us? Eyes are clouded where fear lives, souls cannot conceive of light under fear's shadow. Like Dr. Groopman's admitted discounting of the impact of hope on his patient's health, so many of our leaders fail to consider the impact of hope in the health and wellbeing of caregivers.
In speaking of his patients' musings linking emotions and maladies, Dr. Groopman writes: "For years I diverted and dismissed their inquiries because I did not know how to answer." Perhaps that is true also for those in leadership – corporate vision has been too long focused on the metric, sight for the unseeable too long ignored. Dr. Groopman eventually turned his eyes, and ears, and heart to a truth that has begun to emerge from the pages of science as well as in the beat of the soul – hope lives at the very heart of healing. "For those who have hope," writes Dr. Groopman, "it may help some to live longer, and it will help all to live better." How do we offer hope, not only to our patients and clients who seek our compassionate care, but also for for each other, for ourselves in these days of uncertainty and change? Where does your hope live? How does Love give you hope?
Journal of Sacred Work 