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.

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Days 269-270 – Finding God in Ourselves – A Two-Part Meditation

September 28, 2009

"In order to find God in ourselves, we must stop looking at ourselves, stop checking and verifying ourselves in the mirror of our own futility, and be content to be in [God] and to do whatever [God] wills, according to our limitations…" – Rev. Thomas Merton (1915-1968) I.

When we hear that we are touched by the spark of the divine, that we are born in the image of God, it is natural for us to look within, to see what God's spirit may look like as it lives within us. For those of us, including caregivers, who constantly find ourselves falling short of our own standards, this kind of reflection can be perplexing. How could I have been born in the image of God when I have so many flaws?

Reverend Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk of the abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky, spent much of his life writing to us about his insights into the nature of God and how God finds expression in our lives.

We should evaluate our actions "not in light of our own illusions, but in the light of [God's] reality which is all around us in the things and people we live with," Merton wrote.

For caregivers, this suggests that the only way we might see God in ourselves is by how we see God in others and in "the things" of the earth.

God's Love lives not only in the "beautiful" people and in the "beautiful" things, but in every person and in all things.

Here is the challenge for Lovers: If God lives in all people and in all things, how do we find God in what what we think of as ugly and hateful? One pathway to answering this challenge may lie in how we minister to the "ugliest" people who come to us in need: the homeless person, the morbidly obese patient, and, perhaps hardest of all, the patient who is angry and depressed and shouts nothing but calumny at us.

II.

Seeing God in the "ugly," is a challenge modern artists present to us all the time. I once saw an exhibit of fine photographs by the great artist, Irving Penn (example, left.) The only subject in each photograph was cigarette butts. Presented through Penn's loving eye, I saw what I thought of as ugly become beautiful.

How can we see Love in a tyrant or a sadist? The only way I know how to answer this question is by suggesting that some people live their earthly existence in the fear-flooded shadows, more distant from God's light, and some live more clearly illuminated by Love.

It is the lens through which we look that determines beauty, helps us live Love and aids our worldly eyes in seeing Love's presence. When our vision is dominated by fear, ugliness and hate emerge all around. When our heart is informed by Love, we see Love – in all people and in all things.

How does Love color your life as a caregiver? How do the contents of your heart affect your view of the "ugly" around you?

-Erie Chapman

Posted in Meditations

7 responses to “Days 269-270 – Finding God in Ourselves – A Two-Part Meditation”

Dina Montalvo

September 28, 2009

Thank you for the reminder that I was created in the image of God. Inspite of my flaws. I can then see the image of God in others.

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Kurt Harlan

September 28, 2009

I just love how God’s plan is intertwined with my study and the people I worship with and work with. My study last night and this morning is Saint Paul’s attempt to help the Romans understand where to find God (Romans 10:8). He is near you, in your mouth (proclamation of our belief)and in your heart (our core belief). If we are all created in His image, then He has written Himself in our hearts. We then choose to believe that or not. I proclaim the Jesus is in me, God has written this on my heart and I believe in Him.

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Victoria Facey

September 28, 2009

I often wonder if questionable objects of creation are done so to confuse us. Often the undesirable color of an item (fabric, room, garden, etc.), or food dish becomes beautiful when paired with something else neutral. It’s as though we are tested on curiosity to peel back the obvious blight to see the treasure. I smile when I remember past popular songs about the “ugly woman” who was really beautiful and treasured (and were hits). And, the ugly cake that my grandmother knew was gorgeous on the inside. So, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

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-Anon

September 28, 2009

My brother really likes T Merton. I recently gave him a book of his writings. Thanks for the meditation. I am rereading all the Jane Roberts Seth books. They have always spoken the most directly to me. I had just read something in the chapter” Affirmation, Love Acceptance and Denial” along these lines. ” Many people who consider themselves truth seekers and spiritual are filled with false humility. They often use religious terms to express themselves. They will say,” I am nothing,but the spirit of God moves through me, and if I do any good it is because of God’s spirit not my own,” He goes on to say–“Now: In those terms you Are the power of God manifested. You are not powerless. To the contrary. Through your being the power of God is strengthened, for you are a portion of what He is. You are not an innocuous lump of clay through which He decides to show Himself. You are He manifesting as you.”
“You are He manifesting as you” now I like that!!!!

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~liz Wessel

September 28, 2009

Yesterday, I listened to an interview with Rabbi Sharon Brous on NPR’s Speaking of Faith. Rabbi Brous recalled those wooden stacking dolls that you open only to find another inside, and another, and another, until you reach the inner core, and the littlest doll looks a lot less like the outer dolls. She made the analogy of the inner doll as our inner essence of Light. This Light may be deeply hidden and almost forgotten within us, but as you say, it is always present. This is why I believe the inner journey is so important; to reconnect with that Holy presence and experience communion when we are in quiet stillness, to listen Love’s guiding whisper.
Yet too often, we wage a battle of wills between our ego’s desire to be the author life and the gift of Creation, in a cycle of endless suffering. We resist acceptance of God’s unconditional Love for us, which is beyond appearances, beyond polarities, beyond all form… because we fear surrendering means loss, rather than abundance.
I can look beyond most people’s flaws to see their goodness but what challenges me is how to love someone who perpetrates unspeakable crimes. Especially, how do I forgive unthinkable acts of hate and violence? To love someone who has committed such evil-well, surely, I fear them. Perhaps, that is because if I look too closely I might discover the horror of the same potential within me. Maybe that is it…I hate their crime but beneath all the loathing and warped perceptions is still God’s Light. Then it becomes, for me, an act of forgiveness and that is the beginning of all healing.
This brings me to my last point. I believe our thoughts are the seeds that become our reality. These are important questions that you ask of us, Erie. Thich Nhat Hahn teaches the importance of watering the good seeds within us, which will bear good fruit and good deeds.
To heal begins within and then expands outwards to help others heal and with increasing awareness we can begin to help heal our world.

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Yvonne Ginez-Gonzales

September 28, 2009

Are the flaws we believe we experience and/or see, just feelings and/or reflections of just part of human beingness??

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Julie Laverdiere

September 29, 2009

I read something amny years ago, which has always held true. Inside he person is a soul, waiting to be spoken to in a soft voice, and longs to conncect to that person who is speaking. I try to look deep inside first, then get the person somehow to smile, and then I see the soul. It isn’t always possible, but I do have success on a regular basis.
Bleesings

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