Journal of Sacred Work

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives." - John 14:27 (NRSV)

   Jesus came to be called the Prince of Peace. His life and words help us understand that peace is not purely a matter of silence and comfort. The world brings us the horror of war and the noise of conflict. In all of this, we yearn for peace. Yet, Jesus tells us we achieve peace by transcending the world. 

   As we live our worldly journey, we find peace through turning our hearts to God's Love. For many of us, this peace may be fleeting, occasionally drowned out by the shouts of life. Yet, those who are the strongest among us have found and settled upon the peace of God. What does this mean to caregivers?

   Through Jesus we discover a sacred mystery described as, "The peace that passes all understanding." What is this peace? How can we achieve it if it "passes all understanding?"  

   This peace can be found. But, not through any intellectual exercise. Instead, caregivers who choose the path of Love will periodically discover the energy of peace as they go about serving others.  

   If we reflect on the life of Jesus, we will see that he is, of course, the model for all seven of Love's energies. Regardless of our faith, Jesus' life and teachings offer a supreme path to understanding the great strength Love offers – and how hard it is for us to live Love in our life as caregivers.

   God's Love is all inclusive. We can all learn from Christ's example.  

   Peace is not found solely through prayer or by sitting in a meditative position beside a quiet brook. It can, of course, be found amid great noise and confusion.

   As Roman soldiers and officials ridiculed and tortured him, Jesus expressed a sense of serenity. This is because his level of faith and inner peace was complete.

   This is the example Mother Theresa followed and it is what those nearby saw in her face as she cared for the dying in the slums of Calcutta. It is also the peace and dignity we saw on the face of Martin Luther King as crowds spit on him and screamed racial epithets and the police aimed fire hoses at him. 

   And it what we see on the faces of loving caregivers – compassion in the presence of anger, skill in the face of rudeness, Love in the presence of hateful behavior.   

  Does this mean we are called to act superhuman? Jesus occupied a human body. We know this because he suffered so profoundly that even he cried out to God from the cross, "Why hast thou forsaken me?"

   Perhaps, this deeply human expression has come from our mouths as well. In the midst of our faith, in the midst of thinking we have found the strength and energy of inner peace, something terrible happens in our lives. A patient we thought would live dies suddenly. A child is killed in an accident. A husband betrays his wife (or vice versa.) A diagnosis of cancer arrives in our ears.

   At times like these, serenity abandons us and we cry out like Christ: "Oh God, why have you forsaken me?"

   Whenever I hear someone say this, as many family members did after 9/11, I can't help but ask why these individuals somehow think they would be exempt from life's assaults. None of us are.

   We have all received plenty of bad news. If we live long enough, we will receive more. If we are able to think more clearly about God as Love, our self-focused questions may fade.

   Tragedy strikes so many every day. God's Love is always there for us no matter what happens.

   For everyone, including caregivers, peace does not live in our hearts as an impenetrable shield. Instead, there are many moments when we may feel it deserting us.

   It is the other way around. Peace lives like Love. It is always present.

   Peace doesn't run from us. In our panic, we run from it. We search desperately for something else to grab onto forgetting that the energy of Love's peace is our only salvation. 

  When we have found true grounding in Love, when we have discovered and engaged all of Love's energy, we will learn the pathway out of trouble and back into our own inner peace.

   Caregivers train themselves to be professional. They learn to express calm in the middle of bloody surgeries in the operating room, mangled limbs in the ER, and sudden death.

   Outward calm is not the same as inner peace. Professionalism appears on the outside based on our training and the instructions from our minds. But the energy of peace flows deeper than our minds and lives as spiritual strength. True professionals, the best caregivers, have found this kind of peace within.

   Caregivers who have found the seventh energy of Love may seem different to us. For example, their cool professional mask softens when needed, allowing them to cry and laugh with their patients.

   I have seen this kind of radical presence in two of the finest and most Loving doctors I know. Dr. Liz Krueger writes about laughing, crying, and praying alongside the parents of babies in the Neonatal Intensive Care unit. Dr. Keith Hagan offers the same gifts when he sits with adult patients distraught over a diagnosis of cancer.

   Cool professionals may not understand this as Love's energy. But, it is. It exists as the best kind of professionalism. The best caregivers I know have allowed Love to inform them what the patient needs, not what they want.

   Peace offers strength. So long as it occupies our human spirit, we will experience a serenity that only Love can bring to us.

   Caregivers sometimes find this in their sacred encounters with patients. Often, it is patients who teach us about peace, not the other way around.

   Gratitude helps us enrich our sense of peace. Resentment, bitterness, anger, all push peace away becase these feelings arise from fear.

   Inner peace, the kind that "passes all understanding" is not something that can be taught in a classroom, Instead, we change first by raising our awareness of this most powerful of all energies of Love.  Second, we accept that this peace is available to us. Third, we picture a new way in our lives - a way in which we first see ourselves as living lives of peace and Love. Finally,we practice this energy of Love.

   The process does not have an end point. Instead, Love is always present. The energy of peace simultaneously opens our hearts and steadies our hands  - especially during the most trying times. As we discover peace in the midst of chaos, we learn that peace can provide us with Love's strength at all times.

   The peace I have described may seem to be something beyond our reach. Backward steps are certain. So long as our journey to Love continues, we will find that peace is already entering our hearts – there to stay so long as we nurture it. There to return after we may have lost our sense of it during some period of panic or fatigue.

   Jesus freed himself from all fear. He did this not by banishing fear, but by expressing Love. His life and teachings offers this example to us all.

-Rev. Erie Chapman .