Journal of Sacred Work

"I want to free what waits within me/ so that what no one has dared to wish for/ may for once spring clear/ without my contriving." -Rainer Maria Rilke

   Perhaps the most significant aspect of caregiving appear to us as a divine mystery. Because God is always present, we have the chance to experience this kind of mystery without understanding it in an academic way.

   Radical Loving Care is difficult to communicate because it's highest form truly lives beyond our analysis. Nevertheless, when we experience it, we often try to explain the inexplicable.

   The goal of this work is to bring us into the presence of God's Love so that we may be more healing to others. As we do this, we may engage the mystery of God's grace in helping others in ways that may surprise us.

   Every caregiver knows of the experience of a patient who seems to improve in ways that science cannot explain. Radical Loving Care exceeds even these events. For healing may occur in the absence of curing.

   Still, it is important to recall that Jesus came to save our souls, not our bodies. His grace was so great, of course, that he could not help healing bodies as well.

   Patients (and caregivers) may feel a sense of grace even as treatment fails and a patient becomes terminal. Caregivers who give up when cure fails are stopping their journey before it is complete. Caregivers who continue to walk beside terminal patients as long as possible draw even closer to the experience of the Divine.

   As I have mentioned, encounters with the Divine are outside our understanding. Why, then even address them?

   In Radical Loving Care, it is crucial to recognize and appreciate experiences that exceed our understanding. The Divine mystery reminds us that we, as humans, lack God's power. At best, we, as children of Love, become vehicles of Love, not creators of this energy.

   Appreciation and understanding of the three commandments of Love, the four relationships, and the seven energies does not lead us to a rote prescription. Instead, the practice and engagement of these energies allows us, as God's children, to do the most we can with the positive energies that flow through the world.

   As we engage the power of Radical Loving Care, we come to know that we are listening to the highest level of our calling. In so doing, Love flows through us, through the patients we care for, and through those with whom we work.

   True Lovers, both the famous mentioned herein, and the saints among us, often seem to occupy some other, higher consciousness. This is because they feel the presence of the Divine as something beyond themselves. Their work becomes sacred; their mission, holy. In the midst of all of this, they know not to take themselves too seriously because it is not they who have become holy. It is the light traveling through.

   Our engagement and marriage to Radical Loving Care allows us to live what Rilke describes – "to free what waits within" us. It is Love which waits within. It is the practice of loving care which frees this energy "without our contriving."

   We now know, if it wasn't already clear, that the best caregivers approach their calling as a spiritual experience. This is the energy, wisdom and grace that comes from living Love through Radical Loving Care. It is the understanding of the insight of poet Emily Dickinson: "That Love is all there is/ Is all we know of love."

   I am often asked by hospital and hospice leaders how to do Radical Loving Care so a regular hospital or hospice can be transformed into a healing hospital or hospice. My book, Sacred Work, describes some steps.

   But, the path to a Healing Hospital through Radical Loving Care has so much more to do with a change of heart than a "to-do" list. When our hearts change, the steps to execute change become more and more clear.

   I once heard the late, great, Norman Cousins (author of the book, Anatomy of an Illness) deliver a speech. His last line to us was, "We're all so much stronger than we think we are."

   Whenever we follow Love's path, we achieve something even greater than strength. We touch the hem of God.

-Rev. Erie Chapman