Journal of Sacred Work

   We all want Love.

   Here's good news we sometimes forget. Love is free!

   Imagine. The most important energy in the world is completely without "cost." Let's all have some.

   Every hospital leader, every doctor, and every first line nurse (or other caregiver) always affirms, when asked, their sincere belief in Love. I have never had anyone tell me that there is anything more important. 

   So why don't we all live Love?  

   It is because Love is free but not cheap. And it is a rare person that is willing to pay the price. Every image of Christ's passion, or of anyone who has suffered to live Love, suggests a sacrifice most are unwilling to endure.

   What Love "costs" is revealed when staff members discover one big thing: living Love means replacing many old patterns of thought and action and enriching new ones. Whatever fear and indifference caregivers may be feeling needs to fall away in the presence of renewed Love.

   Pattern change is painful and "costly." That is why most caregivers and their leaders prefer the status quo. 

   Holy Cross, a wonderful hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Florida employs hundreds of committed caregivers. When I spoke there about Radical Loving Care, I could hear and see this wonderful dedication in both the voices and actions of the staff, board members, and physicians I encountered.

   I could also see doubt and worry in the eyes of some. Do I really have to deepen my practice of loving care? How will I do that? Will my boss truly support me?

   Sometimes, one of the biggest obstacles to progress is not caregiver unwillingness, but the reluctance of supervisors to support new and richer behaviors. The best practices of loving care can make current behavior look bad. That is why top leadership needs to demonstrate whole-hearted support as the hospital culture sails the rough-water voyage to a new level of excellence.   

   Years back, a hospital in Kentucky began the Radical Loving Care journey. Training was offered and everyone endorsed the initiative to deepen Love's commands: to give healthcare more competently, consistently and compassionately.

   A few months into the effort, the head of Human Resources called me. "Erie," she said, "we're going to have to suspend that Radical Loving Care program. We're going to be doing layoffs."

   "Why would you suspend loving care when it's needed most?" I asked.

   "Because people won't think it's very loving to cut their jobs," she answered.

   "Do you have a teenager?" I asked. She said that she did, a daughter.

   "If your daughter asked you if she could stay out all night, would you let her?" Naturally, she said no.

   "What if your teenager complained, 'If you Loved me, you'd let me do what I want?"

   "I know she'd be mad, but I would tell her only a mother who didn't care would let her stay out all night."

   "So it's hard to make a loving decision?"

   "This is about work, not teenagers," she told me.

   I asked her why they were doing layoffs. "We need to do this to be good stewards of our funds," she instructed me.

   "Is stewardship a part of Love?" I asked. She agreed that it was, but she remained uneasy.  

   I talked with her about ways to let people go that were respectful & loving as opposed to insensitive and inconsiderate. She was worried that the terminated employees would be angry at her.

   "The goal is excellence, not popularity," I said as gently as possible. "What's 'easy' is to hire security guards, send out layoff notices, and hide from employees so you don't have to face them. Is that the kind of leadership you want to have?  

   Love is free, but not cheap. The practice of Love requires discipline, training, and a "tough mind" as well as a "tender heart," to quote Martin Luther King, Jr. Love requires hard decisions and taking responsibility for the consequences.

   Love is not limited to kind touches and sweet words. As the character of Cole Porter says in the 2004 movie "De-Lovely,""Nothing comes easy, and when it does, it's lousy."    

   What does Love cost? The great theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, wrote eloquently about what he called "cheap grace" - the expectation that grace will come without sacrifice and dedication. Grace, an expression of Love, never comes easily, he said. It requires the most difficult commitment of our lives.

   Bonhoeffer was a man of his word. He was executed by the Nazis during World War II because he refused to turn his back on God. 

   Most worldly energy pulls us away from God's Love. That is why it is so difficult, and so "expensive" to live Love. That is why so few are willing to pay the "price" Love asks. Yet, the greatest energy that flows through the world comes when we sacrifice to help others – when we live Love, not fear.

-Rev. Erie Chapman, J.D.

*Image of Christ on the Cross – artist unknown