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 10-12 – The Beauty of Our True Identity

January 10, 2011

What is the "identity" of this orchid I photographed? Is it her stem, her flowers, her shadow smeared on the wall by the sun's window-bent journey? Or does the identity of this flower lie deeper?

During the first quarter-century of my career, I thought of myself first as a husband and father, and then as a lawyer and later a hospital CEO. Perhaps, the reverse was more accurate. I was my career.

Raised in the 1950s, to be "the bread winner" when I grew up, I could only think of myself as being my job. My identity was conferred on me by my occupation, not by my heart or soul.

I discovered how mistaken my "identity" image was in 1995 when, after a dozen years as President and CEO of Ohio's largest hospital and founding president of OhioHealth System, I was replaced.

"You've done a great job," the board chair told me, "but the time has come for a change." Since both the hospital and the health system I ran were booming, this was confusing. It was as if I were an elected official that, at twelve years, had hit some kind of term limit.

For months I could not get the answer to who I really was. I had been a trial lawyer for seven years and by 1995 had been a CEO for nearly twenty more years. Now, out of a job, who was I?

This is the truth that returned to me when I read Liz Wessel's quote from John O'Donohue in the weekend edition of the Journal. He speaks to us as caregivers:

“Your identity is not equivalent to your biography. There is a place in you where you have never been wounded, where there's still a sureness in you, where there's a seamlessness in you, and where there is a confidence and tranquility in you. I think the intention of …. love is now and again to visit that inner kind of sanctuary.”

It is in this sanctuary that our true identity lies. Thank God for this.

Our worldly identity arises through our personality and the pathway we take across this earth. Naturally, our quotidian existence shapes who we and others think we are.

We may fall for the definition applied by others. When we do so, we become vulnerable to the praise or blame of the world.

When I lost that job in 1995, it felt like a murder because I was my job. When I moved into my next job with a public company, I still mourned the loss of my work in hospitals. When I regained a hospital CEO role, as President of Nashville's Baptist Hospital System in 1998, I first felt a surge of rebirth. My favorite identity had been restored!

Then I remembered the old trap. The only way we can truly live free and true is by defining ourselves as human – as children of God's Love. This is the real beauty of our identity.

This is why I love the greeting"Namaste" -The spirit in me greats the spirit in you. It is not the CEO in me greeting the nurse in you. It is not the doctor in you greeting the patient in me. It is our souls rejoicing at greeting the real beauty in each other – our truest identity.

-Erie Chapman

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9 responses to “Days 10-12 – The Beauty of Our True Identity”

~liz Wessel

January 10, 2011

Thank you for sharing such a poignant life experience, Erie (frankly, I don’t understand that decision either.) Yet, I do grasp the wisdom gleaned from your life lesson. I appreciate your point that when we look outside ourselves for truth we become vulnerable to the judgments of others, be it praise or criticism. Truly, your message today is a profoundly beautiful one. Namaste, for when the spirit in you, meets the spirit in me, there we are One.
P.S. Fascinating image of delicate stillness amid a swift current of light.

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Victoria Facey

January 10, 2011

I have been searching for my identity my whole life; I was always compared to a sister who was born a few minutes after me. And, who says “I wish I had a twin”…? To be mistaken for the other one and not seen as an individual sometimes was very challenging. Strike One.
In my adults years, I have enjoyed being part of a larger workforce collective, especially when their goal is for the good of all people, regardless of faith or income. What great Team Effort!
On a personal level, I still search for the balance when finding my identity. So, I decided to look for myself in those I care for. Sometimes it’s not easy because I can pick some “doozies”. However, for those who accept me for myself and walk the path with me, I am their humble servant.
Erie, thank you for the reality check of being “A Child of God”; that’s all I really need to know…

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candace nagle

January 10, 2011

I have struggled with feeling that people define me by my profession, with a varietal hodgepodge of ideas of what it means that I am. It sets up expectations for me to be a certain way…that I really am not. What we each do is so much more complex than any definition could encompass. We are indefinable beings. The tension between a loyalty to a role we play and the ever present need to grow and change is certainly a challenge! Namaste

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Marily

January 11, 2011

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder as to living free could be as a sacrificial lamb. Being in the world but not of this world and knowing that we are children of God is all that matters. In our daily challenges we can be confident that we are on the right track no matter what. Our truest beauty always lies deep of which He alone can make known. In this inner kind of sanctuary where we are at peace may we dwell as He searches our hearts.

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ann kaiser

January 11, 2011

How can we KNOW our identity because..our identity is always changing, evolving…never finished. I like the quote the Sister’s of St Joseph placed on a card… writtten by T.S.Elliot…… ” It’s never too late to be what you might have been”. It brings hope and comfort for those, I beleive that strive to change their path or direction. For many of us this is a daily occurance as we manuver throughout our daily challenges.

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Maria Doglio

January 11, 2011

Erie, I came across this quote today and add it here in response to the deep sense of loss you felt in loosing certain jobs: “There will come a time when you think everything is finished. That will be the beginning.” Louis L’Amour
Also, we certainly can apply this to the times of change we live in as a grounding. I think we are always beginning. We wake up each day changed by our experiences the day before in a small or big way. Each new day is a blank canvas filled with potential. We are are own creative artists of our identity. How we see ourselves is constantly being influenced by our own perception and those of others. It seems to me that you were given an opportunity to find yourself in a bigger way and in the process opened up the identity of who you are to us all in this beautiful Journal of sharing. The identity of your Big Heart is available to all. Keep shining your Light.

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Karen York

January 11, 2011

Thank you Erie and Liz for bringing O’Donohue’s amazing insight to the journal…
“There is a place in you where you have never been wounded, where there’s still a sureness in you, where there’s a seamlessness in you, and where there is a confidence and tranquility in you.”
Thank you…

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~liz Wessel

January 12, 2011

Our identity is often defined by where we draw the line in the sand in what we accept (or don’t) about others,which accentuates our differences. This seems to lead toward non-acceptance of others creating polarization, mistaken assumptions, objectifying, and categorizing groups of people in unkind ways. If we focus on our common humanity rather than “I’m right, your wrong” we might be able to move beyond isolation and paralysis to begin to find solutions to our global conflicts and challenges. How can we embrace our diversity as not a threat but as a necessity? In a healthy ecosystem the human body (microcosm) and earth (macrocosm) differing parts make up the whole. We can create an alive and vibrant community when our identity evolves towards accepting the interconnected relationships we have with one another and that are necessary for life to flourish. If we did not have diversity where would life be?

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erie chapman

January 12, 2011

Thank you Liz, Maria, Karen, Marily, Candace, Victoria and Ann. I am very grateful for your kind comments and for the “conversation” about identity we have shared over these first three days of the week. – Erie

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