Journal of Sacred Work

"…one moment your life is a stone in you, and the next a star." – Rainer Maria Rilke

   I hit the "Print" button. Instead of arriving in the tray as a clear photo of tomatoes, a fork, and cucumbers, the photo ink slurps back and forth on the paper surface. I had loaded the wrong kind of paper. A "nice" picture turns from star to stone. Or is it the reverse?

   Our mistakes may contain stars. Because of this error I am learning to paint with photo ink. 

   Neuro-Intensive Care nurse Deadre Hall leans to wash the face of a local pastor who has suddenly landed in her care. "He got up this morning, headed off to work like he always does, and suddenly ends up in my hands," she says.  

   One minute, the minster's life is a star. In a split second, a stroke lands in his life like a stone.

   This is what hospital-based caregivers see every day – people whose lives, like an occluded moon, go from star to stone, or the other way around.

   Liz Krueger, M.D., receives triplets into her care in the Neonatal Intensive Care unit at Baptist Hospital. After she examines each infant, she exudes, "They're perfect, beautiful babies."  

   A veteran, she knows things could have been much different.  What could have been an "hour of lead" became a triple set of stars.  

   The possible arrival of trauma, including our own death, is a truth we know but want to deny. To accept its certainty could paralyze us – or release us into less fearful living.

   The recent life experience of my old high school girlfriend signals the way life can pivot at the pull of a switch – or the trigger of a gun. A librarian, Robin had enjoyed three decades of fulfilling marriage to a trial lawyer.

   "One night, shortly after dinner, I was sitting reading. Suddenly, I heard a terrible explosion from upstairs," she told me.  Her husband, depressed from decades of work as a public defender, had decided his life no longer mattered. 

   We all know these stories. In fact, we hear them every day. Often they strike very close to our hearts.

   We all live on the razor's edge. But, how does the prospect of sudden disaster affect us?

   I believe we need to love all out and leave the rest to Providence.

   At the moment when I face my own end, I don't want to wonder if I should have loved more. I want to live with all the passion Love can offer. For what is a star without light?

-Erie Chapman

p.s.  "Tomatoes, Fork, Cucumbers" – photo-ink print copyright Erie Chapman, 2011