Journal of Sacred Work

   "The union we all need with love, a golden wing from God's heart, just touched the ground, now step upon it with your brave sun-vows and help our eyes to dance." – Hafiz (written, here, without line breaks.)

   Scientifically-trained caregivers know how parts of our bodies regenerate, that after some period of time, most of our cells have replaced themselves. So our body renews itself across the years in ways not always easy to discern.

   But, what about our spirits? What is the nature of the change that occurs as we focus our lives on Love?

   The photograph portrays twin windows we see as in relationship. What of the connection of brick to brick and leaf to leaf? What is the bridge that connects you to another or you to me?

   God's Love comes to us on the "golden wing" that Hafiz describes. This wing can lift us to the highest level of the human state.  Or we may, of course, ignore this soul-saving opportunity.

   Love among us, Love as a pathway chosen between two people, appears as a decision that must be remade each day. Our physical cells regenerate with nourishment.  Worldly love requires a constant but different kind of nurturing. 

   The food of love comes as acts of love. Kindness and compassion lend sacredness to sexual encounters just as caring and sensitivity nurture the physical care we give to the sick. We yearn for love in the same way we desire the balance of full health.  

   The nature of our uncertainty along with occasional breaks in our self-esteem can cause us to doubt the love we have for each other. Patients chronically wonder if the nurse or doctor or therapist that enters their room really cares about them as a person or is just performing a task on their bodies.

   Curing can be accomplished with task work. Healing requires Love.

   Relationships can continue as transactions and may move mechanically for years. Meaningful relationships between partners require the continuous engagement of Love as well as the practice of one of Love's subsets, romance. 

   For Love to survive in caregiving, and for romance to survive in partnership, we need to climb onto God's golden wing. We cannot simply sit back, we must take courage to risk the flight that Love's journey requires.

   On the days when loving care has become exhausting. In the nights when romance seems to have lost its energy, we need to find the strength to endure.

   "We are people who need to love, because love is the soul's life," Hafiz writes in his poem, "The Stairway to Existence."

   Called or not called, Love is present. It is for us to know this truth, and to lift our scarred hearts and often tired souls into the arms that offer our only salvation.

   We need to trust the Love that lives beyond the sun. We need to trust each other by opening to this Love no matter what.

-Reverend Erie Chapman 

photograph – Twin Windows – copyright Erie Chapman 2011