Journal of Sacred Work

    Wherever Love arrives, that place becomes sacred. 

     There is no such thing as sacred space (or a healing hospital) without Love.

    Whenever Love enters a relationship it brings with it the blessing of the sacred. 

    Love thrives when it encounters a receiving soul (symbolized at left as the woman honors the entry of the clouded sun.)

   The first appreciation of Beauty was the signal event in our higher evolution and laid the groundwork for our worship of God's Love. 

   This recognition probably came when the first people enjoyed flowers not for any "use" but as an expression of Beauty.

   The same epiphany occured when the classic female form was perceived not only as sexual but as Beauty speaking the language of the spirit (photograph below.)

   Sex is appetite. Beauty is spiritual. When joined they express true marriage in this world.  

   Great art only appears when an artist allows Love to move through him or her. An image of a nude is sacred or profane based on whether Love is present in both the creation and in the heart of the viewer. 

   There is no justice without Love. Love's presence makes the delivery of justice sacred. 

   Places classified as sacred: churches, temples, mosques, hospitals, courtrooms, museums lose their sacredness when Love's entry is blocked. For Jesus the money-changers in the temple were interferring with God's presence. 

   God does not live in a "holy" structure. God lives in our hearts.

   An excessive focus on "money-changing" crowds out the sacred. Such an obsessive "transaction focus" converts hospitals to little more than brothels where "love" is faked in exchange for money.

   Both settings are obscene because in both such places humanity is degraded. 

   No place becomes sacred merely by its physical location. Any place where Love meets need becomes clothed with holiness.

   When a housekeeper enters a room to comfort a man in pain, that space immediately glows with the holy. When a nurse ignores policy to stroke the back of a dying three-day-old being that bassinet becomes sacred.

   What about flowers, sky, forest, and sea? Nature wears Love's raiment. We encounter this sacredness the moment we extend our hand to meet God's.

   If we want our work to matter, if we want to bring quality into our encounters, compassion must be present.

   Shallow thinking causes us to believe that we can sustain quality care without Love – that only we can bring skill. God is excluded from this way of thinking.

   It is Love that transforms everyday caregiving into healing encounters. Quality care programs are doomed to failure when they are grounded in fear and rely on rote performance. 

   Caregivers are not called to fix widgets but to meet human need. 

   Their charge is to allow God to create sacred space through them in every encounter, in every place, all the time.

-Reverend Erie Chapman

*Photographs:

1. Madrid, 2012

2. "Figure Study – Afternoon Light" – copyright dane dakota 2009