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 65-69 – Are Hospitals “Churches”?

March 5, 2017

As a child, did you ever wonder if God lived at your church or temple? Ministers & rabbis certainly imply that if you want to sidle up to God then you better listen to their sermons.

The "sanctuary" pictured doubles the same giant Banyan & adds a pair of stained glass windows that I transposed from a Catholic Church. Ironically, the tree in this invented image grows at the summer home of America's most famous inventor, Thomas Edison.

Edison's interest in the trees was not in their beauty but in whether these plants could be a source of rubber. I see these trees as sanctuaries.

That is how I viewed the hospitals I oversaw during forty years as a healthcare CEO. "There is no way that medical care can be limited to the body and be good medicine," Professor Stanley Hauerwas wrote in 1986.

Medicine trains caregivers to know "how to be present to those in pain," Hauerwas contends. Therefore, caregivers need "something very much like a church…to sustain that presence day in and day out."

Healing beyond curing requires tools beyond pills & scalpels. Healing thrives when caregivers treat the hospitals in which they practice their art as religiously as they would their places of worship.

-Reverend Erie Chapman

Photograph, "Double Stained #5," by Erie

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5 responses to “Days 65-69 – Are Hospitals “Churches”?”

Terry Chapman

March 6, 2017

Well said! When I directed volunteer programs, in VA hospitals in New York and in Missouri in the 1970’s, I realized, early on, how essential volunteers were to providing high quality care.
Local volunteers, who had driven many miles to help out, brought with them, the fresh air, into the often dreary confines of the wards. They also brought smiles, treats, and positive attitudes!
The veterans, especially those with spinal cord injuries, that would keep them there for months, not days, eagerly awaited their volunteer friends, and would ask me, “when will they come back?”. And return, they did, by the several hundreds–some to serve coffee; some to offer conversation and news from outside; and still others, to offer escort from place to place.
What they actually offered, was themselves: their energy, their affection, their sense of humor, and their vivid sense of humanity and love for another!
With loving care from them and of course, from MD’s and all staff, including the often neglected housekeeping folks, we can extend sanctuary comfort and hope to many millions, world-wide, who endure difficult, lonely recoveries!

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~liz Wessel

March 7, 2017

The image you created is gorgeous and you message so helpful a reminder. The beautiful concept of the Touchcard that you introduced to healthcare comes to mind. The mission statement of the Institute of Human Caring is, “Know me, care for me, ease my way.” That truly resonates.
Sanctuary is in the present moment, “whenever a need is met with a loving response.” Thank you, Erie for the many ways in which you call to us to remember what really matters.

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Lynn

March 8, 2017

Beautiful, Erie. May our hearts become sanctuaries.

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Todd Meador

March 8, 2017

Interesting piece Erie.
It seems like some people are consciously trying to separate religion from healthcare (and other industries), but the process of healing can and should be from a place of love, caring and intention. These happen to be the core principles of most religions.
Medical staff are being conditioned to “check the box” and adhere to strict protocols, but are not encouraged to care and love. In fact, when they care many hospital cultures reprimand them for doing so. Without a culture of caring, they are conditioned to “not care”. Their purpose, calling and life mission can slowly fade away until one day they ask themselves – What am I doing? How did I allow myself to get this way. Is this as good as it gets?
“Healing thrives when caregivers treat the hospitals in which they practice their art as religiously as they would their places of worship.”

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Jolyon

March 10, 2017

A hospital is supposed to be a sanctuary, a place of safety. Lately it is becoming more church-like in its institutionalizing. The orders come down from on high and from far away. The orders do not have anything to do with the local church or its parishioners but the forms must be filled out, the money collected and the feedback be positive or else another priest will be sent that does follow the order. Lately, as all medicine merges, individuality, locality and listening are considered baggage to profits.
Your fifth paragraph starts with medicine trains… I thought you were going to keep on writing about how staff feels like they are being railroaded into a corner and are in need of sanctuary. The irony of needing sanctuary from a sanctuary in a sanctuary.
I agree, “Know me, care for me, ease my way.” A guidepost to sanctuary.

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