Journal of Sacred Work

   "When you are that sick you fall into real hell. It's just you & God," she told me years ago.

   The torture of twin cancers had horse-whipped my dear friend Rhonda Swanson into an agonizing vortex only the empathetic appreciate. Hell's searing quicksands suck down each of us during some moments of existence.

   Who appears amid our most profound loneliness?

   Scripture records an under-appreciated day on the Christian calendar. Sandwiched between Good Friday & Easter, Holy Saturday marks the Harrowing of Hell when Jesus descended to save "the righteous." He was newly qualified to understand suffering.

   On the cross Jesus (correctly portrayed crucified naked) underwent physical agony & the profound isolation of God's abandonment. Freed from these pains and exquisitely mindful of them he descended to save "the righteous." 

   The story's power makes one wonder why it does not garner more attention. 

    Jesus visited a place caregivers see every day. Earth's hells are the asylums of the sick & wounded. There, caregivers descend to rescue us from our suffering. 

    Rhonda's faith in caregivers below & above brought cures to her body & healed her spirit. Today, instead of hiding from her time of torture she lets it enrich the compassion she offers others in the same hospital where once she lay dying.

   Rhonda Swanson lives love, not fear. She remembers what she wanted from others during her pain so she never asks intrusive questions or utters nonsense like, "I understand."

   Instead, she offers her quiet presence. And, sometimes, her tears. 

-Reverend Erie Chapman