Note: Reflection shared by Liz Sorensen Wessel. A blank page, an empty space and then a burst of creativity as the Journal of Sacred Work exploded in a world of color. On June 7, 2006, Erie Chapman penned his first enchanting lines, as gray pinked in new life, stirring imaginations and enlivening the hearts, minds and spirits of caregivers far and wide.
This extraordinary human being breathed life into these pages for the purpose of extending "Streams of God's Love & light into the hard, joyous & often heartbreaking world of caregivers – to offer comfort & encouragement to caregivers as they open their hearts every day to people in need." (Erie Chapman).
Erie has opened new portals for caregivers to experience our work through the sacred lens of Love. He has challenged our assumptions and encouraged us to stretch beyond the expectations of others to discover our own inner truth and to find a deeper meaning in our work and relationships.
To celebrate, here is Erie's first gifting to us when he shared this peace filled image of William Turner's 1843 watercolor, "The Lake of Zug – Early Morning" and this exquisite prose/poem, Erie wrote serving as the loveliest companion for us.
Turner’s Lake
Outside my office window three tree branches dance above bunches of nervous cars driven by blank-faces waiting for red to go green, for tires to turn, for the radio to play the next song.
I close my eyes, open my heart’s door. It’s time to visit the Alpine lake Turner watercolored in 1843’s summer, to watch how the elbow of the blue mountain blocks the sun’s effort to define itself, to notice the fine haze draping the lake below.
In the left distance, two men boat. In the right foreground, children rock-scramble. In the lower left, two inch-high women thigh-deep the lake, wash clothes they aren’t wearing, sun their skin.
Maybe today, in a nearby hospice, a caregiver will take her patient’s hand, listen to his pictures, pour out a blue lake, arrange some rocks around it & spread out the sun for him as he lies dying beside her.
Turner's mountain peaks will pierce the sky, his painted children will play on the paper they have occupied for 173 years
& the two men will sway in a wooden boat that will never reach the shore.
May you experience streams of light as these words & this image pass before you.
-Erie Chapman
Erie, thank you for the streams of light that you have so generously poured out to inform our lives with Beauty and in doing so, have changed us forever.
Liz Sorensen Wessel
Journal of Sacred Work 
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