Rhythm & Respiration

Happy Advent!

2011-12-10T15:52:00.001-08:00

Christmas, 2011

Peace enters.

No need to turn and look toward the stable door--
my boneshear the soft semi-sound of a sigh.

Breathe deep: peace is fragrant with hope borne on the warmwind of resilience.

Peace is a cedar sapling in a world of chain saws: fragileand relentless as a kiss.

You are Prince ofPeace.

Love dances on dew,

across meadows shorn by sheep,

tripping star to star, trailing a rime of silver;

transmuting dross.

Caught cold in its naked gleam, I see

essential light forged in a star, delivered by an angel,flaring forth in a heavenly host.

Love is a straight arrow in a crooked world, eternally reborn.

You are Love.

Joy radiates, flows like lava;

juicy soul-chuckles belly deep from dark depths.

Joy erupts without regard for rank or restraint,

winds its way through straw, sand, and stunning sorrow.

Joy is an uncovered window; the unshuttering of a sunbeam.

You are the Son.

Even here, fixed in the resin, Made-in-China, dollar store crèche

a gleam of holy love persists; a tiny flame licking theedges of my soul.

Joy laughs, the Son shines, and Peace is at the door.

Here is Christmas born of earth, air, fire, and water.

Here is the Christ Child born of spirit, flesh, and bone.

The Dove hovers yet again for us, beak rich with Heaven’sGift.

Rise up, and receive.

Merry Christmas!

from Faith & Vincent

Practicing authenticity

2011-10-27T07:07:00.000-07:00

I am in awe of so many of my colleagues, practicing nurses who gift their skills, heart, and energy to patients. Their practice of caritas is far beyond the monetary exchange for which they are contracted as RN or NP.

One of these nurses, a new RN, Facebooked a comment on her day and it was so powerful a statement to me that I asked her for permission to share it. I sent this 'Midweek Encouragement' out to my student nurses, and am sharing it here, by permission of Grace who also provided a gentle encouragement for me to update my blog! (Thank you!)

Psalms

Chapter 13

How long must I carry sorrow in my soul, grief in my heart day after day?

How long will my enemy triumph over me?

Look upon me, answer me, LORD, my God!

Give light to my eyes lest I sleep in death,

Lest my enemy say, "I have prevailed," lest my foes rejoice at my downfall.

So many times we think that a smile must be on our face in order for us to demonstrate that we are ‘victorious’ Christians. However, God is not impressed by our ability to look happy even when our hearts are breaking. As nurses, we strive to be professional and upbeat, not to let our personal pain show through to our patients and in the workplace. This is well and good! To be a professional nurse, we recognize that we are there first and foremost to do our job as nurses, not air our private miseries! However, as nurses, often in our professional work grief is the honest and authentic place to be. This often feels problematic for nurses of faith, because we understand the spiritual dimension that is at the heart’s gate, the center point of the person and very much tied in with emotions.

The following was written by a TWU nursing grad. I asked her for permission to share this because I think it shows that being authentic and being professional is possible! I also think it demonstrates how God uses our honesty and redeems our grief.

God's immeasurable love for me inspires me to love and care for my patients as He does for me every day. Each day, I hope that my patients experience God's love and that my care for them is adequate. Today is just one of those days when I question myself - am I doing enough for them? My emotions for one of my patients who passed away affected my care for the rest of my patients. Tears started falling as I was feeding another patient. This patient, who has severe dementia and is non-verbal, started tearing too. What I learned today is emotions are also gifts from God and break through any barriers between humans and also between God and His creations (Grace, TWU Nursing Grad, 2010)

Thank you, Grace, for sharing this moment with us! How amazing that our Redeemer can create a bridge between souls out of tears.

Blessings on the rest of your week, nurses!

Nursing journal

2011-02-27T12:43:00.000-08:00

Student nurses often think that it is only a mandated 'student' thing to journal their nursing experiences; that journals are simply something to be endured through their student years. They might be surprised at how many nurses journal to reflect on practice, to make meaning out of complexity and suffering, and to honor moments of precious engagement with persons, and learning from patients. I found directive journaling a chore, when I was a student, but free journaling very helpful--although I'm sure I drove some of my instructors crazy if they weren't into poetry and drama! I'd like to share some of my early journal work here, partly as a way of affirming to student nurses that it is a good thing to reflect from your soul, heart, and intellect, as it helps to keep you authentic and forms who you will be as a nurse. And, ultimately, I would like to share these to honor my patients who taught me so many life lessons about caring, being a care giver, and becoming a person.

Words are like fish, he told me (Geriatric Assessment Unit, Vancouver)

Words are like fish, he told me.
Some days he sat on the bank all day, patient,
casting perfect arcs of wind-drift sound over baby blue water and not one bite.
Some days fish swarmed up and over the sides of his craft and,
damn-it-all-to-hell,
do you think he could grab one of the slippery buggers as they,
nose-to-tail,
sailed on by?
Hey, he told me, eyes bright with sudden knowing,
words are like fish--slick as paint,
they'll slide right past you,
but catch 'em when you can, 'cause, in spite of the bones,
there's nothing like a mouthful.

Bathing Mrs. F. (Geriatric Assessment Unit, Vancouver)

"Combative," reads her chart,
and I picture guerrilla tactics,
camouflage fatigues, and
jungle helmets.
Instead, a war torn lady
dressed in bones,
grey skin taut, wails a lament as her hair is washed.
I hold her hands--not as friend, but, enemy guard--
"I'll whomp you!" she screeches to the one who holds the soap.
But, later, when, unseen,
I wrap a clean blanket about her,
I hear hymns soft as summer,
lilac petals falling from her memory.

She spoke. (Geriatric Assessment Unit, Vancouver)

--patient one--

She spoke.
I saw the roundness of her lips,
so quick,
heard the whisper of words brushing past my ears.
They fall knee-deep on my sidewalk . . .

--patient two--

She spoke.
But words are slippery things,
they slide by memories of Jake,
ice rink picnics, grocery lists,
and songs . . .

--they said--

She spoke.
Stirring foreign air with
sounds raining cold
on-and-on-and-on-and-on
she spoke.
But words were few.

--I said--

I spoke.
Dropping vowels into a
soundless well. Strewing words as husks. I watch, appalled.
Like frost edged paths they lie,
half buried in yesterdays.

When I am old

When I am old:
as old as tea leaves, crumbling,
apt to stain carpets, and with the odor of yesterday's lunch,
touch me softly to remind me
that once I was you:
full-bodied, rich in spice and long in life, and that others
drank deeply of me.

When I am old:
as old as Pogo Sticks, hula hoops, and Etch-a-Sketch,
laugh often with me, to remind me that once I played, too:
that life was green and curious, that MGM lions roared deliciously,
and that stars were angels' eyes.
When I am old:
as old as Moon Walks,
Kennedy Conspiracy, and Watergate, speak sense to me to remind me that once I cried for Rwanda's children, spoke out for trees and Orca, and marched for justice in your world.

When I am old, I think I shall want three things:
still to wonder, still to feel, and still to touch the edge of life
with my tongue. But, when I am too old for these three, please,
touch me softly, to remind me, that once I was you.

Returning to roots

2011-02-15T14:46:00.000-08:00

Well it is about time I updated this and bumped off that New Year's Countdown Clock! That clock was beginning to be rather alarming--just kept on ticking, reminding me that the new year is rolling on and not-so-new anymore ...

Happy Valentine's Day!

These last few weeks, I've caught myself reminiscing about my first years in nursing. I wondered about how I'd changed, grown, hardened, or if I had simply distanced from who I was as a nurse in those oh-so-formative years of nursing education and first practice. I actually saved my journal from my first semester in nursing school, so it was relatively easy for me to walk back into those moments. All those emotions were there: pride at being a student nurse, shock and mild horror at the tangible reality of illness and overwhelming need, stress and internal angst at whether I really was 'a nurse.' I also recalled the embarrassment at my shiny, too-new uniform (I wanted those faded green 'regulation' OR scrubs). But I LOVED my new stethoscope!

Like most of us, my first clinical rotations were in long term care and sub acute geriatric units. Like most students, I only vaguely recognized the complexity of gerontology nursing and the expertise of gerontology nursing as a specialty. Most of us were happy to leave behind the routine manual labor of morning care, feed assists and the bewildering mood-shifts of dementia. We were students drenched in the drama of the TV drawn ER, yearning for codes, detective diagnosing, and longing to be a part of the critical care team.

Yet, as I flip through the pages of my journal, I see moments of engagement with residents and patients; word pictures of encounters and wrestling with the complexity of patient-nurse dynamics. But more than that, I see learning about who I was and who I wanted to become--not only as nurse, but as person. Visiting myself as a student nurse, I not only reconnected with those first patient encounters, but saw how I have, in many ways, returned to those same complexities, albeit now at a different level of learning, with new skill sets and more experienced eyes.These were questions of meaning and connection; of 'self' and 'other.'

I continue to question, to want to know more about who I am and who I am becoming--both as a nurse, and as a person. In the spiraling circle of my career and growth as a nurse, through my dissertation work, I was able to go back to those early roots, to return to gerontology nursing. How nice to somehow give back to those residents, patients, nurses who so engaged me early on in my journey.

Over the next couple of blogs, I want to share some early 'nurse' poetry I wrote as a student nurse and into my first year of practice. I hope that you can join with me on your own little excursion of returning to the roots of your nursing journey. If you are just starting out as a student nurse, I hope that I can offer you reassurance that your questionings are worthwhile and that your caring engagement will grow you up in the right direction. Bon Voyage!

Countdown to the New Year!

2010-12-30T11:05:00.001-08:00

New Year Countdown

Driven by a dream ...

2010-12-11T20:43:00.000-08:00

Driven by a dream

They leave no trace but a star’s light;

the relentless sand beneath their feet filling shapeless dents.

Under a moon thick with shadows,

silica shaped by a night wind carves graceful curves in the shifting hills

re-writes again and again a cosmic riddle for a transient age.

Anger spills out onto these sands, too,

yet leaves no stain. There is only a collective crush of sound jarring the heavens;

an anguish of grief sliding through the sand like Noah’s rain:

implacable and unexpected.

The rhythm is so Jehovah:

modest metaphor meets mythic moment;

symbol erupts from sand;

God entombed in a Baby carried by a Virgin.

And they flee a dust-bound potentate whom the world will know only as a petulant baby-killer.

The modus operandi is so human:

absolute power corrupting absolutely,

greed fueling government,

a king enthroned on a pile of gold yanked from the Earth and pinned by a flag.

And he chases a baby, never knowing the world will always know that Baby as Redeemer, King of Kings, the Christ.

A donkey plods on.

A hidden journey in a night brimming with light.

New stars like small souls flashing through the darkness;

journeying home, they pave a path of brilliance that cannot be seen by man.

One family fleeing in the night far, far from home;

standing between heaven and earth,

caught between justice and the law of the land,

driven by a dream.

Sacrament - Part three

2010-09-13T07:43:00.000-07:00

I have been reflecting on the Last Supper, and what 'do this in memory of me' means to those within traditions of Christianity that have Sacramental tradition and those that do not. I am not seeking to drag up arguments about transubstantiation, although these views drive the way we practice our faith and how we 'do this in memory of me.' What I am seeking to do in these two blogs is simply to offer my heart's reflection during the past week.
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In my third reflection on the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, I am considering a favorite theme of mine—that is, I should say, a long-standing desire to bring this into my life from the heart of my being: the sacrament to the present moment. To those unfamiliar with this contemplative path, the sacrament of the present moment was taught by Rev Jean Pierre de Caussade in the late 17^th century. To Rev de Caussade, it is only in the present moment that we have the precious ability to engage with the reality of eternity. Our past imagination and future concerns are a part of our mortal mind; eternity is, it does not have a past or future. Therefore, we are privileged to meet with the Eternal, engage with God and the heavenly hosts in our indivisible present. The ‘flipside’ of this understanding, is that instead of railing against the interruptions, tensions, and questions of our day, to truly engage with God, we must abandon ourselves to live in these present contentions of our world in our present moment: “the duties of each moment are the shadows beneath which hides the divine operation” (de Caussade).

The following is a reflection from the Irish Jesuits who keep the site, Sacred Space (http://sacredspace.ie):

One conviction is central to Christian prayer: that God is active in it. We turn to meditation not so much as an exercise in self-improvement, as an opening ourselves to our heavenly father who is waiting for us. Three hundred years ago de Caussade wrote of the Sacrament of the Present Moment. It is only in the Now that we have access to God. Looking forward or back exercises the mind and imagination, but that distracts us from the true meeting of prayer, with the Lord who is present in my inmost soul. ‘Be still and know that I am God.’ (Psalm 46). There is a stage in prayer where we go beyond words and thoughts: the hard bit is to stop thinking. A mystic is quoted as hearing from God, ‘I will not have thy thoughts instead of thee.’ As we grow older, prayer becomes less wordy, less brainy, more like the peasant whom the Curé of Ars used to see in his church, ‘I look at the good God and the good God looks at me.’

I began to wonder how the ‘sacrament of the present moment’ connects with the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper … I began to think of what is happening in the Mass, and began to realize that the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, is itself a moment of engagement, of meeting with Christ and his Body, suspended in time AND eternity. Thomas Howard, in his book, If your mind wanders at mass, writes of this, saying:

This is the famous ‘communion of the saints’ on which we count so earnestly when we pray. The Church teaches that, in a mystery, the veil hanging between time and eternity is drawn back, as it were, in the liturgy, and that we really are one worshiping body ‘with angels and archangels, and the whole company of heaven’ (Preface for Epiphany) (p. 38).

Let the Mystery and the Moment begin!

Sacrament - Part two

2010-09-01T11:19:00.000-07:00

I have been reflecting on the Last Supper, and what 'do this in memory of me' means to those within traditions of Christianity that have Sacramental tradition and those that do not. I am not seeking to drag up arguments about transubstantiation, although these views drive the way we practice our faith and how we 'do this in memory of me.' What I am seeking to do in these two blogs is simply to offer my heart's reflection during the past week.

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Packaged jesus

Somehow in the craziness of our drive-through,

instant potatoes, texting world,

we have succumbed to the packaged jesus.

There he is: minimalist, tidy, sterile elements

separated by non-permeable membranes.

Fortune cookie for a Christian economy;

treasure to be discovered a century from now.

Can you see them? Bright shiny archeology students

digging,

discovering,

deciphering,

decoding the message in jetted ink within the faded tiny circle of grain:

This is my body which is broken for you,

Take, eat: do this in remembrance of me.

In our world, no one is troubled this morning—

No rushing of buying or baking of loaves,

No wine to uncork, pour out to the masses,

No hand to heaven blessing of elements

No eye-to-eye lock and the words, ‘… for YOU,’ host pressed firmly on the palm.

Yet, somewhere, with head-coverings (hard hats or hair nets),

a factory of workers, seven days a week, file in to take their places beside rows of machinery:

cooking, cutting, stamping, printing, wrapping, shipping, marketing …

Somewhere there stands a row of white coats doing quality control on the packaged jesus’ riding past on the conveyer belt before them.

For this is what we pay for, what we value:

convenience, cost-effectiveness, sterility, and invisibility of effort.

Today, there are no lines of sorry sheep stretching down our aisle,

seeking what-they-do-not-know.

No Mystery, this packaged jesus,

except, perhaps,

where they hid the list of ingredients,

and the expiry date.

Sacrament - Part one

2010-09-01T11:00:00.000-07:00

I have been reflecting on the Last Supper, and what 'do this in memory of me' means to those within traditions of Christianity that have Sacramental tradition and those that do not. I am not seeking to drag up arguments about transubstantiation, although these views drive the way we practice our faith and how we 'do this in memory of me.' What I am seeking to do in these two blogs is simply to offer my heart's reflection during the past week.

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Body and Blood

Body and blood.

They speak of life rough-hewn, raw.

An old West etching of caskets:

side by side by side, eyes penny-ed shut.

There is no room to duck these silent images of black and white death.

Body and blood.

A strange legacy to leave these small soldiers of a new world order

organically grown from the stillness of star and stable.

Eternity sliding beams of sterile light through golden straw?

No, instead birth is chosen.

Blood and water mix,

there is a wrestling of flesh and spirit,

lungs stretch, aching to learn the lesson of air and earth-life,

there is the sting of night, the shock of wet,

and the omnipresent scent of sorrow.

Perhaps that is why the kindness of bread and wine is what he gave

to this raggle taggle group of guardians. See them

reeling at the thought of treachery amongst them.

Side bars of conversation cease,

now they are mouthing, tasting, slumped in puzzled wonder

at this solemn elevation of bread and wine.

They do not feel the roll and pitch underfoot;

like the Sea of Galilee, their world rocks, quakes, boils.

Body and blood they are to see prolonged.

No awe-full act of birth awaits them,

instead, a slow separation of flesh and spirit.

But, that day, he gave them bread and wine.

Staff of life and heartening cheer—Remember Me:

from the fields of parables they traveled, imbibed Him, embedded that living Word,

bruising grapes under their sandals,

the crush of grain between the Master’s hands,

they walked and talked and tasted.

Bread and wine. An echo through ages,

eons of understanding that this is essential essence of earth-living.

Now, eternity-infused;

there is an awe of things at once so simple (essence) and profound (eternal).

In Memory of Me.

This kingdom of bread and wine;

eternity-infused, transformed,

transforming body and blood.

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Voice and agency

2010-04-22T07:04:00.000-07:00

Janna, my Dalmatian, is a talker. She has always grumbled, moaned, sighed, barked, yodeled, and done this weird, uncanny half-whine, half chant when she is very excited about something amazing like finding my sock on the laundry room floor. Her sister, Maggie, is much quieter and very much the slightly-sneaky observer who notices everything. Most of the time, all that talking gets Janna what she is after—the lion’s share of attention. From her, much more than all that nursing literature out there, I’ve learned the deep connection between voice and agency. We are able to act as our own agents when our voice is heard; when we are marginalized, our voice is dismissed, or ignored, or simply drowned out by louder voices, and our ability to act as our own agent is negatively impacted. Our ‘vote’ is not counted. That toddler, sitting on his mom’s lap for an immunization, was clearly registering his vote. Thankfully, for his greater health, we shifted that vote with our distraction technique of bubble-blowing, otherwise his voice would have given rise to the agency of running out of the room!

As nurses we take this connection between voice and agency, between vulnerability and marginalization very seriously. On a daily, an hourly, basis we care for people who are made vulnerable by situation and have a voice, and people who are made vulnerable by society and have little-to-no voice. We see their disparate outcomes in recovery. For nurses, social justice is an integral component of practice: health and wellness outcomes are connected to voice and agency, vulnerability and marginalization.

Traditionally, nurses have always stood shoulder-to-shoulder with their patients, identifying with an equal plane of social power, acting as translators of ‘orders’ and advocates seeking to catch the ear of the white-coated medical elites. I cannot count the times that I have sat beside patients helping them think through and jot down questions they will take on their next doctor’s visit, seeking to give voice to their personal concerns and to have agency into their care. We act to empower these patients by coaching them to use their voice to gain ground in that short eight minutes they have the ear of their physician.

The dynamics of nursing have changed with time. We are now all-too-often fiscally restrained by time and outcomes not of our choosing; we are also moving up the ladder professionally and are beginning to sense the power distance growing between patients and ourselves. Along with the health care system, we are becoming ‘bigger’ and patients are becoming smaller. It is difficult to have your voice heard in the vast system that is the business of healthcare.

We cannot lose this innate call within nursing to identify voice, agency, vulnerability, marginalization in our care. To do so, would change the core of nursing. The pressure of practice today, however, is to move toward programs of interventions and guidelines of practice based on outcomes. There is everything right in this move, except that the decision to keep or axe a program or produce a guideline of practice is only as good as the evidence supporting it. Much of the evidence of which we are basing these fiscally-imposed decisions is from data that has failed to adequately capture the impact of nursing care interventions on patient outcomes.

For example, nurses’ care is often reduced to ‘tick sheet’ documentation that speeds up our world and is much easier to digitally record, however fails to record most of the actual care encounters that make up our shift. Narrative charting does not translate well to a digital world. The narrative portion of the chart (Nursing Notes) is helpful for communication between providers during an episode, but is disregarded after discharge. There is a huge component of nursing that has increasingly become invisible to decision makers, policy writers, and program evaluators. Two things happen with invisible voices: marginalization and lack of agency. We also forget who we are—a loss of identity because the new generation of nurses lose the connection of the ‘way things were.’

Doom and gloom for our profession? Of course not. We do need to acknowledge that change is the only constant in healthcare :-) … and we will continue to change with the needs of patients and populations. That is nursing and that is good. However, I do believe that to keep our strong core of advocacy and this commitment to social justice that informs our direct care and practice, we do need to strongly advocate for nursing sensitive indicators to be included in EHR systems so that we can document our care in a more complete, meaningfully manner. We need to raise our voices about what our direct and indirect care has contributed to outcomes of individual and groups of patients, of our communities and patient populations, or we will lose our ability to do what we do best. We need to learn to clearly articulate our needs as a profession and as individual professionals in our unique contexts of care, because if we cannot give voice to our needs this directly impact our ability to act, to be, nurses. Our agency is on the line.

God speaks as a still small voice. He also gets our attention by speaking in diverse ways (not necessarily louder). He speaks so that we can become bold in the knowledge of his great love for us and our neighbors. There is no exclusivity about such love. There is no circle of immunity to marginalization. We are called as nurses and as people of God to hear and to care. Let us support one another in continuing—and increasing—our ability to do so.

Hearing that voice

2010-04-21T21:40:00.000-07:00

Hearing voices … this phrase conjures so many thought-directions. Nurses are all-to-familiar with patients who are tortured by the voices in their heads—as are Chaplains, for other reasons! Devout believers from diverse religions, sects, and cults yearn to hear and discern the voice of God … the Universe … or, Gaia herself. Everyday people driving to work, eating in diners, scrubbing their showers, tending their kids, long to discover the voice within—that proclaimed wise voice who knows who we truly are, why we are here, and what we are meant to do. For isn’t that the meaning of the current pop-wisdom rolling from cable to TV screen to living room: “Follow your heart … listen to the wise intuition residing deep in your … body … mind … heart … soul … spirit (depending on the originator)?”

The voice is everything in our culture. No, I’m not talking about American Idol and the entire pantheon of spin-off talent shows across the networks. I’m talking about our culture’s unified fixation with THE voice—ours! Or so our individualism would say … Although we are driven to have our voice heard, we tend to hear that individualistic voice of ours simply echo back to us the voice of the majority—or the loudest, most media-drenched segment of the ‘majority,’ anyway! It seems we have ambivalence about voice: we want to have our voice heard and yet, like middle-schoolers, we want to fit in. We find it almost impossible to stand out against that media wave we identify with as the majority voice. Perhaps our fascination with trend-setters and cultural icons is a sign of this ambivalence of longing to be heard yet wanting to be one of the crowd. Perhaps our intoxication with celebrity status is a symptom of our yearning to have our very own voice ‘stand out.’

That said, our culture prides itself on its individualism: we see ourselves as pioneers, trailblazers, and our nations as having been forged on the backs of single-minded leaders who subdued the wild frontier. We, the colonizers of the West, have difficulty understanding any culture that does not cultivate individual voice over communal identity. To our Western minds, having a ‘voice’ means having a vote; raising your voice is an ability to protest, to have your needs made known, and presumably, met. To be ‘voiceless’ means to not have a say in the matter; the voiceless are marginalized, made invisible and helpless in our world.

We continue to have our challenges with raising our voice and listening to voices and most of our problems probably come from frantically trying to do both at the same time. Judge Judy is forever citing the old saw that says something like this, “We have two ears and one mouth for a reason—listen two times for every one time you open your mouth.” I am amazed at the graciousness of God that he did not give us ten ears and one mouth … Interestingly, the voice of God in Scripture varies from ‘still and small,’ to the roaring of a lion and a tornado, to the braying of a donkey, and the blowing of horns. Apparently, we don’t hear ‘so good’—and God finds it necessary to get our attention by mixing it up! I immediately conjure up the image of ourselves as the so-easily-distracted toddler who is wailing, ‘NO!’ one minute and staring mutely at a cascade of bubbles the next … As nurses, we are lightning-fast quick draws in pulling out those bubble wands during immunization encounters!

My dissertation research project is called, ‘Lift up Your Voice.’ There are voices within our society that we have difficulty hearing within healthcare and as a society. This may be due to loss of capacity or functionality from the speaking, or voice side of things, or inattention and marginalization from the hearing end of the conversation. Individuals that live in residential care face huge challenges in being heard in our frantic, technology-driven society and our over-stretched, assembly-line healthcare system that cannot afford to pause to listen for indistinct voices. I am noting the many ways individual nurses and other direct care givers seek to incorporate the individual voice of residents in daily care; and I am seeking to hear the voices of these residents to shed light on what we are doing right and how we can better hear their voices.

Over the next few entries, I will be exploring the concept of voice and reflecting on themes that are emerging as I begin to listen. My hope is that I will learn to use my two ears and only one mouth in my own daily all-encompassing practice of care.

from Palms to Passion

2010-03-28T22:54:00.000-07:00

The crowds preceding him and those following
kept crying out and saying:
"Hosanna to the Son of David;
blessed is the he who comes in the name of the Lord;
hosanna in the highest."
Matthew 21:9

Today is Passion Sunday, now combined with, and sometimes better known as Palm Sunday. The Passion of Christ is read following the reading of Matthew noted above. The Sunday School illustration of Jesus riding on a donkey as he enters Jerusalem, his way lined with cheering people who create a carpet of palm fronds and robes for him to pass over (no pun intended!), is burned in my mind. I’ve always loved Palm Sunday, although I suspect that as a young Sunday School pupil, my interest was more in the donkey and the palm trees rather than the earth-shaking theology being played out in that simple event, so long ago. As a kid, what I saw was truly an oh-so-fun triumphant entry—how amazing to get to ride on a donkey and have a crowd of fans waving and yelling out a welcome. The irony of the utter humility of the King of Kings riding on a donkey, rather than on a steed, a rag taggle of humanity instead of a mounted legion surrounding him, the complete absence of dignitaries, trumpets, and royal reception, completely escaped me.

From palms to passion. The link between these passages so close in time, yet so far apart in action escaped me as a kid. I did not get that the crowd that enthusiastically greeted Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, days later, called out, mob-like, for his crucifixion. I didn’t want to believe it, and still wish to believe that there were simply a few bad eggs in the crowd who were easily swayed. That the rest were loyal friends to the end; friends that somehow deserved the passion of Christ. However, I since have learned that crowds are incredibly fickle; easily blown by the wind of emotion and situation. That I, as well, can be driven by that wind; that all-to-often the amount of sleep I have had, the level of back pain I am experiencing, the number of dishes that have gathered in the sink, the race I am losing to complete deadlines, the wait for the computer to update … all conspire to blow me away from my center. At times, the sudden, overwhelming wind of despair, stress, grief, loneliness, helplessness can pivot me around like the Dalmatian weathervane we have on our gazebo. Would I have been one of the bad eggs in the crowd if the wind had blown the wrong way that morning so long ago?

I lately have been reading Joan Chittister, O.S.B. In this reading that I would like to share here, I again was reminded of how our patients are our teachers, even in this struggle to abide in the center and not be swayed with the fickle wind that blows around us all.

We are surrounded by people who struggle through terminal diseases and live years beyond any reasonable prognosis because they refuse to give up. They simply go on as if life were normal. They simply insist on living … There is, in fact, no struggle that does not develop to the point where a person must choose between the fact of defeat and effects of quitting. Everyone is defeated sometime. Many then simply quit the fray. But the really strong, the really committed, do not. They decide instead whether or not the mountain is worth the climb. And if it is, no amount of wind can force them from the face of it. They endure for the sake of enduring. They live to finish what they began. Endurance is not about being too stubborn to give up on the impossible. Endurance is about having heart enough to keep on trying to do the possible, even if it is unattainable. We nurse the dying through years of disability. We begin projects for the poor even when they don’t begin to make a dent in the problem of poverty. We hold on against opposition for the sake of the principle of a thing. Those endure who seek to do what is deeply important to them, no matter how difficult it may be (Joan D. Chittister, Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope).

The wind that blows our Dalmatian weathervane back and forth and all around will continue to blow, the weathervane will continue to spin. Instead of being afraid of the wind of emotions, sorrows, memories, and physical annoyances that blows through my day, I am learning to see this wind from a different perspective. The palliative and trauma patients that I have nursed over the years have taught me how the essentials, the core of life is clarified by illness, pain, limitations. Perhaps the lesson in the crowd is that the wind blows and we are given the terrible gift of seeing what is truly at our core. Thank God we are not alone when we see ourselves for the fickle cowards we can be—for in that split second of truth we are given the choice that the thief on the cross was given; we may cry out, again and again, “Jesus, remember me!”

Blessings on your journey as we walk with Christ through this Holy Week.

of bridges and dams, fields and fortunes ...

2010-03-14T12:20:00.000-07:00

“Religion is meant to be a bridge to God, a vehicle to understanding. It is meant to plumb the depths of the human soul to the source of the spirit. Instead, religion can sometimes even be an obstacle to union with God. As the wag put it, “in order to sin properly it is not necessary to break the rules. All you need to do is to keep them to the letter.” Joan Chittister, Welcome to the wisdom of the world and its meaning for you.

Although I'm not immune to the pathos of the return of the prodigal, I’ve always, always had a soft spot in my heart for the eldest son. You will recall that wonderful-awful story Jesus told of the prodigal son (Luke 15). The older son makes his way home from the fields after working hard all day and walks into a party for his no-good, thankless younger brother. I can see him now: trudging along the dusty trail, thinking of a million things that still need doing on the farm, visioning a nice cool shower to wash away the day’s endless grit and the sun’s boring heat. Then, the sounds of merriment stop him in his tracks. What? Has he forgotten some event that his father had ordered for the day? He summons up his energy, brushes the most obvious dirt of his clothes, pulls his collar straight, runs his hand through his hair as he adjusts his face in the most welcoming smile he can muster, given his work-weary demeanor, for his father’s guests. He beckons to a servant, seeking to find out what’s up … begins to ask, who are the guests? Can I slide in the back door unseen to clean up before my father needs me? In his mind he is walking through the door and entering the dining room, an apology for the lateness of his arrival on his lips, his father’s approving eye on him. Even as the servant begins to bubble over with the news, even as he sees his father walking, nearly dancing, upright and merry to his core, stooped and careworn no more, he knows. His charismatic, sweet-faced, younger brother has returned. The news stops him cold. Dead in his tracks, lips still curved into a smile of welcome, freeze, then curl into contempt. What mischief is he up to now, he thinks. Thankless, good-for-nothing heart-breaker, he thinks, watching the nearly tangible joy leaping in his father’s eyes as he comes closer. What good is it? His heart aches, watching such joy, it is for him, it says to him, for the other, for the one I lost. His eyes die but almost immediately, a new flame is lit in his belly, a flame fueled by anguish that rises to his eyes and erupts into words, “All these years, all these bloody years … nothing! Never have I so much have questioned your orders! Worked nonstop for you! Nothing! He drags his sorry ass back home—obviously broke—always … he just smiles at you and you just hand him the farm ... the farm I work, not him! …” The anguish floods the flame, and like a choked engine, he is left cold. Empty. Heart-dead. Not enough for me.

What is it about us that in our core believes that love must be discrete, parceled out to the deserving and is somehow tainted, watered-down, or made meaningless if it falls on the other as well as ourselves? Love deeper than the ocean, bigger than the sky, love that does not ‘run out’ seems to us to not be as worthy, or as special as love that is narrowly applied, that must be earned by a select few. We are elevated when we are one of those select few. We stand apart, special, uniquely identified as the beloved’s. We will always have enough as long as we hang onto it for ourselves. What a God we have created in our own image. For this god who jumps to and rewards our small obediences is forced to ignore the plight of those not in our circle of knowing.

“Religion without the spirit it is meant to preserve can become positively irreligious: we put the weak, the wounded, the addicts, the religious others outside the boundaries of our perfect lives, fearful of touching what might pollute us. Religion—who hasn’t seen it happen? –can be a very sinful thing.” Joan Chittister, Welcome to the wisdom of the world and its meaning for you.

I have empathy for that big brother who worked day in and day out building the farm for his father, only to see it slipping away (or so he thought) through the open-fingers of a pleasure addict. He was not evil in his thinking, only small. Like me, he fails to understand the Mystery of a love so vast that it can blanket all of creation without a stretch, without the persons at the sides needing to grasp at a corner to keep covered. The mystery of such love continues when we are told that such vast love recognizes the particular, the individual, the tiniest sparrow. There is enough, even for the great greed we have for love. The elder brother was not short changed by the love his father poured out over the undeserving head of his younger brother. There was no yank of the blanket off him when covering the other with love.

In our world, we live in the context of scarce resources. As nurses and health care providers and policy makers, we must ration services because of there their finite nature. How we do this very much demonstrates our values. Who is worthy, who is less worthy? What about earned worthiness: those who are productive and pay into the system? Those who are making healthy life choices? Who is truly vulnerable? What portion of our meted lot goes to them? How we approach these questions of social justice and health delivery in many ways demonstrate our heart-understanding of this parable. Although the limited nature of our resources is indisputable, the vastness of our greed is just as indisputable. Could it be that our greed has more to do with the allocation of scarce resources than the scarceness of these resources themselves? Profit is all well and good, until one realizes that ‘profit’ is to the haves, what ‘loss’ is to the have-nots. Wouldn’t be amazing if the demise of the profit/loss sheet in health care actually accorded more health and less loss to real people?

I want to think that the elder brother eventually moved past his brokenness and got it. That he learned, by looking even more deeply into his father’s eyes, that the joy did not stop with the younger son; that the love flowed free, and wildly-vast: limitless. I want to believe that ‘fairness’ is bigger than one son or the other can see … and that it is no matter, because all of us, no matter our task, our daily toil, work in our Father’s fields anyway.

Oh, Cana-DO!

2010-02-28T10:53:00.000-08:00

An entire nation is overflowing with ‘cana- do-ness’ … flush with gold, silver, and bronze … reeling from a sense of patriotism that is intoxicating. Only in Canada, in the midst of such a flurry of emotion, would you hear a recurring theme in media interviews of marveling at this national pride, analyzing how this uncharacteristic display occurred, and almost apologizing for Canada’s exuberance. I love this mix of pride and humility, don’t you?

Is it possible to create a climate of jubilation that inspires athletic action, positive behavior, wall-breaking emotion? If you were able to take a walk in downtown Vancouver during the last two weeks, I think you might be convinced of the power of positive thinking. Like the picture my sister drew for me of her experience walking down Granville street: a celebrating joyful, polite crowd all around her, suddenly pausing in near silence, parting, making way for a quiet line of Vancouver City police on horseback, then, a spontaneous outbreak of, “Oh, Canada, our home and native land … “ The national anthem sung raw and real on the downtown city streets.

I believe ...

Of course, most of us who are jumping around with bright red mittens waving, celebrating the achievements of our athletes, were not present to see the hours, days, weeks, years of practice, pain, and sacrifice that each athlete underwent prior to those few minutes on our TV screens. Still, I don’t think we can completely write off the push that positive thinking and a strong emotional support system can contribute to an athlete tuned to give the performance of his/her life.

Don’t you wish we could bottle up that ‘Cana-do’ spirit and ingest a bit now and again when we need to perform on-the-job? Or how about being able to prescribe it to our patients who are struggling in their efforts to make healthy living choices? How about infusing an Olympic spirit in the many diabetic patients who are wrestling with A1Cs that go up instead of down … or the ‘husky’ kids who wrestle with the Demon Coke, Ronald MacDonald, and that red-headed little terror, Wendy.

(The crazy thing is, that two of the three above noted fiends are strapping endorsers of the Vancouver Olympics. Can’t you just reach out and touch the irony of that? Off of our collective poor healthy choices, the athletes of the world perform so magnificently … )

It truly is a strange world we have forged for ourselves. Do you know that you can buy an alarm clock that wakes you to applause? Not sure how that can help, beyond a novelty grin lasting a few minutes over a couple of days. But, what if the nation summoned a roar of cheers every time a mom bought apples instead of cookies, or a kid walked home from school, past the local fast food trap, without spending his allowance? What if people on the street erupted into applause when a jogger panted on by? Or a dad spent time with his kids playing outside in the back yard? We need support to live well, to make good choices, to turn from the unhealthy patterns we’ve fallen into over the years.

If you are like me, you have recognized in yourself and in your patients that it does not work to simply stop a bad habit; what is more sustainable is to replace it with a positive behavior. It may seem like double the effort, but a vacuum just cries out to be filled. So many times an addiction is ‘cured’ with another addiction! I remember when chocolate was a ‘bad’ choice because it was high in fat and jelly beans were ‘good’ … then, for awhile, when both were ‘bad,’ as was any dessert-like food, I launched into bigger portions and second helpings of ‘good’ food (namely primavera pasta, heavy on the pasta and parmesan). Replacing an addiction with another addiction is not the same thing as a replacing a bad habit with a positive action.

We need support to make good spiritual and devotional choices, too. There are unhealthy devotional patterns that many of us have we’ve fallen into over the years, too. How do we encourage strong spiritual growth without sacrificing a spirit of humility, or encouraging a feeble shadow of the spirit, rather than a robust authentic life-changing devotion?

Today is the second Sunday of Lent. Already, the ashes on my forehead have become a faint memory, a now-distant reminder of my mortality. As I move through these forty days of Lent, I am seeking , not a passive sacrifice of denial, but a positive sacrifice of action. Just a nudge of a perspective-shift, but one that adds a spiritual discipline, rather than takes away a habit. Giving things up for Lent is all very well, but most of us need to give those things that we annually give up a rest anyway. How about instead choosing to give of time, effort, to forge a positive habit, a spiritual action, or discipline? Jesus spent his 40 days in the desert not only giving up dessert, but meeting, head on, the enemy of his bride-to-be. Sacrifice can be denial, it also can be action.

I’ve already blown it a number of times, but, perhaps that failure in itself is a touch stone, a recollection to reality that I am not after forging an addiction, but prayerfully offering a sacrifice of authentic action.

And, you know, just for a minute, the other day, I thought I heard a small cheer from the heavenly hosts …. now that’s jubilation that heals!

Praise God from whom all blessings flow
Praise Him all ye creatures here below
Praise Him above all ye heavenly hosts
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost

of Shakespeare, love, and trees ...

2010-02-14T21:32:00.000-08:00

“The course of true love never did run smooth.”

Shakespeare certainly hit the nail on the head with that one. Love may be a wonderful feeling, a sacrificial act, a soul-deep decision, or all of the above, but it could never, ever be described as ‘smooth.’ Today is the feast day of Saint Valentine, the martyr. According to legend, this priest defied the edict of Claudius II who had outlawed engagements and courting to keep soldiers from leaving the war. Saint Valentine transported love notes and gifts between lovers and married couples in secret. It is said that after he tried to convert Claudius and was condemned to death, he wrote a farewell note, signing it “from your Valentine.” Legend or not, the story of St Valentine resonates with truth: love, sacred, romantic, or platonic is firmly planted in some serious soil. Dying brings out the best demonstration of love we’ll ever know.

First Corinthians 13, the Love Chapter in the scriptures gives another description of love that is also not for the faint of heart. All I can say after reading it, “’the course of true love never did run smooth.’” It’s much easier to send a Valentine; that is, it WAS much easier to send a Valentine. Now that I know Saint Valentine’s story, each Valentine I send is somehow tinged with the sacred sacrifice of his martyrdom … not, I’m sure, what Hallmark had in mind!

Today, in church, the homily was a collage of New Years (Gung Hay Fat Choy!), the day’s readings, and, of course, Valentine’s Day. A homage to love, beginnings, and to the prophet Jeremiah:

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose hope is the Lord. He is like a tree planted beside the waters that stretches out its roots to the stream: it fears not the heat when it comes, its leaves stay green; in the year of drought it shows no distress, but still bears fruit.”

The image of that tree, green, straight, feeling-no-fear … this is, I think, a valuable metaphor of love tough and strong and oh-so-dependent on the water of life at its roots. Chesterton, in Orthodoxy, talks about the shattering of virtues as well as of vices that occurred at the fall of humankind. Love is to the left of us, to the right of us, all around us. Red hearts, cinnamon candies, chocolates and roses … cell phones ringing, texts flying, messages bouncing back and forth across the internet, across the globe … all in the name of love, all with a tiny disconnected piece of that shattered virtue, nonetheless gleaming.

Love that is connected to the water of life, like Jeremiah’s tree planted by the stream, is love that can live in the reflection of first Corinthian’s. This love can smile gently at Cupid’s arrows, for it sees a tiny fragment of itself there; it can nod knowingly to the cheering patriots lining the Olympics venues, for it sees a part of itself reflected there, too. The kids sharing cookie hearts, the teen crushes giggling over Facebook messages, the single man and woman gamely filling in their e-Harmony profiles with hope in their hearts … all grasp fragments of the virtue of all virtues: love.

In our time, the ultimate and most necessary love, it is said, is self-love. Psychosocial and wellness experts claim that self-love is essential to healthy personal and social development. How does ‘self-love’ fit within the paradigm of first Corinthians and of Jeremiah’s tree? Today, our priest, almost in passing said about self-love:

“We must have self-love to survive and give love to others; but we must have self-love that is not selfish.”

Rhetoric? I don’t think so. This little phrase rings true! Self-love that is not selfish, I think, is love that places the self in the same order that Christ places our selves; no higher and no lower. To see ourselves as Christ sees us—in the same terrible truth-light; and, paradoxically, in the same blinding love-light. It is to be rooted like Jeremiah’s tree: beautiful, straight, quenched, no fear … to be connected to the stream is to be connected to Christ and to all others, all of which must drink at these waters of life. Love truly is all around us—we live with fragments flying through our universe, but our roots can drink deeply at the Source, of Love Integrated and complete.

There is only one thing left to say:

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Believing in yourself

2010-02-07T13:45:00.000-08:00

Complete self confidence is not merely a sin; complete self confidence is a weakness. Believing utterly in one’s self is a hysterical and superstitious belief … GK Chesterton, Orthodoxy.

If you doubt the above statement, I would guess that you have never seen an episode of American Idol. I am perpetually amazed at the would-be contenders who have an unshakable faith in themselves as the next musical sensation. Some are struck dumb with shock when they are rejected by the judges; others explode in a tirade of protests and promises. I can imagine Chesterton chuckling away in Heaven watching these stormy manifestations of unwavering self-confidence.

On the other end of the scale we all know of capable people who are somehow frozen in moving forward in their chosen life’s work because they lack confidence in themselves … students and nurses who second guess their practice and management decisions to the detriment of care … practitioners and other folks who long to do something of importance in the world but perpetually believe they lack preparation or ability … so remain forever stalled in meeting their life’s mission.

Too much or too little self-confidence? Is that the issue? Through a casual use of such terms as self-confidence, self-actualization, centeredness, inner locus of control, I think that we are perhaps sending the wrong message to our students, the young in our profession, and to each other. The net outcome seems to be that we are preparing nurses and students who are set up either for a lifetime of hiding insecurities, growing a rhino-thick skin of self-illusion, or simply ceasing to care about the whole thing. None of us knows the solution for every patient situation—the fact is sometimes there are no solutions. The truth is, it is not all about us: our knowledge, our solutions. However, that is not what we feel we can portray to patients, to our peers, to ourselves. Our socialization in this world of ours informs us to our core that, to reach maturity and success in life, we must believe in ourselves.

Add on to this the pressure of being not just a nurse, but a Christian nurse. Wow. Now, not only do we have to have complete self-confidence in ourselves as nurses, but also in ourselves as disciples of Christ. It’s like wearing a Fish bumper sticker on your uniform—you don’t dare step to the right or left without your indicator on, travel over the speed limit in the hall, or flip off that jerk who cuts in front of you or fails to hold the elevator button. The Christian nurse has to not only exhibit self-confidence as a nurse, but also portray self-confidence in the ability of her/his faith to handle all the messy ethical issues and borderline personalities on the unit.

Can you say, ‘Burn out?’ Do we continue to wonder why we are hemorrhaging nurses from the health care systems on both sides of the border? Do we wonder why authenticity has become synonymous with inner doubt and depression, rather than with an invigorating humility grounded in external Faith? We seem to be cultivating an inner locus of control based on inquiry of self-as-primary assessor, rather than an inner locus of control based on an inquiry of self-as-assessed externally.

How frightening, it turns out, to be both inquisitor and standard-setter of your soul! One would think that we long for such freedom—“you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” Such freedom becomes our own personal hell. We are forever second-guessing if we are good enough at our jobs, relationships, families, lives: I never have to look far to find some nurse, some professor, who appears to have it more together than me.

People either shatter or become paralyzed to any action when, overloaded with self-doubt, they can no longer sustain an outward illusion of self confidence. They may disappear (quit nursing or teaching), isolate (avoid peer/professional activities), or become incredibly hungry for continual external validation of the purple dinosaur variety:

“I love you, you love me, we’re a happy family …”
“I’m a nurse, you’re a nurse, we’re the ones who really care … “

Chesterton, in his essay, the maniac (in Orthodoxy), states: “Materialists and the madmen have no doubts.” This is comforting to me ;-) … for I have many doubts. The list is long: it begins with myself and it goes all the way to Heaven.

The materialist immediately has a much shorter list: there is no heaven, and nothing to doubt that cannot be seen, touched, measured, and experienced. Once things are seen, touched, measured, and experienced, nothing can be doubted—except, perhaps, for doubt itself.

The madman is horrifyingly certain of his reality. Any psych nurse knows that that therapy is so difficult because the practitioner is striving against that certainty: if even a glimmer of doubt can be shed about his world of paranoia, voices, and illusion; there is a movement toward wellness.

Christians, on the other hand, are free to doubt in good health :-) ... to wonder, imagine, to embrace Mystery. Christians live in the paradox of the cross: this crux where time and eternity meet. We are free, then, not to believe in ourselves. To cultivate an inner locus of control based on an inquiry of self-as-assessed externally. We are valued by God, and upheld by his standard of care made explicable in his Word. There is, thus, an external touchstone when caught up in the whirling vortex of self-doubt.

Last week, my nephew reminded me of a quote by Madeleine L’Engle. In her book, Walking on Water, Madeleine states: “The wider the light, the bigger the circumference of darkness.” What a metaphor full of meaning. As our circle of light becomes wider, the thin edge of darkness, the circumference, becomes proportionally bigger.

We live caught in time, but captured by the eternal. Our God is big. Our viewfinder is limited by finite boundaries. As we grow into greater vision of God, these boundaries grow with us. We live in complexity: the muck and murk of earthly reality in learning, teaching, nursing, community living is framed by the finiteness of the boundaries of our viewfinders. Healthy doubt is catching sight of the periphery in stark contrast to the light. Glimpsing that thin edge at light's border—a necessary happening in this finite world. Perhaps, in this way, doubt itself acts as a marker of the size of our God. Perhaps as well, this doubt saves us from the madman’s illusions: it is not all about me, my feelings, my thoughts, or that matter, my actions … as the Bard scribed, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Believe in yourself. I write this with a grin on my face, knowing, that what I believe about myself in any given time may change depending on how much sleep I have gotten the night before, what I have eaten (or not eaten), whether or not I made it to my treadmill that morning, and who has smiled at me recently. Doubt. I grin again, knowing that I will never see it the same way again: not seeking to be either a materialist or a madman, I find myself catching the edge of my viewfinder rather regularly.

Perhaps this is one reason why we are asked to die with Christ in baptism. At the crux of the cross, perhaps only from that terrible perspective, do we see the junction of time and eternity caught at the right angles of two pieces of wood fused together in perpetuity by the blood of Jesus. A wide, wide beam of light set against the darkest of evil. Utter truth that is not dependent on my current view of myself, or me at all. An external touchstone for time and eternity.

I will doubt. I should doubt myself. Not to do so implies that I am either not in time, or not in eternity. I am meant to be in both until I am called into the presence of God.

Weeping with those who weep

2010-01-17T20:36:00.000-08:00

Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. Romans 12:15

Nurses know what it means to weep with those who weep. Nurses recognize the reality of death, trauma, and the slow devastation of disease on bodies and minds. Nurses cognizant of spiritual things have felt the brush of angels’ wings while caring for persons in those final few moments. They have felt the tangible light of Love for the solitary soul as well as witness the rain following on the just and unjust.

Nurses are weeping with Haiti. We are weeping for the suffering of individuals, of families, of communities and a nation; we are weeping for our sisters and brothers, nurses, who have died, and our hearts go out to the surviving nurses and health care workers who are overwhelmed by the enormity of caring in the midst of such devastation.

Nurses, I ask you to join with me in a reflective act of prayer for Haiti …

We gather together to pray with the promise of hope for our world and for the people of Haiti as they cry out from this earthquake disaster. Let us hold in our hearts our sister and brother nurses and health care workers who are reaching out in their grief to care for their patients, their neighbors, their families. We hold in our hearts those who have died and those who are dying; those who are orphaned, widowed, made solitary with devastating suddenness. We thank you for each one who lived, breathed, loved, and walked this earth, who was brother, sister, mother, father, child to someone. In solidarity to those who must rebuild their lives, we invite the Lord into our presence, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen

We live on a planet that is always moving; from the fragrant pine trees swaying in the forests, to the crashing of ocean waves, to the deep earthy movement of the hidden places underground. The earth cries out along with us humans—we are part of a biosphere that can enable wonders or, by our lack of understanding, faith, and vision, destroy life. It is at times like this, in the very epicenter, in the aftermath of the raw power unleashed by the earth, that nurses and other health care workers are called to care, to be the healing hands of our Lord. In solidarity with these nurses and others you have raised to serve the people of Haiti at this time; we ask you to walk with them and raise up their hearts and hands and give them strength; and we pray in joyful anticipation of the time when you will create a new heaven and a new earth, when the sound of weeping will be heard no more, and when nurses’ work will be transformed by an inconceivable heavenly vision.

Amen

God of all creation, as we weep with our family in Haiti, console us. In this time of crisis, open our eyes to look beyond the disaster to see Christ in the faces of the people of Haiti and our sister/brother nurses caring for them. Be with all creation. Redeem us, o Lord. Strengthen us in solidarity with those living, dying, surviving, regrouping, serving in Haiti. All creation returns running to you in mourning. It is your grace that guides our grief into efforts to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, comfort the grieving, honor the dead, and speak out for justice. With your mercy, sustain us, oh Lord, as we continue our work as nurses, as advocates, as Christians seeking peace and justice.

Amen and Amen

With thanks for inspiration from http://crs.org/

Happy New Year!

2010-01-10T21:59:00.000-08:00

“There are times in our lives when we feel like exiles—living in a foreign land, oppressed by forces beyond our control, held captive by our own inner impulses or by external influences. We can feel alienated from God, from people, even estranged from our own selves—not really the people we know ourselves to be. Like soldiers returning home after a stressful tour of duty, we can feel that we need help to rebuild our lives, to reconnect with those we love, to find new meaning and purpose to our lives—to rediscover our mission” (The Living Word, January 10, 2010).

I read the above today in our church bulletin and immediately resonated with what the author so eloquently was describing. I don’t know about you, but for me the day after New Year’s Eve looks so different than that glittery, exciting, anticipation that so colors my thoughts leading up to the countdown. The world seems united on New Year’s Eve as everyone together, time zone by time zone, watches as the clock ticks down the hours, minutes, seconds, to the New Year. However, oh-so-shortly after, the seeming unchanging onslaught of ‘stuff’ left over from the year(s) before remakes the New Year into a clone of the past. At times, the treadmill of work and duties becomes less of a familiar routine and more of an estrangement, a distancing, from authenticity. Why this continual wrestling with what should be and what must be? Why do the trappings of life so often seem to overwhelm life itself?

I am learning that I am not alone in this post-New Year’s reverie. How do we continue with the layer of tasks that flow from our legitimate responsibilities and relationships, yet not have the tasks themselves supersede the role, or relationship itself? How do we rediscover our mission in the pile of stuff still on our desks from last year?

GK Chesterton, in Orthodoxy, says, “The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. The commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not quite.” Chesterton goes on in his amazing essay to describe how Christianity proves itself in essence by its utter embracing of paradox, or what Chesterton called duplex passion. An example of duplex passion in Scripture is the image of the lion lying down with the lamb. The essence of ‘lamb-ness’ and ‘lion-ness’ is unchanged: they continue to be lamb and lion, not a rubber-toothed lion or a lamb on steroids. Chesterton continues:

“The real problem is –Can the lion lie down with the lamb and still retain his royal ferocity? That is the problem the Church attempted, that is the miracle she achieved … This is what I have called guessing the hidden eccentricities of life. This is knowing that a man’s heart is to the left and not in the middle. This is knowing not only that the earth is round, but knowing exactly where it is flat. Christian doctrine detected the oddities of life. It not only discovered the law, but it foresaw the exceptions. Those underrate Christianity who say that it discovered mercy; any one might discover mercy. In fact every one did. But to discover a plan for being merciful and also severe—that was to anticipate a strange need of human nature.”

Talk about thinking outside the box! This recognition of the paradox of living a spiritually authentic life in the 21^st century in the material West is a unique—or should I say a duplex par-ality in itself! In the weeks following I will continue to reflect on this theme, as I sense that it is an important key to understanding the frustration of living polar realities: the mundane and the essential –both utterly necessary to life and relationship in our world.

Living in the moment,
caught laughing in the eye of whirling paradox:
time and matter frozen, floating:
a reminder of gum on the bottom of your shoe,
and papers growing like spring grass on your desk.
Duplex para-lity:
lion and lamb,
passion and asceticism,
blind justice and wide-eyed benevolence,
Imago Dei.

Blessings on our New Year! May we meet Christ in the many present moments that make up our days.

2009-12-12T15:23:00.000-08:00

Adventure

Sometimes, the light at the end of the tunnel is not an oncoming train;

sometimes it is a serene star, an impossibly pure beam from the eye of God.

Sometimes, the congregational clatter and chatter is not a clearing-out sale of stocking stuffers;

sometimes it is a choir of angels, singing a distant harmony of the heavens.

Sometimes, the mud thwacked against your windshield is not from that speeding truck;

sometimes it is the fling and pitch from three sets of grinding camels' feet in flight following that star.

Sometimes, the smell of wet mittens and breath soaked scarves confuse your senses;

sometimes it is the rich scent of earth, rain drenched sheep, and lanolin-saturated shepherd's hands.

         In this time of the bending of Christmas to our image,

           In this Season of Strategized Obsolescence,

          In this honoring of Holiday, homage to the credit line, and trust in 9-1-1,    mobile phones and car alarms,

          It is good to know that--

Sometimes, the crunch underfoot is a straw fallen from a donkey's manger,

Sometimes, the waft and whir of pigeon wings is deceptively angelic,

Sometimes, that trail of mud leads to the Stable.

          In this time of Advent, of preparation, of reflecting and announcing in equal measure,

           In this time of sorting through Sacrament, Signs of the Times, and silence from the heavens,

           In this time of stark reverie and horror at a world conflagrant with greed,

           It is good to know that--

In the eternal present, the manger Child lives.

In chronos, Three-in-One opened child's eyes, looked into ours with utter clarity, and did not turn away.

In that lightning-rich rending of muck and death, that blink in time and wash of eternity,

Incarnation and Redemption united in a Baby.

          This is how the world is won.

          This is how the war is won.

           It is won.

Sometimes, it is good to know that.

Faith Richardson
Christmas, 2009

Picture by Vincent Richardson, Christmas, 2009

Sacred cookies

2009-12-06T21:51:00.000-08:00

Pinwheels, icebox, macaroons, sugar, thumbprint, spritzers, gingerbread, rolled, dropped, meringue, butter, filled … ever Google ‘Christmas cookie recipe’? Oh, the Christmas preparations! Today we bought presents for two boys, age 9 and 12. We pulled their cards from the church Christmas tree last Sunday, and don’t know anything about these boys, but had fun worrying over whether or not we got the ‘right’ gift for each one of them. This past week, we put up our Christmas lights and started planning our annual Christmas card. There is something very special, very rooted, about Christmas traditions.

In my Advent journey, I am reading some wonderful reflections. One in particular, by Brother Holz, a Benedictine, reminded me of my ongoing discipline, seeking to live in the present moment. Saint Benedict’s rule is based on two principles: the first that God is present everywhere, and the second that Christ is present in every single person we meet, most especially in the sick and the vulnerable. Saint Benedict went so far as to say that tools of your trade (whatever these are) should be treated with the same reverence as sacred vessels on the alter. Within a sacramental, contemplative life journey, work is sacred. Brother Holz says,

“so, if we are trying to maintain a deep and meaningful spirituality of Advent and Christmas—while at the same time living in the hectic round of Christmas shopping and decorating—why not devote some of our Advent reflections to taking a long, loving look at the realities of the holiday season? If Benedict is correct, we should be able to find in them some good spiritual insights into the mysteries of Advent and Christmas.”

The word, ‘season’ is big these days before Christmas: the season of giving, the holiday season, Jesus is the Reason for the Season, Season’s Greetings … Brother Holz reflects on the word ‘season,’ linking it to the Greek word ‘kairos.’ In the Bible, Holz states, kairos is translated as ‘time,’ but is really ‘time with purpose,’ similar to our notion of ‘season’. This makes sense in the Ecclesiastes passage, “a time for every matter under heaven … a time to be born, and a time to die …” He says, “in fact, every moment of our lives is kairos, a sacred ‘season,’ a chapter in the unfolding story of God’s love for the world” …

“For a Christian, life is made up of millions of unique moments, each one a kairos, an opportunity that will never come again. Every task we start, every decision we make, whether trivial or great is a special time, a chance to build up the kingdom. Every encounter with another person is a unique kairos, a season of loving. Whether we’re working, cooking supper, or relaxing in front of the television, each moment is a part of the story of God’s loving presence in the world. It is all kairos.”

As I bake cookies, write that Christmas poem, send off greetings, mark papers, listen to stressed nursing students, and remember to feed the girls, I will look upon each twinkling Christmas light, each flashing holiday sign, each candy cane and kettle bell as a reminder of the urgent season upon us—the Advent, the coming of the Christ Child. Will my heart be ready?

This sense of season, of urgency echoed again for me while reading the familiar passage in Luke, from Isaiah:

A voice of one crying out in the desert: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be made low. The winding roads shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'

There again, the sense of urgency drumming throughout this passage, and now I realize that it is not about waking up the city construction crew. No, it is we who are the way to be made straight, we who are the rough path to be made smooth in preparation for the Lord. Perhaps this razing of the road is done is in our moment by moment work of traditional preparations, in each authentic encounter, as we look into the eyes of others in our hurried busyness, as well as in our discipline of honoring the tools of our trade as sacred vessels.

Blessings on your Advent journey, week two!

Of Shadow lands and the Season of Advent

2009-11-29T19:41:00.000-08:00

I love the Narnian Chronicles for many reasons, but one is because, as a child, they introduced me to the idea of ‘shadow lands’ … the insight that whatever good we experience on Earth throughout our lives is simply a shadow of the real good that we will experience in Heaven. Remember the conversation in The Last Battle, following that joyous race with the echoing cry, “Further in and further up!” about how the eternal worlds are like layers in an onion, only these layers get larger, richer, stronger, as each one is peeled away?

I am thinking that this concept of shadow lands parallels the season of advent. As you most likely know, today is the first day of Advent, the beginning of a new church year that focuses us on preparing for the coming of Christ Incarnate. In this time of penance and joyful preparation of our hearts for the soon-arriving Christ child, there is an echo of our penance preparing for Holy Week and the celebration as Christ returns, victorious from death and Hell. Of course, there is another echo in preparing our hearts and lives for the return of Christ to Earth for his Bride, the Church. Each layer in the redemptive plan, deeper than the one before, richer, more profound than profound itself.

The ‘shadows’ in shadow lands have echoes of meaning in themselves. For example, preparation for Christmas takes place in multiple layers; however most of these layers have little to nothing to do with preparing our hearts for the Christ Child. Instead, they are mere shadows of the real thing; instead, they merely prepare us for Christmas as a holiday celebration through acquisition of goods—not as meeting places for Christ through the refinement of sacramental reflection, the veritable shucking of ‘stuff’ that occludes the spirit.

In my ongoing quest to follow the discipline of living in the rhythm and respiration of the present moment,I am entering into the process of Advent,diving into the contradictory harmonies of penitence and royalty, of self denial and celebration. One of the small traditions of Advent is the lighting of the Advent wreath, accompanied by prayer and readings.

The Advent wreath first arrived on the scene as a Christian devotion in the Middle Ages, likely borrowed from the customs of pre-Christians, who used candles (fire) and greenery as symbols of light and life. The Advent Wreath is traditionally a circular evergreen wreath with four or five candles, three purple, one rose, and (if you use the five-candle model), one white candle for Christmas Day. However, metal artwork advent wreaths are now available that can be used Christmas after Christmas. Although some traditions use blue candles, Catholics still use purple and rose because they symbolize royalty and penitence. The candles symbolize the light of Christ coming into the world. The evergreen symbolizes life in Christ, a life ‘made new’ by Christ's first coming, in anticipation of the ultimate renewal of life we long for in Christ's second coming. The circular shape symbolizes eternity; the completeness of God. Although much of the symbolism came after the wreath was adopted by Christians, that does not detract from the power of these symbols. Meaning-making is a rich heritage of the imago dei!

Each candle is first lit on the appropriate Sunday of Advent, and then the candles may be re-lit each day as a part of daily prayers.I will be following this daily devotion throughout Advent:

1st CANDLE – (purple) THE PROPHECY CANDLE or CANDLE OF HOPE – We can have hope because God is faithful and will keep the promises made to us. Our hope comes from God.

O Emmanuel, Jesus Christ,

desire of every nation,

Savior of all peoples,

come and dwell among us.

And again, Isaiah says, ‘The Root of Jesse will spring up, one who will arise to rule over the nations; the Gentiles will hope in him.’ May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:12-13)

2nd CANDLE – (purple) - THE BETHLEHEM CANDLE or THE CANDLE OF PREPARATION – God kept his promise of a Savior who would be born in Bethlehem. Preparation means to “get ready”. Help us to be ready to welcome YOU, O GOD!

O King of all nations, Jesus Christ,

only joy of every heart,

come and save your people.

As is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet: ‘A voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him. Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth. And all mankind will see God’s salvation. (Luke 3:4-6)

3rd CANDLE - (rose) - THE SHEPHERD CANDLE or THE CANDLE OF JOY – The angels sang a message of JOY!

O Key of David, Jesus Christ,

the gates of heaven open at your command,

come and show us the way to salvation.

…and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.’ Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.’ When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” (Luke 2:7-15)

4th CANDLE - (purple) - THE ANGEL CANDLE or THE CANDLE OF LOVE – The angels announced the good news of a Savior. God sent his only Son to earth to save us, because he loves us.

O Wisdom, holy Word of God, Jesus Christ,

all things are in your hands,

come and show us the way to salvation.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:16-17)

5th CANDLE – (white) - THE CHRIST CANDLE – The white candle reminds us that Jesus is the spotless lamb of God, sent to wash away our sins! His birth was for his death, his death was for our birth!

Let the just rejoice,

for their justifier is born.

Let the sick and infirm rejoice,

For their savior is born.

Let the captives rejoice,

For their Redeemer is born.

Let slaves rejoice,

for their Master is born.

Let free men rejoice,

For their Liberator is born.

Let All Christians rejoice,

For Jesus Christ is born.

St. Augustine of Hippo

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned … For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace ... (Isaiah 9:2,6)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only,who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:1-14, 29)

Blessings on your Advent Journey ...
Make ready--the Christ Child is on his way!

PS. Want your own advent wreath? If you are living in the Langley, BC area, you can find one at the Holy Family Catholic Gift and Bookstore, at 20787 Fraser Hwy, across from St Joseph's Church

Thanksgiving , gratitude and wellness

2009-11-22T22:37:00.000-08:00

Ask any Sunday school grad what is the one biblical story that best exemplifies thankfulness, and the answer would probably be, “the one about the 10 lepers.” Do you remember this little story? Here is the Luke 17 version:

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance,they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.

That one word “well” jumped out at me this weekend when I reread the story. Although all ten lepers were healed of their disease, the one who was truly thankful was made well. Wow. What a statement about how our attitude toward gratitude can impact our wellness.

Of course, it is much easier to be grateful for the obviously good events in our lives … where we are stretched in our faith is our ability to be thankful for the crucible experiences of life. To truly live in gratitude in those present moments that are not so pleasant, but are places where we meet Christ, where he walks beside us through the mud of our day. Henri Nouwen in Bread for the Journey reflects on this:

To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for all of our lives--the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections-- that requires hard spiritual work.Still, we are only truly grateful people when we can say thank you to all that has brought us to the present moment. As long as we keep dividing our lives between events and people we would like to remember and those we would rather forget, we cannot claim the fullness of our beings as a gift of God to be grateful for. Let us not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God.

I am always looking to creation for life lessons and the perfect image came to mind when thinking about thanksgiving, gratitude, and muddy moments. Yes, that surprising, persevering plant we call 'skunk cabbage' in the Pacific Northwest! Skunk cabbage blooms in mucky corners where no self respecting flower would want to be seen. But, for me, skunk cabbage heralds spring just as much as daffodils do. They certainly bloom where they are planted with stolid gratitude for the chilly, wet earth; with indifference to an audience other than the sun, turning muddy ground into a signpost of spring and new life. Not bad for a little, nondescript plant with such a nasty name. And even here there is a parallel: there can be no more nasty name than 'leper' ... but see how even the label of 'leper' has been redeemed by the action of this one who is overcome with gratitude and thankfulness and plunged into a new life of wellness.

Happy Thanksgiving! Be WELL!

Living the dream

2009-11-15T23:43:00.000-08:00

Micah 6:8 has been called the “supreme definition of ethical religion.” You may recall that this verse is the summation of a courtroom drama, where humankind (God’s people) are brought up on the charge that they have broken the covenant (I will be their God and they will be my people) by wandering off on their own. Under cross examination, humankind crumbles and quickly asks, “how can I make this up—what penalty do I need to pay?” The ‘judge’ responds by chiding humankind, with the reminder that God is not asking for empty sacrifice and dead penance, but for life itself:

He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

This verse has become the course motto for my community nursing class. Social advocacy in a nutshell: justice balanced by mercy informed by authentic humility. As nurses seek to advocate for vulnerable populations, and to make policy and program decisions that mete out limited resources, this verse is both a touchstone and a beacon.

It seems as though we cannot separate out our attitudes and inner drives, our heart, from our actions. The image of justice as being blind and ruthless, armed with cold steel, is not the image of justice in Micah. Love, mercy, humility, faith … these are both virtues and actions grown from the heart, honed from a mind intent on choosing good by choosing God.

An interesting parallel to this Micah passage occurred to me today. My nephew is a first year college student and is currently writing a term paper for his New Testament class on the narrative of the centurion. In this story, recorded in Luke 7, a Roman centurion has a slave who is ill and dying. When the centurion hears about Jesus, he appeals to the Jewish elders to approach Jesus on his behalf, to ask him to heal his slave. When Jesus answers the request and is near his house, the centurion actually sends out messengers to stop Jesus from traveling any farther, because he believes that he is unworthy to have Jesus enter his house; also, because his faith tells him that, should he choose, Jesus can heal from any distance.

I’m thinking, what an example of living out Micah 6:8. I’m thinking, wow, this centurion might have made one amazing nurse!

First, this Roman centurion, this national symbol of hate and tyranny to the Jewish people, acts with justice and with mercy when he advocates for a vulnerable person, the lowest of the low: a sick, dying slave. Then, in the process of his advocacy, he does not commandeer an audience with Jesus directly. Instead, he works within the existing infrastructure in an established partnership he has already forged with the grass-roots leadership. The Jewish elders actually vouch for him to Jesus. Did you get that? The Jewish leaders actually vouch for a Roman.The centurion’s humility is further demonstrated when he sends his messengers to tell Jesus that he ‘gets’ that Jesus does not need to trouble himself to make a direct house call! The patient’s outcome? The text reads: "When the messengers returned to the house, they found the slave in good health." Not simply ‘better,’ or experiencing the ‘absence of disease,’ but in good health.

Wellness, the ultimate dream of social justice. I like to think of that slave, the patient in this story. I like to think that this amazing act of merciful advocacy from a heart filled with faith, a life lived in humility and action in equal proportion, was a transforming event for this patient. Yes, I believe in the Healer, but I also acknowledge the healer in this drama. Advocacy and action honed from a heart of compassion, mercy and faith—what a gift that this patient received. Through the transforming act of living out justice and mercy in humility, knowing our place in the universe under God, we can as ‘small h’ healers catalyze ultimate wellness, not simply physical healing, for our vulnerable patients.

God speed, nurses!

On widows, Mother Theresa, the nursing process, Homer Simpson, and Mr. Spock

2009-11-08T17:03:00.000-08:00

Last week I was teaching the nursing process to a group of brand new nursing students. The ‘nursing process’ has become, I believe, the most studied and elaborated upon event in nursing, especially when you realize that when all boiled down, it is simply common sense problem solving. Anyway, like most decision making frameworks, the nursing process has us move through stages of data gathering, analysis, problem identification, action, and evaluation. Through much of these stages we are directing and moving with our patient through their history and seeking to read their future needs, risks, and other wellness concerns. As I was reflecting on my class, I wondered if I had been able to instill in these new nurses the essence, or art, of nursing that allows us to authentically move with our patients through this process: the ability to engage with them. This ability to engage with another is more than a learned skill; it is a choice to invest in truly being present with another. Inherent in this engagement is a tiny but profound leap of faith that we can, in truth, unite with another in the present moment.

The choice to take that leap of faith and to invest in another is a wonderful gift to give and to receive. We recognize this when we receive it as well as when we take that leap of faith into the present moment of another and join with them. The authenticity of that encounter goes beyond skilled history taking and therapeutic conversation.

Who are our mentors in this? They range from every background and educational level and from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Speaking of the sublime, we witness in Mother Theresa’s work and writing a life committed to living in the present and engaging with every person that God brought to her door—and there were a lot of them! In her book, A Simple Path, she notes that a life of engagement requires an inner sanctum of connection to God, not simply as a retreat, but as a source for others to experience peace in the present moment. She speaks of meeting with people who "hungered and thirsted for this silent place" … stating that “I knew that once they came into an atmosphere of some kind of silence, they would just fall into a peaceful state.”

On the ridiculous side of the scale, Homer Simpson is utterly incapable of foreseeing consequences so blithely lives in the moment, unaware of the chaos enveloping him until the ensuing wave threatens to knock him to kingdom come. In spite of driving everyone crazy, Homer manages to connect with others largely due to his utter inability to see anyone as beneath him (even Ned Flanders becomes his best friend). So perhaps Homer Simpson teaches us that there is something about our attitude toward others that may impede our ability to engage in the present moment with another.

Mr. Spock. Now it is common knowledge that Mr. Spock can, through a mind meld, connect with anyone at anytime, but can a Vulcan ever truly live in the present moment? I propose that it would be highly illogical to live in the present when future concerns can be rationally predicted and overcome by disciplined attention to reason. If Mr. Spock were a nurse, it would be easy to identify his patients. They would all be curled up in the fetal position shivering in psychological trauma from a simple history taking assessment. From Mr. Spock we learn that perhaps our ability to engage in the present moment involves mutuality and receptivity from the other before it can be authentic and non-damaging …

Today’s Scripture readings included the story of Elijah and the widow from Zarephath (IKings 17). As you will recall, the widow and her son are near starving with so many others in the region due to drought and poverty. The widow has a small amount of flour and oil left—just enough for one meal. She has no hope beyond this bit of flour and oil, so is preparing to cook her and her son’s last bit of bread. Along comes Elijah He is new to town, but she recognizes him as a prophet when he asks her for a drink and then further presumes to ask her to cook him some food. Elijah, hears her situation, and responds to her emotion, “do not be afraid,” as well as to her base-level concerns. He says to go ahead and make him some bread first before she makes it for herself and her son, stating that God will ensure that her flour pot and oil pitcher will have enough in them every day until the drought is over. Somehow, in that quick interchange, Elijah is able to make an authentic connection and through this present-moment-meeting, the widow is able to make a leap of faith. As a result, she gets to enjoy the peace and joy of each morning finding flour and oil and setting out bread for her son every day.

Could the widow have made that incredible sacrifice of her last meal if Elijah hadn’t engaged with her, hearing and addressing her fear and clarifying her concerns? I don’t know. I do know that I want to able to emulate the widow’s leap of faith when Elijah comes to my door—but I sure hope that my Elijah will have the initiative and commitment to meet me in my present moment and address my fears. Further, I hope that when I am Elijah to my students, my patients, and others, that I am able to do the same.

May Shalom infiltrate our present moment.

Voice, agency, and the benefit of the doubt

2009-11-02T22:45:00.000-08:00

A funny thing happened to me on the way to completing my doctorate.

I got older.

Why is that funny? Because my doctoral research is on capacity building for elders. Hmmm. I’m literally living my way into my research topic! I’m still completing my dissertation research, and sometimes it feels as though I truly will be an elder by the time I finally type that last APA citation.

My research is taking place in two elder care agencies and focuses on how elders perceive they are being heard in the planning and implementation of their nursing care. In focus groups, I am listening to the synergy of elders reflecting upon the concepts of voice and agency. Simultaneously, caregivers (nurses and others) are working in teams to prepare short video journals on daily care interventions that they believe honors residents’ choices and elicits voice.

Voice and agency … the ability to speak your needs and to act on your choices. In professional life we tend to take this for granted. However, when we are ill, pressured by externals, or relying on another for physical care, voice and agency fade from our grasp and become very precious. Voice and agency are very much linked to our personal and social development; Maslow’s stage of self-actualization is difficult to envision without voice and agency.

On the other hand, the equivalent of the stage of self-actualization within spirituality is self-denial. How do we make sense of what would appear to be polar opposite directives? How do we synthesize human potential and spiritual growth? Drives of the body and mind versus desires of the spirit? How do we move toward becoming more ourselves, and yet aspire to selflessness?

Don’t we love those pie shaped wedges of percentages, ratios, containable fractions explaining body and spirit, allowing us to wrestle interminably with integration and strive for unembodied perfection. Meanwhile, living in sacrament, moment, by moment, means living deeply within the present moment of our humanness, meeting Christ in the eternal nature of the present. Work, play, family, worship all become sacramental acts. The 'pie' metaphor becomes a perfect circle.

For however much we want to split persons into components, the Genesis theme of relationship and beginnings imply that we are created units: soul. "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul (nephesh, psuche)" (Gen. 2:7). What a lovely picture of transformed unity: God’s breath did not simply embody a clay shell, instead, the shell itself was transformed into living soul. This transformation is profoundly echoed in the Incarnation, when Christ was born, lived, and died as a human.

Living soul. As I listen to elders, I am catching glimpses of this synthesis of growth in persons who have lived authentically, faced struggles and given others the benefit of the doubt. Maslow’s description of self actualization includes an acceptance of one’s’ self, an interest in problem solving, and a stance of embracing truth and reality. Self denial was a part of their lives: they lived through two world wars, economic ups and downs, family tragedies and they raised families and forged a nation while they did this. Day by day, moment by moment. Authentically facing each season in its time, giving of themselves for children and for their communities: vegetables for the soup pot growing in the tiny patch of back yard; clothes stitched and patched hanging on the line; bills paid in hard-earned cash.

Gerard Manley Hopkins described self-denial in this way:
Turn then, my brethren, and give God glory. Thank and praise Him now for everything. When a man is in God's grace and free from mortal sin Then everything he does, so long as it has no sin in it, Gives glory to God. It is not only prayer that gives God glory, but work. Smiting an anvil, sawing a beam, whitewashing a wall, Driving horses, sweeping, scouring, Everything gives God some glory, If, being in His grace, you do it as your duty. To go to Communion worthily gives God great glory But to take food in thankfulness and temperance Gives Him glory too. To lift the hands in prayer gives God glory But a man with a dung fork in his hands, A woman with a slop pail Gives Him glory too. His is so great that all things give Him glory If you mean they should. So then, my brethren, live.

I am beginning to suspect that voice and agency have a great deal to do with our developmental growth; I am even more convinced, however, that listening is imperative to my growth! Perhaps that is the kernel here: that voice and agency allow elders the capacity to pass on this glimpse of life that is authentic, meat and potatoes, rather than the virtual, credit line life that is our generation’s reality. I am also learning that the skill of listening implies giving others the benefit of the doubt. It is only when I honor the other by recognizing Christ within them that I am prepared to truly listen.

So then, my brethren (and sister-en!), live. And give one another the sacred benefit of the doubt …

Meaning making

2009-10-25T23:30:00.000-07:00

Finding meaning in traumatic past events is clinically understood to be a healing movement toward wellness. It is always a marvelous, amazing moment to hear a patient tell me that cancer or other diagnosis, an accident, a personal tragedy, or other horrendous event was the ‘best thing that could have happened to me.’ Stories of lives being turned around, of meaning being made out of the ashes of disaster … these are the stuff of miracles. Fingerprints of the Redeemer on a life, a family, a community.

For that is how I see these moments: through the lens of an understanding of the significance of the Incarnation on the world. When ‘God became flesh and dwelt among us,’ the miraculous work of redemption ignited, and time, like Aslan’s table, ‘worked backwards’ yet transformed to living gold. Redemption: the greening of our parched histories of trauma, tragedy, and sheer nastiness is a reflection of this act of love.

Why is it, though, that it is so much easier to see the fingerprint of redemption on our personal worlds when we have undergone a horrific experience? Why do we resist seeing the ongoing work of redemption in the routine, the mundane of our lives?

You know what I mean when I speak of the mundane. Those everyday moments of our 24/7 that stitched together make up 99% of our lives. Those moments of cleaning the bathtub, making lunches, doing the dishes, writing (or listening to) classroom lectures, paying bills, seeing the tenth diabetic patient that day, triple checking medications for the nth time, listening to the student with an issue …

Why is it so hard to see the Redeemer in the commonplace of life?

Perhaps because the Redeemer is only needed for the extraordinary? Set aside for the ‘spiritual’ events of life when we are primed and God is ready? I cannot accept that, given the nature of the incarnation, which touched earth along with spirit. No, I think that this disconnect lies is in our concept of the mundane, which by definition excludes the idea of eternity and profundity. Times of prayer and worship have become for us disconnected from the everyday. Worship means for us to be lifted above the everyday. However, I think that Brother Lawrence and St Francis (among so many others) had it right.

In The Practice of the Presence of God, “Brother Lawrence felt it was a great delusion to think that the times of prayer ought to differ from other times. We are as strictly obliged to adhere to God by action in the time of action, as by prayer in its season. His own prayer was nothing else but a sense of the presence of God, his soul being at that time insensible to everything but Divine Love. When the appointed times of prayer were past, he found no difference, because he still continued with God, praising and blessing Him with all his might. Thus he passed his life in continual joy. Yet he hoped that God would give him somewhat to suffer when he grew stronger.”

Similarly, St Francis saw Christ in all he met. For Francis, there was no distinction between the holy and the earthly—or perhaps more correctly, he saw through the earthly to the Incarnated Christ, the Redeemer. Bodies of clay and the blessed body of Christ became one and the same: the leper was greeted by Francis with a holy kiss. Birds, the sun and moon, received words of encouragement and thanksgiving by virtue of their transformation by the Incarnate Christ.

I pray that I learn to practice this eternity-altered visioning in my mundane: to greet Christ in every visage of my students, of patients, residents and research participants. To welcome the eternal in the interruptions of life, in the earth-shattering personal events, and in the daily humdrum routine of everyday. And, to share an encouraging glance and kind word to all of creation and in doing so, to honor the ongoing redeeming work of the Incarnate Christ.

Being sick ...

2009-10-18T22:20:00.000-07:00

I always think that it is good for nurses and other health care providers to experience pain, illness, physical weakness, despair. Humans have a remarkable ability to forget what existing in these states feels like; how eternal, solid, and all-encompassing pain, illness, and despair appear to be when you are in the crucible. Well, like most things that are ‘good for us,’ we would rather accept them in theory rather than in practice …

Last week found me recovering from a visitation of what would appear to have been H1N1. For a few days there, I found myself isolated in a crucible of fever, pain and flu. A very few days compared to the chronic illness crucible that so many others find themselves living within.

Your thinking changes when you are caught within that crucible, no matter how short term it is, for when you are in the crucible, time stands still.

Little things you take for granted: quick leaps of energy to do simple acts of life; appetite; flashes of fun, desire, laughter, all are moved beyond your current reality. Prayer takes on a different, more grim, dimension. Priorities change. People become more—and less—important. ‘To do’ lists lose their power over you, as do the powers and principles that rule the world: bill paying and moving money become an insignificant, easily forgotten chore. Water. Water is precious as is the ability to drink it and to keep it down. Food is simplified. A simple soup tolerated by a fickle GI system is appreciated like sushi is celebrated during times of reckless health. Silence is beyond precious. Air. Coughing fits, ‘bubble and squeak’ lungs, thickened airways impart moments of dis-ease and near anxiety; fatigue related to air hunger as coughing takes over the night.

I must admit, I am no hero when I am ill. This time was no different. I did not want to ‘live in the present moment.’

I prayed for the uncomfortable present moment to be gone and the blissful healthy future to emerge, shattering the crucible with joy, zest and normalcy. I wanted to feel good by virtue of feeling healthy. Still, I do want to honor the lessons of illness and have these memories fuel gratitude and thanksgiving as I move back to health and routine.

What are these lessons? I do think the shift in priorities that occurs while in the crucible is a lesson worth keeping. Finding joy in simple things. Laughing at the ‘less than hero’ within myself … all good lessons!

Keep well!

Putting away the pool

2009-10-03T13:06:00.000-07:00

A very exciting thing happened to us this summer.

Just as the TV weatherperson gave her prediction that we were heading into a heat wave, my mom called to discuss Vincent’s birthday. As we chatted about the impending heat wave and I explained why our older house’s electric panel could not handle an air conditioner, my mom had a brainwave: “You should buy a pool,” she said. “They are on sale right now. It would be perfect for Vincent’s birthday!”

I did not need any sort of arm-twisting or other form of coercion—especially as she wanted to join in the purchase of this gift. As kids, we had grown up with a succession of pools, each one taller and broader, but all the same wonderful round cool summer playground. We all took ‘pool chore’ turns: hosing out the filter and skimming leaves with a homemade net made out of a wire hanger and my mother’s old nylon stockings. Only the oldest kid was allowed to put the chlorine tablets into the floating dispenser. The youngest kid was left with the job of miserably turning the filter panels while they were being squirted out. We all loved skimming leaves—we got to go out in our little blue boat and chase down rogue leaves with the nylon stocking skimmer.

All those memories fueled me. Throughout that morning, the idea of a pool for Vincent’s birthday grew and grew until by afternoon it became unbearably sweet. We headed to Zellers, sales flyer in hand. “All gone,” we were told by the one salesperson we tracked down. We turned the nose of our car toward Wal-Mart. In Sporting Goods, we found a small crowd of hopeful families clustered around one salesperson who was on the phone. “Pool?” we asked the crowd. “She’s calling the warehouse now,” answered a mom in a tense whisper. Two other moms glanced over and nodded briefly in nervous anticipation. The salesperson hung up the phone. “They’re looking,” she said in the waiting silence. “Someone thinks that there were a few pools that didn’t get sent out. They will call me back in twenty minutes or so.” We watched as the crowd of moms scattered slightly, still hovering around the swimming pool aisle, glancing at each other as if to measure the competition. Visions of beach balls, floating lounges, and blow-up swans flickered in their eyes.

A rumor began to spread among the moms. “Canadian Tire,” we heard. “Canadian Tire had pools yesterday … lots of pools …” The phone rang and we all watched as the salesperson answered. Just as her face began to register the faintest disappointment, we were out the door and headed toward Canadian Tire. “Go,” Vincent said with urgency, as he slowed in front of the doors of Canadian Tire, “Go!” I jumped out of the car and didn’t lose time looking behind me. Through the doors I plunged and was greeted by the sweetest sight. Boxes of pools smack in the middle of the main aisle. Sweeter still was the orange ‘on sale’ sign above the pools. I attached myself to one of the boxes and waited for Vincent to park the car and catch up to me.

“It’s awfully big,” he said doubtfully, when I had moved enough for him to read the pool dimensions on the box. “It’s all they have left,” I responded. It was enough. He flagged down a salesperson who brought a dolly. The box just fit into our hatchback with the seats down. We had to use our John Deer lawn mower and cart to get the box from the car into the backyard.

I had that pool set up in two hours. Two days after filling it, the township declared an official heatwave and imposed outside water restrictions. Isn’t God’s timing wonderful? :-) Of course it is trivial seeing our filled pool as a ‘God thing’, but you have NO IDEA how hot our old timer flat roof house gets! It is truly how we felt!

We enjoyed the pool all summer long and I thanked God (and my mom) for it at every opportunity. The girls (our Dalmatians) loved it too. Although we weren’t about to let them shred the liner with their enthusiastic thrashing, so outlawed them from being inside the pool, they loved running around the cool perimeter of it. I think it acted as sort of an outside air conditioner for them. Gabe, our Siamese cat, lay down alongside it as well, moving with the shade as the sun climbed each day.

But now it is Fall, and we emptied the pool yesterday. Today is ‘pack the pool away’ day. Very much a bittersweet kind of thing. It signals the end of summer fun, but we will get a good-sized portion of our backyard back. Although I suspect it will look as though aliens visited us (ie., the round crop circle where the pool killed the grass). We can dream about the excitement of a new summer, and the fun of setting up the pool again.

In my ongoing determination to learn to live in the present, I am seeking to see even the chores of the day as a discipline, an exercise in understanding contentment and gratitude in the present moment.

As I do this, I recall earlier concerns: if I become focused on the present, won’t I lose the learning power of remembering the past, or the visioning of the future? Instead, I note, as I dry the liner and place each plastic clip in the zip lock bag, that through gratitude, I revisit moments in the past and am thankful for them, and am accepting of, and able to, appreciate the Fall moment of putting away. I notice a holistic connecting with the season, the objects in my hand, and the sense of the gift of this moment, past moments and future glimpses of potential moments of joy. An overarching contentment in spite of cold fingers in the Fall breeze and stiffness in my aging ‘nurses’ back.

G. K. Chesterton said, “You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.”

I think what I am learning in this discipline of living in the present moment, is to say grace before and as I teach classes, write, listen to my research participants, chop pears—and put away the pool.

Enjoy your Fall moments!

Picking strawberries in September

2009-09-27T13:47:00.000-07:00

There is something special about picking strawberries in the middle of September.

Discovering each one is like finding a little miracle hidden in a world of leaves and stems that are already starting to show autumn color. For some reason, our four hanging planters of strawberries are sending out a rush of blossoms and berries – perhaps in an effort to produce as much as possible while the sun still shines, striving to preserve the illusion that summer is still here. Whatever the reason, I am in delighted awe each morning as I head out with my breakfast bowl and top my granola and yogurt with a handful of juicy-red berries. Even our two Dalmatians get in on a few berries these days, as the shoots from the plants hang low with strawberries; carefully they lift their lips and gently pull off berries with their teeth. Thankfully, ‘the girls’ have kindly kept their berry picking to the low growing tendrils and have not begun grazing the plants themselves or my little strawberry miracles would long be gone!

Meanwhile, as I gloat over each treasured September strawberry, the pear tree is dropping beautiful pears right on schedule.I love pears and have waited for them all summer. However, I find myself combing through leaves looking for strawberries in September, choosing these over pears in their prime. Hmmm. How human of me!

Why is it that we desperately prefer to hang onto what was, or long for what will be, rather than be content with what is? You can bet that next month, sometime in October, I will be searching the pear tree looking for one more luscious globe hiding among golden leaves.

I am slowly reading Mother Theresa’s little book, A Simple Path. I say slowly, because I am trying not to gulp it down, but instead to savor her reflections and prayers like those lovely ripe pears—words in their season, one reading at a time. As mundane as this action is, these short, simple reflections and prayers are flashes in time when I intersect with eternity. Something so profound, but found in the daily rhythm of life.

In keeping with the theme of this week, let me share a couple of short, sweet bites with you:

The Simple Path
The fruit of silence is
prayer.
The fruit of prayer is
faith.
The fruit of faith is
Love.
The fruit of love is
Service.
The fruit of service is
Peace.
Help us, O loving Father, to take whatever you give,
And to give whatever you take,
With a big smile.

Chasing the blue ribbon cake ...

2009-09-19T22:40:00.000-07:00

Okay, this is how it happened.
Last summer, my husband learned how to can applesauce. He quickly became enamored with canning, and began boiling jars and mixing syrup and experimenting by combining fruits and spices. He created concoctions he called, “Rhubarb Jungle” “Ruby Slippers,” and “Ginger Spice for Hot Monkeys.” This summer the masterpiece was “Rhubarb Figgy Pudding,” a mixture of figs, rhubarb and apples from our backyard cooked to a sweet, tangy, tasty mess called a conserve by cooks in the know. He decided to enter “Rhubarb Figgy Pudding” in the Northwest Washington Fair in Lynden, Washington.

Let me back up a bit.

During most of these canning blitzes, I remained chained to my computer, writing yet another draft of my dissertation proposal. About the time that steam was pouring out of our kitchen and the aroma of rhubarb, figs and apples filled the air, still at my computer, I turned on the TV. There was Aunt Bee preserving pickles for the Mayberry Fair. Do you remember that episode of the Andy Griffith Show? When Aunt Bee was trying to outdo Clara and win the blue ribbon for pickles? Well, just as Aunt Bee peered into her pickle jar, my husband entered the room holding up a jar of “Rhubarb Figgy Pudding” and announcing this was The One. Suddenly I felt this odd peer pressure to join in with the crowd (well, with Aunt Bee and my husband) and enter something—anything—in the Fair. “I will bake a cake,” I blurted. “I will enter a cake in the Fair.”

Reflecting on this decision, I suppose part of it was a drive to avoid writing the current draft of my dissertation proposal, but also I just wanted to try something new.

Although I have baked a cake before (perhaps 15 years ago?), I had never before entered anything in a Fair. Oh, the pleasure of deciding to do something new! To wander out into a new path not knowing how it will turn out … okay, okay, it wasn’t that big a deal, but I really did NOT know how this cake that I proposed to bake would turn out, so there was a bit of mystery to enjoy!

I do think that starting something new is a rush because of this mystery component of starting down an unfamiliar road ... you feel brave and slightly heroic for deciding to do it. The planning to begin the new thing is totally fun. Especially when you get to buy new stuff. (I got a new cake pan and a flour sifter.)

When you actually start the new thing, though, the reality can be scary and frustrating or so alien that you wonder why you ever wanted to do it.

And the stuff you need to buy can be scary in itself … like the price of nursing textbooks or the sheer size and heft of them. At this point, the reality of your decision to go to nursing school can hit like a ton of bricks. It can feel scary, stressful and so alien that you wonder why you ever, ever, wanted it. I think that I can safely say to any and all nursing students that if you don’t feel this right now, there will be some moment along the way in the next four years that you will. When that moment hits, take a deep breath (or six or seven), go for a walk or a run, hug a puppy, look at the stars or the wonderful liquid star shine we are blessed with 10 months of the year, and thank God for the ability to feel and grow and wonder and to reflect on your journey.

And go bake that cake!

By the way, to my utter astonishment, my cake got a blue ribbon.

No kidding!

(apologies to Julia Child for pasting my face on her picture)

Countdowns and being: the sacrament of the present moment

2009-09-07T10:07:00.000-07:00

I am a ‘countdown’ freak. I get a thrill when the ball drops, number by number, on December 31st at 1159. To be honest, the New Year that follows is a bit of a let down—the countdown is much more exciting. Yes, the kitchen timer mesmerizes me when I cook eggs. I can’t pull those eggs off the stove until that 00 flashes and I hear that beep—it’s got to be the countdown thing. I must have always had this fixation, because when I was a kid, I used to con my little sister into doing my chores by promising to ‘time’ her. “Wow!” I would say enthusiastically, “You were WAY faster this time!” And I would watch her scurry around trying her darnedest to beat the clock when I started the final “9, 8, 7, 6, ..."

The countdown neurosis continued when I entered college and nursing school. I remember pulling out the nursing program, all those semesters laid out, course by course … it looked like eternity on a page. But, I would begin the countdown: first course, second course, third course done—one semester down. The check marks beside each core course, every elective, and each semester like a ticking clock counting down the program. When my pencil checked off that last course – what a rush. The 00 of the egg timer, the beeping microwave, the cheers as the ball dropped at midnight, all combined.

Then it was over. I had graduated. But, like the New Year’s countdown, the day after graduation was nearly as flat as the day after New Year’s Eve. My college friends and I had spent hours longing for school to be done. Watching the clock through lectures, wishing we were ‘real’ nurses instead of ‘just’ student nurses. Waiting for the day when we could write ‘RN’ after our name and collect the paycheck to match it. Suddenly, there it all was and I remember thinking, well, this is great—but now what? Looking back, I realize how amazing it all was: nursing school and college and nursing buddies and those incredible patients that I can’t forget to this day. And I wonder how much I missed—how much we all missed—by fixating on the countdown rather than the incredible experience we were all going through. Jean Pierre De Caussade, a spiritual writer in the 18th century, would have laughed at my countdown fixation. He reflects on what he called the sacrament of the present moment:

Uninterruptedly your life will flow through the unfathomed abyss where you have nothing to do but love and cherish what each moment brings, considering it as the best possible thing for you. When God lives in us we have nothing to help us beyond what he gives us moment by moment. Nothing else is provided and no road is marked out. The present moment holds infinite riches beyond your wildest dreams but you will only enjoy them to the extent of your love and faith.

It is only in the present moment that we truly meet the eternal, for that is where Christ, who is Love and Joy, meets us—not in the past or the future, but now. He is present through one another in our minute-by-minute relationships, as we move and engage with Creation, and in the work he has called us to do as students and as faculty. We are all beginning 15 short weeks together. They will fly by regardless of whether or not we put a check mark beside every task completed or watch the clock through every lecture. We have a choice to meet each moment as a gift from God and a visitation of Christ himself. In return we can receive the riches of deep joy he grows in us.

Blessings on your semester!

Rhythm & Respiration

2009-09-01T17:16:00.000-07:00

I love this picture--the 12 month experience of a tree in a snapshot. Sometimes I think that it would help us understand the natural seasons of life a bit better if we could pull back and see the big picture now and again. Maybe then we could learn to live in the eternal moment, appreciating the nuances of each season.

I am calling this blog Rhythm & Respiration because I like the wordplay between the biological/nursing meaning of rhythm and respiration and the spiritual understanding of these words. I'm wanting to use this blog to invite a thoughtful integration of faith and nursing, as well as simple spiritual inspiration. Yep, 'inspiration,' there's another word common to nursing and spirituality!

Rhythm: There is a rhythm to the academic year, the natural year, the life span and body, such as circadian rhythms, hormone and cardiac cycles, as well as the Church year from Advent to Pentecost. It is easy to become disconnected to these rhythms when stressed, unless we are continually called, body, mind and spirit, to re-enter these refreshing rhythms.

Respiration: ‘Respiration’ and ‘inspiration’ are intrinsically connected. Assessing breathing is not only the first order of triage and necessary for all creatures (even trees and cells must undergo respiration), but ‘Breath of God’ is a metaphor for the Holy Spirit, vital for spiritual health in the body of Christ.

Rhythm: the Church year

I'm hoping that this blog becomes for me a spiritual discipline of sorts. A devotional journal that helps focus me on the present moment, honoring the natural rhythms of the life I've been given and breathing through and into the moment with Creation and community. I invite you to join me on my journey, finding joy in the rhythm of your world and joining in the breathing in and out of your community.

Blessings on the journey!