Patience Persistence Presence and Passion

"You've always had the power my dear, you just had to learn it for yourself." Glinda the good witch Did you go through a tough time of caring for someone to find out that they became a very good friend? This is something that we get when we are committed to the call to care. This is what you call real relationships which usually have the opportunity to include friction, adversity and challenge. The best of relationships are those which have stood the test of opposition and challenge. Some may think that having a challenging patient is just not the right person for you but it may be the very person to help you to understand how to care for a difficult person. Caring for a difficult person may lead the care giver to tap into the real gift within to enjoy the gift that they were meant to be. Reaching into your own personhood to care for your patient is not something that most people want to do. reaching in to see yourself is not always a pretty sight. In fact, when looking a character identifications learning about your strengths also carries along with it the pain of facing your own weaknesses. No challenge to your inner person brings no deep reflection to what moves you which results in your ability to fly on auto-pilot. Adapting to the frailties of our own psyche is what we do to make it from one day to the next. Facing the challenge of a difficult patient makes us dig deep enough to see what changes need to be made in our own character in order for the gift inside to make more of a difference. Hard to believe? Just think of it, the athlete, who has the gift of speed, endurance and flexibility still needs to push him or herself in order to become more of what they already are. This is true for any gift inside a person who wants more from their inner person. The word from Glinda the Good is wise instruction for anyone who desires to be fully able and efficient to perform what they believe they have been gifted to do. Facing the challenge helps you to be more. Don't leave that client, dig deep within for the person who you are made to be. Go beyond what you are capable of adapting to, pour your energy into being what you can be and doing what you can do. Dare to be better than you are to become more of what you can be. "You've always had the power to do this my friend, you just had to learn it for yourself."

The Logic of Broken Hearts

"Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable." The Tin Man: 'The Wizard of Oz' Sometimes I speak with care givers who do not want to "get too close" to their patients. I see this as a waste of presence and a missed opportunity for really caring for the person who needs to be affirmed while having to cope with the humility of having someone else care for them. If a care giver allows their emotions to enter into the picture of care, they will find that they will get more of a blessing than they could give. During the course of my own encounters with patients I have found that I will resonate better with some than with others. This is nobody's fault. Some patients I have found that they do not relate to me in the way that I would like, and I soon remember that love is a commitment not a feeling. The Love that I share for a person while caring for them helps me to be aware of their situation of pain, or suffering even their grief. I need to be able to resonate with their pain in order to walk with them on the journey of sorrow. The reluctant care giver, desiring to keep from feeling the pain of the patient, will have trouble resonating with them. I am not talking about making up your own issues of sorrow in order to cry with them but reflecting on their sorrow allowing it to touch your sorrow is best. This kind of care will cause your soul to hurt and invite the pain of grief to enter in. A person who is suffering can somehow feel that you are just using words while attending to them but a person who sees that you care enough to enter into their suffering will receive the offering of true care giving. It is said that misery loves company and I do believe this is true. This saying is usually referred to when a person is having a tough time in life they want to pull everyone down who will let them. But there is another side to this. A person who is in misery needs someone who is willing to sit in the misery with them, find a glimmer of hope in the middle of hopelessness. To be able to see if there is something to grasp in the midst of suffering. The depth of the life lost, the strength of the character of the hurting, the assurance of a faithful family... These aspects of life and relationship are worth more that anyone can say at the moment. Assumptions, third party feelings, virtually stepping out of the room to detour the issue are all errors in caring for a person who is suffering. You, as the care giver must be in the room physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. You are the one who has walked this journey with the patient and it is you that they expect to lean on as they go through. Many times silence is golden the urge to give direction, lessons or even show something to the patient is like walking on thin ice in the relationship. The lesson of the Tin man is that what is felt is not always of a practical nature. The task is to feel what they feel as best as you can and be of support to them, then you will have offered yourself as a real person to minister to another human being. Some care givers give care as if they would like their heart to be unbreakable but this would defeat the purpose of the intimacy of care. Allowing your heart to break for the person to whom you are showing love is a key task in care giving. This is the logic of broken hearts.

A Look at Dunaway Gardens

Famous Quotes from the Wizard of Oz

Quotes from the Movie

A Word on The Wiz

The Wiz

    In the updated version of the Wizard of Oz, The Wiz staring Michael Jackson, Dianna Ross and Nipsy Russell we find an urban look into the story told from a different point of view.

   The Wiz didn't give them anything and stood there with nothing to help them deal with why they had come to see him.  They had done all this for nothing. 

      Sometimes you will not be able to give a tangible gift to the patient you are serving.  In my chaplain visits I have had many patients who cannot engage in regular communication that I am used to.  I find that some severe Alzheimer's patients just cannot comprehend the gift of helping, a gift or mint to lighten their day.  Sometimes things are different, 'Like the Wiz'  In my journeys of care giving I have had patients who knew exactly what they wanted to say yet, they could not get the words out of their mouth to relay the thought to me.  This was so frustrating to them that it brought much anxiety to them and I felt the responsibility of causing angst instead of soothing their mind with my visit.   There are times that you will not be able to give them the gift that you long desire to offer but you may be able to offer them something more.

   

        The offer of non material gifts are important in life as we go along the way.  Gifts such as patience, presence, a pause of silence in order for the patient to process the task at hand or the words just spoken.  These gifts are so important to the patient that we cannot measure their worth to the relationship we are building.  Knowing that everyone is not suited for the naturally comfortable setting that we are comfortable with is part of offering real love for our patients.   Some of the patients we serve are comfortable with the loud TV going in the background.  You may have a patient that is running a race, like one of my recent patients who wanted to walk around the nurses station several times a day, if he could.  Luis was into sports in a big way in his life, he had run many marathons and felt very comfortable in the sports conversations and debates.  Looks different than most hospice patients, but this was a different life that I respect and cared for deeply.  These gifts are sometimes only realized through my conversation with the patient or someone who has known them for most of their life.  This person can help me to understand why they react a certain way, if I can detach from my own familiar life for a moment, I will find out where home is for that patient.    Loving them enough to understand how to bring personal comfort can solve many issues in my challenge to offer support.

    There are also metaphysical gifts that we can learn to lean on in order to inspire hope in a hopeless person.

     Such as the love of God, the developing nature of our existence, and how the attitude can affect each day.  These supports for offering care are much more important than even the things that we write in their chart.  

   

      Life on life care means more than just maintaining hygiene by washing a person, or assisting someone out of the bed so that they can sit up in the kitchen and eat breakfast. 

  The life upon life care is an intimate exchange of presence which speaks volumes of love, affirmation, care, assurance and actual, not virtual, 'connectedness' to the world around them.  You testify to the person  that you are caring for that he/she is a real person who was created by God for the purpose of living in this world.   You relay to them that they are offering to the world value in every breath breathed and every sense felt.  God operates on this level many times and places value on each life by extending His own image upon those lives in the world.    

          Psalm 139: 15 says, "My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.  When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.  All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."

          This ancient song in the pages of scripture helps us to remember that God has been and is aware of our presence before we were born.  Much of our existence in the world is consumed with how productive we are but God is aware of us when no one else offers support.  He offers his affirmation to the person who can no longer offer the conventional type of contribution to society.  God's love is shown to them in His Word and we can express that same love to the patient as a gift as we lean upon the metaphysical gift that we have from God. 

  

          This verse of scripture also informs us of the purposeful intention that goes into the makeup of our lives.  The psalmist understands that God has a specific purpose for us even before we are born into this world.  "I was woven together in the depths of the earth".  Being born into the world is an act which is orchestrated by God himself with intent from beginning to the end.  The illustration of weaving something together is not the act of an unintentional mishap but the idea of creativity, sure thought and purpose.      Many people try to comprehend the productivity of a person by understanding what they can do or how they can think but God ordains a birth in the gift of conception and initiates the first act of another actor for a certain purpose and need.  Only God knows the specific purpose of every baby born and only He can direct that child to the place where his/her gifts can be put into use for the solution to a certain need. 

        Just like the Wiz offers a different take on the same old story, each and every person born comes with a tailored makeup to offer us a customized understanding of the world around us.   The Wiz turned out to be a man who was so self-conscious that he did not even want to come out in public at Oz and risk falling under the judgment of those who looked up to him.  This rendition of the Wizard of Oz promotes the fact that we are all made a certain way. 

Believing that you are made a certain way and accepting that as OK is important  in every care giver's life.  

        Life is a lot about realizing who you are and celebrating your gifts by using them to help others.      The Wiz didn't give them what they wanted because he never had it to begin with not even for himself.   Remember what Glinda the Good told Dorothy at the end of the story, "You always had the power, my dear, you just had to learn it for yourself."    When you learn/accept yourself, you can accomplish many things.  Make your time count by doing what you do best.