<![CDATA[A Hospice Chaplain's Field Guide to Caregiving

<![CDATA[A Hospice Chaplain's Field Guide to Caregiving - Blog]]>Mon, 16 Mar 2026 07:48:18 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[Memorial Day reminds us we live in the Garden of Change…]]>Mon, 27 May 2024 17:26:54 GMThttps://www.emhager.com/blog/memorial-day-reminds-us-we-live-in-the-garden-of-change
When things change … or when WE LOSE SOMEONE ONE, it’s a loss - even if we choose it. Think about it …changing jobs… or locations: a new town or apartment… or a DIVORCE (which is a death… ) there are things you miss and things you don’t.

We don’t take ACTION until our MENTAL LIST of possible GAINS ARE GREATER THAN the pain of loss. It’s a math of living…The vision pulls and the pain pushes… AND THEN, HERE were are again … on our knees…in the garden of change.

Or maybe its not a list, but you have some wise friend encourages you in a better direction… helping us notice both the pain WE HAVE HAVE BEEN ENDURING AND the resources beside us. This is the holy ground…of having a community.

The Lesson of the Rose: encouragement

Hafiz said it well in this poem:

How did the rose ever have the courage
to open all its beauty to the world?

It needed the encouragement of light against its being…
otherwise we all remain too frightened.

– Hafiz translation by Daniel Ladinsky

Wise friends walking with us along the way are golden… It’s why we form in like-minded communities. We need each other’s encouragement…

Change helps us to open TO RECEIVERSHIP…. We don't do this life alone… and if we do we tend to go dark…

A VERY good lesson. ITS THE LESSON OF THE ROSE

The Lotus' Lesson of the holy muck

The lesson of the LOTUS… is that of sacred soil amendments.
Both MY Landscape Architect brain… and my hospice chaplain brain… think of the unnoticed resources under our feet… as holy ground… SACRED SOIL AMENDMENTS.
That’s right - SACRED SOIL AMENDMENTS.

Imagine THIS: an exquisite lotus rising above the water, reaching for the light but rooted in the most awful, slimy muck at the bottom of the pond that you can imagine…
that lotus is using it all, rooting into the resources under ITS feet, to bloom. All the LOTUS needs is right here…

But when the losses are NOT of our making… it’s much worse. Its like the destruction of an ancient, magnificent oak … there is a hole in the sky where it used to be.
Death of a loved one - whether it is a long decline as with dementia, or an abrupt accident that leaves us on our knees in the muck, and breathless from the hole in our hearts - ITS A LOT

Grief is MUD BATH -

it’s messy, and chaotic and inconvenient … and In terms of getting “over’ loss and grief… the only way OUT is through. It seems to be designed for us TO PAUSE… and LISTEN more deeply.

We can DENY GRIEF, claim a positive attitude to appear as if we are coping ………saying we are “fine” when we are not… but if we do not stay in that healing mud long enough, or listen deeply enough, we are likely to get stuck. The fastest way out IS NOT TO RUN FROM THE PAIN - but to face it. TO WALK TOWARD IT… AA FOLKS KNOW THIS.

We are humbled in these tender valleys … I call the the frontlines of love…

The word HUMILITY comes from the word humus, which for you non-gardeners, is the sometimes stinky organic matter - like compost, manure and well-rotted detritus that makes beautiful soil and fuels new growth.

It’s the LESSON of the LOTUS: to use ALL of our experiences as nutrients in this SACRED MUD of change, HOLY LOAM…of loss… this Holy ground of our being.

The ROAD to reconciling our losses and finding our way back to joy… is full of potholes and MUD…HEALING mud… Being on our knees in authentic grief, is an inside-out perspective (AGAIN it seems designed to help us PAUSE… LISTEN to the whispers of what is true and unchanging… and THE NEW STORIES that match WHO WE ARE NOW.) The dreams of our 16 year-old-self are not likely to be satisfying or sustaining ones at 60.

..Trusting that whatever things it may be too late for, prayer is not one of them, nor a chance, nor change, nor passion, nor laughter... NOR JOY.

- Excerpt from Wrestling the Light by Ted Loder

From our loss shaped hole within… we can plant seeds of a new life that fit us now.

I lost my favorite Aunt this month… my Aunt Mary. I also lost as my last kitty, a 6 lb talking cat named, Sister. It was time for her to walk with Spirit…

Today I am here with both an Aunt Mary shaped hole in my heart and a kitty shaped hole. Most of my family is gone, so I have a lot of personal practice at this… but as a hospice chaplain and grief counselor, I know that in this space, sometimes I can … we can… glimpse the unhealed stories of our upbringing that THEIR LOVE filled, but did not completely heal… not all the way.

The opportunity in the MUCK of grief is that we can heal a little bit more…

THE MUD-FUELED NEW STORIES...waiting

WE CAN RECEIVE THE MUD-FUELED NEW STORIES THAT are waiting to be planted in the bare patches. THIS is where we become the gardeners of our lives.

NOTHING is really broken. It’s ALL part of the cycle in the Garden of Change…after we have tended ourselves and mourned enough, new things will start to grow on our naked earth. Do you weed them? Or do you FEED them?

USE your Gifts…Plant THEM… Nurture that… TEND that

REMEMBER the lesson of the rose : to receive the encouragement of Light. Remember the lessons in the MUD from the lotus - to use it all - both the light and the shadow - to fuel your blooming.

REMEMBER the lesson of the rose : to receive the encouragement of Light.

Remember the lessons in the MUD from the lotus - to use it all - both the light and the shadow - to fuel your blooming.

As you plant your Memorial Day bulb in the good earth today, Be awake that the bulb has EVERYTHING it needs to bloom into story…and so do WE….to the beauty that fits US now… IT may be sprouting, as we speak, in the holy ground of loss.

“It’s never too late to be what you might have been.” - George Sand

The good news is that we are not alone on this road…

EVERYONE WHO IS BREATHING is on this road. We have company in the changes.
BE the GARDENER today and tend it all as love and with love.

Who’s ready for some sacred gardening?

-Talk prepared by Rev. Eleesabeth Hager for a Memorial Day (blub planting) ritual honoring our soldiers and our loved ones who have made their transition.
May 26th, 2024 at San Francisco Unity.

]]><![CDATA[Love is Renewable.]]>Mon, 14 Feb 2022 13:54:08 GMThttps://www.emhager.com/blog/love-is-renewableYesterday I had this beautiful visit with a patient and her adoring adult child who had been taking care for years and before that taking care of another ... also for years.

This serial caregiver was exhausted, overwhelmed and moving toward burnout.

I got it...because I was it. She was on the tipping point into resentment from simply being willing. Our conversation eased her off the ledge because her feelings were reasonable and common ... but they were new to her. They were troubling because love isn't suppose to feel that way but overwhelm always feels that way.

Love is up to the job...

Love is up to the job...it is renewable. After a nap or a good night's sleep...or a conversation with the infirmed loved one, like we had that day, we may open up again to the renewability of it all – to the deep well of sustainability that powers goodness in the world.

Out of a gentle nudging from me, the patient started speaking about her life, her good man who had died, her milestones. She had a crack sense of humor and a light in her that surpassed her (almost) hundred years of wrinkles.

Then she came up with this...and I share it with you today:

And she said,
"I've been lucky.
I loved that which loved me back."

From the mouth of lived wisdom: love renews us.
If it's not renewable (on the whole)...it's something else.

May you be surprised by love that loves you back.
Happy Valentine's Day 2022.

]]><![CDATA[Eulogy for a M.A.I.D. Patient]]>Mon, 06 Sep 2021 22:17:53 GMThttps://www.emhager.com/blog/eulogyThe medical aid in dying legislation allows patients to apply for and take an end-of-life cocktail. This is new to people in hospice. We are still sorting through and sitting with the differences. For example, as Interfaith spiritual hospice care, I create eulogies and memorial services after the patient dies. This one was sp0ken to my patient. He liked it...and I read it on his deathday...to him.

Eulogy & Prayer for L.C.
September 4, 2021 9 AM PDT

May all that we say
and all that we do be in harmony with thee,
God within me,
God beyond me…
Maker of the Trees.

Today L.C. will meet the Maker of Trees.
A carpenter, the grandson of a farmer, brother, and uncle to his family but also a friend, and teacher to the wider world…the teacher for many young men to be better in the world… to be makers in the world.

Holy One of Many Names, We ask that OUR hearts be open to see more clearly...To see your presence is with us all &…always…underneath the many misunderstandings of love that get in the way of seeing. Open OUR hearts now…that we might move motes and logs from our eyes…to see deeper and more clearly….

The light we can see with our eyes in goes out gently at our end…but this man has made a life around following a more evergreen light– your everlasting light–to the best of his ability, which is all that you ask of us, here while on this Earth.

Maker of all THINGS, Receive this carpenter, who taught many of your sons the skills of life crafting…of responsibility and of forming useful things… of fixing things… making broken parts into a whole to the best of his ability.

These teachings form his legacy…like a rock thrown into a still pool, the ripples expand from this point and move outward…growing more of itself as it moves into the world, making waves, which meet others to create more waves…of itself – of kindness, responsibility and love… He leaves this world a better place for his brother, sister, nephews and family but also for the greater world… in the legacy of teaching responsibility, kindness, and being a maker of things…not a destroyer.

He now places the unfinished projects of his heart into your care waiting…as seeds in good soil.

Receive this carpenter not because he used what he had to create more good, which he did, but simply because of love…he is a beloved son who has finally come home… & come home to your call. And he has met that call by reaching back to you, responding to your call with the same consideration and kindness for others, which formed his life.

It is our honor here, to wait with L.C. on this edge of life, surrounded by and supported by the arms of God, the Maker of All Things…

May he feel this love now and be welcomed home…to the place we all come from …and the place to which we will all go, when it is our time.

May all that we say
and all that we do be in harmony with thee,
God within me,
God beyond me…
Maker of the Trees.

Amen.

]]><![CDATA[Are We Toxic or just having a bad day?]]>Sun, 29 Aug 2021 19:14:08 GMThttps://www.emhager.com/blog/are-we-toxic-or-just-having-a-bad-dayMost people are toxic at one point (or moment) in their lives ? Are you?

We humans are in process and I am firmly in the camp that EVERYONE is doing the best that they are able with what they have (resources, learning, skills) on hand. When I learned this...when I really came to understand it, my life radically changed from being in an economy of merit thinking that everything was to be earned...to living in an economy of grace, where I saw that we are all gifted with so much more than we earn. Paradoxically, I had to both take 100% responsibility for my actions and, in parallel, I had to accept that it was 100% out of our control.

(Which came first the chicken or the egg? Yep, they both did.)

How did I change? Sadly, it took a "bottom story" to get me moving.

My bottom story was not the infamous ones of Alcoholics Anonymous. Mine came half a decade into caregiving with another six years to go.

I had judged everyone – (everyone included me of course). It was how I was raised. It was woven into the bootstrapped, meritorious middle-class upbringing in my family. It was not until I was truly exhausted by caregiving of my diva and the slow drip, drip, drip of her dementia, that I saw me... in her mirror.

Fat vs. thin, rich vs. nar-do-wells, beauties vs. frumps, entreprenurial vs. wage earners ... It was an infinite dualistic list. However, as the judgments fell away from her, my powerful, smart, talented, professional, superpower of a mother figure, what she was left with ( and what I saw there instead of power) was fear of not enough– in every category.

She became my itemized 'fearless moral inventory" of our transgressions, footnoted with each of their root causes.

It is our human story. We want to control that which can hurt us. I see it everyday in my hospice patients. I can see myself in them, too. Having created a mess, or two, of my own relationships (and businesses) through my fear-based actions. My home spiritual community at Unity, says
"We are not punished for our sins... but by them."
Richard Rohr has a similar take. He says:

" We do not pull ourselves up; we are pulled.

God does not directly destroy evil, the way our heroic and dualistic minds would like to imagine. God is much wiser, wastes nothing, and includes everything. The God of the Bible is best known for transmuting and transforming our very evils into our own more perfect good. God uses our sin in our own favor! God brings us - through failure - from unconsciousness to ever-deeper consciousness and conscience.

– Richard Rohr, an author, Breathing Underwater, Spirituality and the Twelve Steps

What do do and how to "protect yourself" once you spot toxic people...
LADDERS recently posted some traditional advice which is tactical but not particularly transformational. It led me to the title of this article: Toxic or just having a bad day? It suggests:

Maintain conscious emotional distance
Think strategically about when and where you have to put up with them and when and where you don’t.
Define the issue and establish boundaries consciously and proactively
You may find yourself in situations where you’ll need stop and choose the best way forward. Take time. Make conscious what is the issue: decide when and where you’ll engage this difficult person, and you will be more likely be able to control much of the chaos.
–10 toxic people you should avoid like the plague, LADDERS

Do we need protection from toxic people? How do we best engage them?

In one of my first jobs as a chaplain, there was a CFO who consistently micro-managed the clinical team and generally acted like a bully. It was ridiculous: a bean-counter telling the clinical team how long their meeting had to be? What they needed to talk about? Who needed to talk? My first response was to act like a rescuer to counter his persecutor...in the traditionally "Dreaded Drama Triangle" (DDT) because it felt like he was attacking our patients and the care we were able to give them.

But then I paused. I had a breakthrough. I centered myself and, for the first time since I was ordained, I embodied (my spiritual authority) and became a more neutral, supportive Presence. This was not mine to FIX.

Here is quick index of the rescuer recommendations of TED: The Emplowerment Triangle: which is a counter to the DDT.

Keep a neutral attitude. Even if you feel defensive (especially if you feel defensive) do not act from that mental state. Use a non-reactive, non-emotional, easy-going tone. Make statements that stop the conflict, for instance, use terms such as, Perhaps you're right.

Here are 4 helpful tips to stop rescuing and start supporting
Listen to their worries, without trying to fix it for them.
Ask them supportive questions. This takes a little practice. Just focus on what you would ask yourself in a difficult situation. ...
Offer them lots of validation and encouragement.
Take time.

He continued to demand for a while, but I just did my job to the best of my ability, each time explaining what needed to happen in our meetings. (Right, I know. It is not usually the chaplain's job to do this, but it worked here - at least for a time.) He stopped interfering and let us do our job.

What was interesting, was that I was internally imagining myself as a lighthouse and a positive NEUTRAL presence. I did not make him wrong, or really confront him, nor did I seek him out, I simply and gently supported the goal by explaining again the Medicare Standards of Care of Participation... (concerning my areas, at least) and he stopped - not entirely - he was the CFO- but his management was more in his lane and not outside his lane.

Six months later, we did part ways. We can choose to stay or choose to go and I was gifted with a better opportunity and I left with more confidence and better ways to be in service.

This works for all kinds of caring - of a team, of a loved one and ...of yourself.

]]><![CDATA[Acornology & Change]]>Sat, 03 Apr 2021 15:35:26 GMThttps://www.emhager.com/blog/acornology-change

Photo by Leah Kelly, Pexels

The acorn is a seed with a nature and destiny to become…an oak tree. It is our nature and destiny to become…

We are not broken but blessed.

When we are in grief…from the little losses of a normal human life…or the big losses of death…we must go to ground.

Grief cracks us open. Pandemics crack us open. Death cracks us open. Go to ground..

Go to the ground of our being, and a world of growth and possibility opens up, (ahem)... after a time.

Can Grief be Medicine?

It was for me...and I handled it badly.
I accumulated so many little griefs that I was numb by the time the big hitters came by. I wrote about it...until I was empty. It worked for me. (and I created a book with gifts for you...should you be wise enough or courageously curious enough to want to hear another's story: Her is a link)

Grief offers up for your review that which changes...contrasting with that which DOES NOT CHANGE. This is inner work. It is a spiritual journey.

I did not know how to process feelings as they came (feel them ...and let them go) much less allow my support system in. I thought I was along. I was not.

I am not and neither are you.

But by far the most important thing is to have faith in a friendly universe...and that change is not a bad thing.

A Sound Meditation about Change:

A story about change by Jacob Needleman

Once upon a time, in land not so far away, there was a kingdom of acorns, nestled at the foot of a grand old oak tree. Since the citizens of this kingdom were modern, fully Westernized acorns, they went about their life with a purposeful energy; and since they were midlife baby boomer acorns, they engaged in a lot of self-help courses. There were seminars called “Getting all you; can out of your shell” and Who would you be without your nutty story?” There were woundedness and recovery groups for acorns who had been bruised in their fall from the tree. There were spas for oiling and polishing those shells and various acornopathic therapies to enhance longevity and well-being.

One day in the midst of this kingdome there suddenly appeared a knotty little stranger, apparently dropped out of ht eblue by a passing bird. He was capless and dirty, making an immediate negative impression on his fellow acorns. And to make things worse, crouched beneath the mighty oak tree, he stammered out a wild tale. Pointing up at the tree, her said “We…are…that!”

Delusional thinking, obviously, the other acorns concluded, but htye continued ot engage him in conversation: “ So tell us, how do we…become tht tree?” “Well, said he, pointing downward, “it has something to do with going into the ground…and cracking open te shell.”Insane tht responded. “Totally morbid! Why then we wouldn’t be acorns anymore.”

We are that.

Acornology – by Jacob Needleman, retold by Cynthia Bourgeault in the Wisdom Way

A Hafiz Poem ...about the biggest &
most mysterious change

I used to know my name.
Now I don’t. I think a river understands me.
For what does it call itself in that blessed
moment when it starts emptying into the
Infinite Luminous Sea,

and opening every aspect of self wider than
it ever thought possible?

Each drop of itself now running to embrace
and unite with a million new friends.

And you were there, in OUR union with All. Hafiz

Attributions & Inspirations

1. I am inspired. By Rev. Mark Fuss. Unity booklet Courage to Imagine.
2. Acornology – by Jacob Needleman, retold by Cynthia Bourgeault in the Wisdom Way
3. A Year with Hafiz, translated by Daniel Ladinsky.
4. Breathing Underwater - Richard Rohr

The Audible book is really lovely to walk with...and savor

These translations will change you!

Get one on Amazon here;

]]><![CDATA[Listening to the Inner Voice]]>Sat, 13 Feb 2021 08:00:00 GMThttps://www.emhager.com/blog/listening-to-the-inner-voice

3rd Video in a series on LISTENING

When I am deaf, dumb and blind to my own inner voice, it’s easy to get lost in the wilderness…

(Wilderness being defined as the place where I have forgotten who I am… )

Or maybe destination is my problem…

Giving the Car Keys to a Knucklehead...

I have forgotten where I want to go…because long ago I gave my keys to a knucklehead …or a series of knuckleheads…

Or perhaps…just moving fast is what I need… (It can be a useful distraction… ) Just moving felt like progress… for years it distracted me from noticing that I had a happy face sticker covering over an empty gas tank…

I was depleted … but these are the fruits of the tree of NOT LISTENING…

       • The first focuses on connections to community as a source of strength
       • last week’s is about the privilege of witnessing the whole of a friend’s lifetime
       • Todays one lifts up the value of listening to the inner…voice…

How do we return to our original source spiritual DNA?

To health? to what we came here to do?

We get quiet enough for the sound of silence to be useful, which according to Deepak Chopra in his newest book Total Meditation is the key. To get quiet so the silence can be useful.

Part is about feeling safe enough. Grounded enough to listen.

The spiritual journey (and a good life) begins, developmentally, by being gifted with a safe place to feel that we belong, are wanted, and are safe. Then we can launch into the world as we understand that to be.

Some of us must take over the gardening of our lives, earlier than others by circling back to find an inner place safe enough to be our best self and do in the world. We can then till the soil of ‘what is’ and bloom as we are able to sow and nurture. But we all must take over …,sometime…as gardeners of our lives.

How do we find a SAFE ENOUGH place to sit and listen?

How do we find a SAFE ENOUGH place to sit and listen?
My answer to both is the sustaining circle of mindfulness…

But mindful as defined from a scientist & psychologist, Daniel J. Siegel, from his book 'The Neurobiology of We’ is his definition of mindfulness this:

COAL – Curiosity Openness Acceptance and Love.

COAL – Curiosity Openness Acceptance and Love.

               • Curiosity
               • Openness
               • Acceptance and
               • Love.

This is a self-regenerating place…a circle of love

Mary Baker Eddy helps me retuirn to where I started with the driving metaphors:

“We have nothing to fear when Love is at the helm of thought.”

Me…I’m sitting back, getting comfortable and giving my car keys to LOVE…God is at the helm of thought.

MEDITATION CHORUS REFRAIN
Sit back. Relax.
Breathe into the favorite holding places of your stress
Sit,, breathe and listen

Listening from the place of curiosity & openness creates space for new – new solutions, new ideas.

3rd Video in the LISTENING series

Listening from a place of Acceptance and Love allows us to let go of what no longer serves us.

Get quiet
Get quiet enough to be useful…

Drop down to the kingdom within…
Under the turbulence and uncertainty of the surface world
Get quiet …
Get quiet enough to be useful…
Listen to the inner voice…
listen to the kind voice in the silence and in the sound.

Safe…nothing to fear … give the car keys to LOVE… sit back; slide over into the passenger’s seat for the next 20 minutes…get comfortable.
God is “at the helm of thought.”

ATTRIBUTIONS:

CSM January 4 & 11 , 2021; p 29 Headed in the Right Direction? Let God steer.
Deepak Chopra in his newest book Total Meditation
Daniel J. Siegel, from his book “ The Neurobiology of We’
Mary Baker Eddy writings
Love fr Richard Rohr Newsletter - Inner and Outer Freedom:
Freedom to Love. 6.16.2020
Background video LOTUS from Pexels

]]><![CDATA[LISTENING: the privilege of witnessing]]>Sun, 24 Jan 2021 08:00:00 GMThttps://www.emhager.com/blog/listening-the-privilege-of-witnessingThe United States has a new president…and a country to heal.

How do we do that?

As a hospice chaplain, I have a few superpowers…the first and foremost one is listening. This post and its sound meditation is the second of three…in a series on listening.

David Whyte lent us a quote or two (again) about friendship’s “privilege of witnessing another’s whole self over time” NOT JUST THE NICE PARTS…but also (and especially) in crisis…” when our armored personalities run into the inevitable natural disasters and vulnerabilities found in even the most average existence….”

I call these the our tender human trenches…which this country is in. I’d say we need to be friends now more than ever…

• to our principles &
• to our constitution &
• to each other.

How do we listen with our hearts open?

So How do we do this? How do we listen with our hearts open?

I am heart centered. It is my practice to listen to the ‘the still small voice’ of Divine Guidance in my own heart…but I read too.

"Finding the information given to me from the cranky, and well-intentioned is not easy. The linkage that makes me renewable is being able to course correct. This is fertile soil…” - EM Hager Feed Me Feedback No. 30

I believe in the “Feed Me Feedback” of the world …that is, in the muck and from which the lotus blossoms. I believe in feedback of others…but it is my own mind and heart that decides what to use and what to give back to the muck...

MEDITATION CHORUS REFRAIN

Friendship is the great hidden transmuter of all relationship.

Not seeking to change anyone…but listening we listen to the tree through its fruits. …we don’t have to eat those fruits.

Second in series on Listening

We REMAIN IN SIGHT of our friends (…and family) the ultimate touch stone of friendship (and listening) is not improvement, but the privilege of witness.

Keep your heart Open; stay connected.

Personal Experience of God & the Muck

I trust Spirit to speak. I know it by its voice of wisdom and love…and it is above all kind…not coddling…not easy… but good.I speak a lot about this direct experience WITH OUR OWN Higher Power here. It is oddly, something the spiritually progressive mystics have in common with the thoughtful but more traditionally religious evangelicals.

Prayer and Meditation is a conversation with the Divine. Meditation is about getting still and LISTENING to Spirit...so we can witness our friends and even those who we do not yet (or perhaps might not ever) call a friend.

So it was particularly troubling when I read a CSM article last week about the militant evangelical conservatives who guided the “Stop the steal” JERICHO Washington March in mid December and rioted at the capital on Jan 6th. The article says it is a new 'Christian Nationalism' which is reminiscent of the South after the Civil war.

Apparently, they think they are listening to God too...

Here’s the quote from one of its leaders that is most troubling to me:

“When God gives you a vision, you don’t need to know anything else.”
- Eric Metaxas, A prominent conservative writer and Jericho March’s Emcee.

It’s an interesting and well-balanced article…as is usual from Christian Science Monitor. December 11, 2020

How can I know that the voice to which I am listening is Divine guidance or one of fear? i.e. the inner 'devil'

That is the question for this meditation...
How can I know for certain that the voice inside which I am listening to is Divine Guidance or one of fear … (the small personality, my ego or the inner devil whispering)

Gratefully, Jesus has some clarifying thoughts here:

You shall know the tree by its fruits… LUKE 6:44-45

LUKE 6:43 … figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor grapes from brambles. 45 The good man brings good things out of the good treasure of his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil treasure of his heart.

So that’s clear. If you want grapes, plant a vineyard. If you want love, sow it. Common Grace? Goodness? You have the seeds readily available…

I listen to the tree through its fruits…
I don’t have to eat those fruits…

But how do stay in witness to that which we disagree? to that which disturbs us ? ….How do we listen and get past the us vs. them mentality?
Not seeking to change anyone…but listening

David Whyte says to simply be a friend…

‘Friendship is the great hidden transmuter
of all relationships.

...Remain in sight of my friends

...The ultimate touchstone of friendship (and listening) is not improvement but the privilege of witness”

How to stay open & witness that to which I disagree?

Keep your heart Open; stay connected.
No matter how great the distance that exists between me and the people I care about,
if I LISTEN to the connections of love and friendship, I can stay in sight of them.
I do that by staying close to the voice of kindness…and let it guide me.

KINDNESS: the fruit that we all want to eat.

ATTRIBUTIONS:
1. CSM Dec 16, 2020; Humanity behind the Headlines: New York; Will election be a new ‘lost cause for evangelical conservatives?
2. David Whyte, Consolations- Friendship
3. Feed Me Feedback – CH 30- Hager, EM. A Hospice Chaplain's Fieldguide to Caregiving: Finding Resilience on the Frontlines of Love (p. 151).
4. Love fr Richard Rohr Newsletter - Inner and Outer Freedom: Freedom to Love. 6.16.2020
5. Background video LOTUS from Pexels

]]><![CDATA[Listening: Curating with our Focus]]>Sun, 17 Jan 2021 08:00:00 GMThttps://www.emhager.com/blog/listening2

The only choice we have in how we mature is how we inhabit our vulnerability.

How do we become larger and more courageous
and more compassionate in our intimacy with disappearance?
– David Whyte

How we become larger and more courageous
and more compassionate in our
intimacy with disappearance?

Friendship transcends disappearance
REMAIN IN SIGHT of our friends.

The ultimate touch stone of friendship (and connection) is not improvement, but the privilege of witness.

Keep your heart Open;
Stay connected
Begin again.

The Three Superpowers:

I talk a lot about the power of gratitude in these sound meditations- it is one of the three major superpowers we use;

• Breath

• Sound

•Gratitude

FIrst in the sound meditation on LISTENING

In the Gratitude project, its director, Dr Robert Emmons at the University of California at Davis, says:

“It is precisely under crisis conditions when we have the most to gain by a grateful perspective on life. IN the face of demoralization, gratitude has the power to energize . IN the face of brokenness, gratitude has the power to heal. In the face of despair, gratitude has the power to bring hope. …He goes on to say “ But the sense that there’s real skin in the game – real potential for loss – is important. Sometimes, maybe, actually experiencing loss is what has to happen to wake us up.”

Loss & change is chaotic and noisy…

As a hospice chaplain, I have the honor and privilege of witnessing the edge of loss for many… sometimes the ultimate loss. It is. chaotic and noisy…

How do we listen to the guidance of our hearts amid the noise of the world…and most particularly…loss?We curate…we chose what to focus upon…Meditation and prayer, of course are the path to that practice…a good life…as well as wise, curious and brave questions.

Questions in the Muck...&
under the lotus?

There are interesting question in the muck of loss and stress…. for a good life.and for innovation…on any leading edge, cutting edge…or even bleeding edge of business or technology or life...what are the opportunities that present themselves here …in the muck? under the Lotus…

More importantly how do we hear them?How do we hear the lotus…in the muckI think …it is not an either or proposition…but yes and…we have a choice in how we observe this life and its challenges and opportunities…BUT we must first feel safe. We need to feel our connection to Presence…and to our community and friends. Then we have access to our inner worlds.

In my intimacy with disappearance,
I try and ask good questions.

How can we access what is under the words? or rather how can I access what is in my own heart? Here's the poet on friendship:

The dynamic of friendship is almost always underestimated as a constant force in human life: a diminishing circle of friends is the first terrible diagnostic of a life in deep trouble: of overwork, of too much emphasis on a professional identity, of forgetting who will be there when our armored personalities run into the inevitable natural disasters and vulnerabilities found in even the most average existence…

A friend knows our difficulties and shadows and remains in sight, a companion to our vulnerabilities more than our triumphs- even when we are under the strange illusion we do not need them….Friendship transcends disappearance: an enduring friendship goes on after death, the exchange only transmuted by absence the relationship advancing and maturing in a silent internal conversational way even after on half of the bond has passed on….

But no matter the medicinal virtues of being a true a true friend or sustaining a long close relationship with another, the ultimate touch stone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self, the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.

–David Whyte Excerpts from his book Consolations- Friendship

Lets take that into our meditation today
Let’s take those connections into meditation today…
to ground into Spirit, and the muck
and ask interesting questions of the Lotus
…together and in friendship.

There is a love which itself has the power to free the human heart.
Whoever arrives at this place looks at the world differently. The distinctions on the surface no longer exist.
Love does not come as theory. It moves in bodies, in nature, in the ground beneath us and the space between.
True Love is not emotional. It is a different nature, waiting in us like a secret seed
…this is the truth we all must find. The profound problems of …the inner and outer world… will be solved by love, and love alone
-Richard Rohr - Inner and Outer Freedom:
Freedom to Love. 6.16.2020