Only if we discover Love within us can we recognize Love in others.

    It was lunchtime in the doctor's dining room at Baptist Hospital. I sat down next to a young physician relatively new in practice.

   "How do you give loving care?" I asked her.

   "I'm an actress," she replied. "I start rounds at 6:30 a.m. If I tried to be compassionate to every patient I'd be exhausted by noon. So, I just pretend." 

    Love lives within this physician. Her "acting" blocks its expression.

   This doctor is being honest about something many of us do lots of the time. We pretend to care. Actual caring calls to us from a deeper place.

  At another hospital, I heard a "coach" instructing a group of nurses on how and when to smile. Walking behind a couple of staff after the session, I heard one say to the other sarcastically, "Okay, Shirley. Remember that we have to smile until we get to the parking lot."

   Fake behavior is not only ineffective, it's exhausting and soul-killing. The young doctor may think she's saving energy by pretending. The leaders of the smile campaign may think they will improve patient satisfaction.

   But they are both missing the core of both worthwhile living and meaningful caregiving.

   The most powerful thing to know about Radical Loving Care is that it is found within us. It is impossible for us to live Love unless we accept it as our deepest truth.

   The typical patient satisfaction program teaches surface behaviors. That is why so many programs fail. 

   Too many leaders are in a hurry to paste smiles on their staff member's faces. Instead, we should all be considering the genesis of our life attitudes. 

   What are the stories that put us in touch with true caregiving? Do the best caregivers deliver fake smiles and pretend to care?

   Of course not. Yet, these shallow practices are common because real caregiving seems so difficult.

   In fact, those who practice Radical Loving Care find their work soul-filling. They drink from deep wells of energy and celebrate their work as a calling. 

   All of us fake it sometimes. The problem arises when we discover that false motives have become our modus operandi. 

   The path to Radical Loving Care begins with a few core questions: From whom did you learn love? Why are a caregiver? What kind of care do you want for your mother? How do you give loving care?

   These are questions for reflection every day and night.

   If you are not practicing loving care, what are you praciticing?

   Nothing is more important than Love. And nothing is more worth delivering than loving care.

-Erie Chapman