He dropped from the spring sky a page torn from Beauty's bible. His butterfly wings were stained glass windows opening the sacred. The "glass" framed in his flutter was as bright as the yellow post in the photograph (left.)

   My vision is enhanced when I give an image before me a life beyond its function. To see a simple electrical box (below) as a cathedral door or to experience an evergreen tree as someone waving to me unearths the layers of Beauty that live beneath the crust. 

   It can soften stifled hostility if you can see past  the anger in a patient's eyes and into the kind light in his heart. Compassion rises when you look at the long life wrapped beneath your patient's wrinkles.

   If you're approaching burn-out after a long career in obstetrics it  can re-energize your work if you imagine the story that may unfold for the baby you welcome this very day. Your touch may be the first one he feels in this world. 

   Our way of seeing determines our way of being. The life chapters we share and how we describe them signals what matters in our lives. 

   Our legacy is our book of stories. Our tales are also what we leave behind when we die. 

   When you hear the patient's history beyond their current cancer diagnosis, when you listen to the music of their lives singing past the data about weight, height, blood pressure and temperature you see your patient's humanity.

   When caregivers ask me how to develop more compassion, that is what I say. See the patient as more than their diagnosis. Listen to their story. Remember your own pain when you listen to theirs.

   It can be exhausting work. And it is also what ennobles the sacred work of caregiving. 

-Erie Chapman

Photograph: "Electrical Box" erie chapman 2013