BURDENS AS BLESSINGS
Lessons on how a spiritually rich life can become the heart of caregiving
BY:G. JEFFREY MACDONALD
In the late 1980s, Don Simonson was spending a lot of time drowning his sorrows in Omaha-area bars. A 1986 car wreck at the hands of a 14-year-old driver had left his teenage son, Shane, unable to walk on his own or retain short-term memories. Then Simonson, a widower who had re-married, watched his second marriage dissolve under the pressure of caring for a disabled child.
Angry and despondent, he some-times blamed the Almighty for his misery. "I hated God for what was happening in my life," he remembers.
Two decades later, Simonson sees irony in hindsight. The situation that once left him feeling hopeless has brought him closer to the one he calls Lord. He believes that Shane reveals heaven as he talks openly about his near-death experience and what he's glimpsed on the other side.
Strangers now tell Simonson that they've been inspired by his father-son caregiving example. And Simonson himself finally knows the love of God, he says, because he feels it every Thursday. That's when he brings Shane to Omaha's Rejoice! Lutheran Church, where at least 50 other disabled people gather for hymns, lessons and prayers.
"They have no inhibitions," Simonson says. "There are some hugs in that room that just send a chill down your back. You see the bond these handicapped kids have with each other and the respect they have for each other...You can really feel God's presence there."
For family caregivers, daily tasks and stressors often create environments that feel more desolate than spiritually rich. But some, like Simonson, are finding that with the right attitude and a few dedicated habits, burdens turn into blessings as caregiving becomes a pathway to spiritual maturity.
Caregivers unaffiliated with organized religion are also reaping spiritual harvests. For instance, Beth Witrogen of Antioch, California, doesn't practice her ancestral faith of Judaism but aspires simply to reflect kindness in accordance with the Dalai Lama's example. She regards caregiving as a "spiritual practice" and a "curriculum"-one she followed by attending to the needs of two elderly parents and a terminally ill husband. "It's a way to break open our hearts and to have so much more compassion, so much more love, so much more forgiveness and so much more joy," says Witrogen, author of Caregiving: The Spiritual Journey of Love, Loss and Renewal (John Wiley & Sons, 1999).
To be sure, every caregiving situation is unique, and deriving spiritual fruit from the process requires more than a one-size-fits-all approach. Still, experts say certain guiding principles apply across the board, and caregivers interested in spiritual growth would do well to keep these in mind.
For starters, understanding the nature of spiritual growth increases the likelihood of success, according to Verna Benner Carson, PhD, co-author of Spiritual Caregiving: Healthcare as a Ministry (Templeton Foundation Press, 2004). "Whenever we focus on ourselves, it's not a spiritually healthy place to be," Carson says. "If my goal is to seek love...it comes from giving unselfishly, wanting the best for the other person, being willing to sacrifice for somebody else. Then you're not seeking a return, but many times, that's when the return comes."
Attitude matters, too. Carson says caregivers need to acknowledge they have choices about how they respond to the challenges they've inherited. One option is to perceive their work as a calling-that is, as a task assigned by an outside, benevolent force, which many understand to be God.
Such a sense of calling is familiar to Jim Burns of Cincinnati. He's an 80-year-old, observant Catholic who cares for his wife, Margaret, an emphysema and dementia sufferer. Advisors warned him not to bring her home after a two-month stint in a nursing home last year, but he defied their warnings that it would be an overwhelming burden. "God put me here in effect to take care of her," Burns says. "And that's what I'm going to do for as long as I can do it...I feel better for having done what I've been put here to do."
For Vicki Rinne of Omaha, a sense of divine providence blunts any tendencies to wallow in self-pity. Her 21-year-old son, Casey, needs help with bathing and other basics due to a lifelong, undiagnosed disability. Her sense of being blessed by Casey's extraordinarily needy situation allows her to prosper spiritually even in hard times.
"Sometimes I get a little bit, you know, 'Wow. We should be able to do this but we can't because we have to take care of Casey,'" says Rinne. "But then I just stop right there and say, 'thank you' that I have Casey because he is such a joy. He makes you appreciate the little things in life. When things get out of perspective, you just look at him because he knows he has disabilities, but never complains."
With attitudes geared to expect blessings along the way, caregivers who grow spiritually tend to stretch their capacities to love and be loved. And they might become better people as a result.
With sufficient patience, care- givers learn to show respect toward others who can be annoying or un-grateful. For instance, it can be tempting to schedule an infirm elder's day without allowing the person any meaningful choices. But caregivers dignify even the most helpless of care recipients when they take time to offer choices where appropriate and discover their preferences, notes the Rev. Lois Knutson, author of Compassionate Caregiving: Practical Help and Spiritual Encouragement (Bethany House, 2007).
Such habits of magnanimity seem to breed hearts of gratitude, rather than bitterness, in some seasoned caregivers. Peggy Kline of Cary, North Carolina, has had to cut back her hours as an IBM manager and cancel leisure travel plans to care for her husband, Walt, who suffers from Alzheimer's Disease. Yet she feels more grateful, not less, than in the past when she took for granted her husband's health and her own ability to welcome each day. "I've never been one to take time out during my day to thank God for things," Kline says, "but now I do it several times a day."
Caregivers also say they grow spiritually by partaking in dollops of grace, love and mercy they never felt they needed before they took on the caregiving challenge. Rinne, for instance, asked for support from friends and family when personal tragedies piled up at one point. Their response of prayers and other gestures gave her strength, she says, to face stark realities without flinching.
To stave off exhaustion and emotional depletion, caregivers sometimes tap a range of spiritual resources. The Catholic sacrament of reconciliation (formerly known as confession) allows Catholic caregivers to unburden guilty feelings that often weigh on them, according to Monica Dodds, co-founder of the Friends of St. John the Caregiver, a non-profit resource group (www.fsjc.org).
Prayer sustains many caregivers as well, and it takes many forms. Throughout the day, Rinne utters short prayers, which she describes as "constantly talking to God." Kline clears her mind with meditation as she watches birds through her kitchen window or listens to New Age music. By learning to receive unconditional love in many forms, Witrogen says, caregivers tap a source of power that might otherwise lie dormant but instead leads the caregiver to become more generous in spirit.
Some creative caregivers nourish both their own spirituality and their loved one's at the same time. In Jewish families, for instance, caregivers sometimes establish new connections with an aging soul by singing Yiddish songs or sharing traditional foods that evoke childhood memories and affirm ties to Jewish culture, according to Cynthia Heller, director of the Rafael Spiritual Healing Center at Jewish Family Service of Colorado.
Ultimately, caregiving demands a spiritual dimension, Dodds says, because results won't always reward a caregiver's talent or effort. Death will take even those who've received the best of care. On such a mysterious and trying terrain, some caregivers succeed in discovering a life deeper and richer than any they'd known previously-and they found it with a little help from a needy loved one.
G. Jeffrey MacDonald's articles on religion and spirituality have appeared in USA Today, TIME and other major publications.
How To Make Room for Spirituality
Caregiving can be a lonely, exhausting experience-but it still can be a spiritually-enriching one. Here are seven ways to help you get there.
- Believe that caregiving is a calling. Looking at caregiving as an appointed or God-given task makes it meaningful from the get-go.
- Treat the mundane as the sacred. Every task, from sorting paperwork to preparing food, can become meaningful if it's endowed with love and a passion to dignify another human being.
- Maintain disciplines of reflection. Keeping a journal of thoughts and feelings, for example, can help caregivers become more self-aware and make them more likely to manage emotions better from day to day.
- Pray or meditate. Contemplative practices provide time for much-needed quiet, outlets for releasing stress and connections to a wider universe.
- Care for the body. Getting sufficient sleep, nutrition, exercise and recreation help create conditions in which caregiving can be more rewarding than draining.
- Repeat helpful truths. Saying the same affirming statements to oneself on a regular basis provides positive structure to a day and keeps the mind from slipping into destructive negativity.
- Remember that attitude is a choice. Determine each day to view caregiving more as an opportunity for growth rather than an undeserved burden. This sets the stage for joy and hope.
Sources: Authors Verna Benner Carson, PhD, Rev. Lois Knutson and Beth Witrogen