From the Camp Ray of Hope Sunday morning message September 21, 2008
I met a gentleman named Rupert recently who inspired me. I had been in a space for a while when things just did not seem to be going “right”. I would get one issue resolved and it would rear its ugly head again, or another equally unpleasant situation would arise. Each time my reserve became more depleted until I came to realize, in reading the symptoms of compassion fatigue, that I was displaying way too many of those symptoms. In that moment I realized I needed to do something really fast to “fill my cup” before my reserve became irreparable. Now at the same moment of that realization I happened to be running late for a group speaking engagement at a local library – and I came very close to calling and asking if I was really needed. Instead, I listened to my inner voice that said “Dale you need to do this – even though it is a 30mile drive and you really have lots of things on your plate! You really need to do this!” So I went – to find that the only ones there for the presentation were the other speakers, a family member, one community member and the librarian. Now at this point I could have been disgusted that I had gone to all that bother for naught, but instead I opened myself up to the possibilities and drew from my personal belief that we are sent where we go for a reason; and that if you only reach one person your time is well spent. Little did I know that I would be the person.
We sat in a circle of six and Rupert listened quietly and respectfully for nearly an hour to what us three Hospice workers had to say. Then he was asked if he wished to speak. He pondered for a moment and then his story began to unfold as we all listened intently. Rupert had been diagnosed with leukemia some years ago, he told us. He went through a long period of denial first, and did not seek medical attention, in spite of his symptoms – the most obvious being extreme fatigue – a state that was foreign to this avid cyclist and outdoorsman. He finally succumbed to it on the day a raging brain infection forced him to return home from work. By the time a friend took him to the hospital he was near death. He was not expected to survive. Now Rupert was a proclaimed agnostic –as he said “that is what was on my dog tags in the service”. He did not believe in a higher power than himself and he had by all appearances done just fine living in that philosophy. But now he was too sick to take care of himself or even to ask for help from others – at this point he could have easily just died. But things began to happen. His ex-spouse showed up in Boston with her own selection of music and poems that reached him to his very core; two distant relatives he had never met nor even knew existed just “happened” to be on his team of professional caregivers and they made themselves known to him. A support network began to form and reach out and they helped bring him back from death’s door. Then, as Rupert’s condition improved, he began to notice other coincidences until he could no longer say they were just coincidences. He came to fully believe they were signs from a higher power. And he realized that if HE could believe this then anyone could. Rupert came to have strong faith in a higher power and he now shares that freely and joyfully with others. Oh he does not attend church every Sunday or preach religion to his friends. His church is the outdoors – God’s splendor fills his heart and soul in the sunsets, the wondrous views and the little miracles along the way. He volunteers for Two Roads now and takes others who are on their own painful journeys into the wilderness so they can come in touch with the same kind of splendor. As I sat there and listened it was hard to imagine he had ever been that sick or that he had ever been without faith. His story inspired me and filled my cup. All those issues I had been dealing with suddenly became almost insignificant and I was reminded that all I have to do is to have faith that it will all work out.
So dear friends, open your hearts, walk the journey, “re-love” those who care, embrace the miracles along the way. Things may not happen when or how YOU think they should but one thing is for sure – they will come when you need them most.
