After nearly two decades of teaching at Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard, Nouwen began to work with mentally and physically handicapped people at the L'Arche Daybreak community in Ontario.
So, this little volume does not come from the pen of the theorist. Instead, it comes from a practitioner. It is full of inspiring insight expressed in a prose that's almost poetic.
Having been a caregiver with my wife for my invalid mother for almost 4 years, it seems freeing and affirming to read of Nouwen's joys and struggles as a caregiver. He gets caregiving because he lived it and has thought deeply about it. He wrote, "It is helpful for us to risk allowing a few others to know us in our real experience of caregiving: feelings of being overworked, of being ashamed of secretly willing the one we care for to either get well or die, of living with the high expectations of others or feeling marginalized by professionals, of struggling under the weight of our never-ending fatigue" (pp. 61-62).
He understood that caring for family members has unique challenges. "If the one we care for is a family member, we also may bear all the conflicting emotions of trying to support a loved one. On the one hand, there is the desire and willingness springing from our love for this person. On the other hand, our desire and willingness may be woven together with the loneliness, resentment, guilt, and shame for unwanted thoughts and dreams of being free once more from the burden of care" (p. 33).
Nouwen doesn't want caregivers to squelch their negative emotions and anxieties. He doesn't want caregivers to plow ahead to fulfill the unending tasks of daily caregiving. Instead he wants the caregiver to grow spiritually as a result of the caregiving. "Right at the heart of this deeply human exchange of caring and being cared for is the opportunity to claim more fully, with all our human strengths and vulnerabilities, our identity as beloved daughters and sons of God" (p. 42).
As I read the book, I made some notes and have come up with a list of commandments for caregivers that I think might be helpful to me in my role as a caregiver for my own mother. Perhaps they might be helpful to other caregivers, too.
10 Commandments for Caregivers
1. Embrace fully your present reality as a caregiver as the call of God, believing that your caregiving will be ultimately fulfilling for your life.
2. Recognize the face of Jesus in the one who is receiving your care, not allowing the other to live with their grief and pain alone.
3. Be truly aware of the deep and fragile beauty of the person receiving your care, believing that their existence is more important than their accomplishments - their being is more important than their doing.
4. Focus less on the task of caregiving and more on your connection with the person who's receiving your care, seeing the time together as an opportunity to get to know the care-getter.
5. Be with the other person unhurriedly and gently as a gift, following the other person's pace and rhythms.
6. Connect with the care-getter's pain, seeking to feel their powerlessness, loneliness, confusion, anxiety, isolation, fear, depression, shame, sorrow, embarrassment, and sense of being forgotten.
7. Experience the loneliness, resentment, guilt, and shame of caregiving as normal, admitting that you struggle under the weight of seemingly never-ending fatigue, the unavailability or unwillingness of family members to help, the high expectations of others, and the feeling of being overworked.
8. Remember that the care-getter may not always see the care you give as a gift, knowing that your service may not always be appreciated.
9. Allow the care you give to make you better, not bitter, seeing your caregiving as a chance to discover your yet unopened gifts – beauty, tenderness, service, kindness, patience, and compassion.
10. Connect daily with Christ, the loving Source of your true identity - a beloved child of God, believing that His grace will lead you to greater depths of love, joy, peace, and hope.
***
If you are a caregiver, may you get the grace you need to care well for the people you love.
No comments:
Post a Comment