By Donald Koepke, director emeritus, CLH Center for Spirituality and Aging

One of the major values that spirituality brings to the health care table is an emphasis that the caregiver cannot (and really should not) fix everything. While a nurse might be able to “fix” a headache with a prescribed medication (and should definitely try, that same nurse cannot ‘fix’ the spiritual pain that a resident/patient/client/faith-group-member might be experiencing.

The “cure” that comes from spirituality is through insight, not just information. It is an insight that cannot be taught or given or even prescribed. The person, the one in crises, can only discover insight themselves in their own terms and in their own timing.

Two years ago I was completing a long period of psychotherapy and I was experiencing a
breakthrough. Suddenly I could see my past, my present, and myself. Suddenly the long
depression began to lift. It felt like a new day was dawning in my life until I read a personal journal entry written over a year before, when I was caught in the mire of depression, and doubt, and struggle. There in that ancient journal entry, in my own words, was the very insight that I was celebrating as being ‘new’ today. I had been saying the right words for a long time, but the words had not captured my heart, only my head. Until the new vision was embraced by my heart, my soul, the words remained only words. But when the heart was engaged the long spoken words exploded into a life-changing insight. I don’t think that I am alone in my experience. In fact, I believe that such is the human experience. While information is crucial, guiding, providing structure, it is insight that sets fire to the soul and gives a grounding for living that is beyond mere knowing and thus is more lasting.

It would be ludicrous to even hint that spiritual care should replace traditional care that is based on the bio-medical paradigm. I want my health care workers to do all in their power and skill to assist me to live with a body that will do the many things that I love to do. At the same time, however, spiritual care brings an additional dimension to caregiving.

Instead of seeking to fix the problem every time, spiritual care seeks to learn from the problem and grow in the problem. Instead of managing and controlling, spiritual care is open and receptive. In place of solving things now, the spiritual caregiver waits expectantly, even hopefully. While traditional care might encourage action, spiritual care focuses on reflection and a search for insight. Spiritual care is more concerned with listening than fixing. Spiritual care is sensitive to what is breaking into life, changing life, renewing life, not with returning life to the way it has been.