If you want a sense of purpose in your life, take responsibility.
To demonstrate what I mean, I’m going to tell you a story about a nursing home. Nursing homes depress me. I don’t like the smell, the sounds, the wallpaper, the staleness, and the boredom, but the topics of aging and dying have a way of clarifying what is most important in life, stripping away everything extraneous and leaving us with what we should be pursuing all along.
This particular story is about how one depressed nursing home was transformed into one bursting with laughter, purpose, and life.
The Eden Alternative
At 31 years old, Bill Thomas became the Medical Director at Chase Memorial Nursing Home, a place with 80 severely disabled patients. The nursing home depressed him. At first, he tried to turn the place around by increasing the number of examinations, trying new medications, and other traditional methods, but nothing seemed to work. Then he decided to try something new.
His solution? Birds.
Yes, Bill brought in 100 birds to the facility. Why birds? To understand this, you have to understand a little more about Bill.
The first thing to know about Bill is that he is a natural salesman. In grade school, he won every sales contest, and in high school, he became student body president. When he wanted something, he could push past the fear of rejection and towards his prize.
The second thing to know about Bill is that he is just as much of a farmer as a doctor. In his early years as a medical professional, he bought some farmland and fell in love with working the land. He became enamored with the idea of homesteading, and eventually he and his wife, Jude, bought 400 acres of land in upstate NY where they had cattle, horses, chickens, a root cellar, and five children. He loved the idea of self-sufficiency and lived totally off the grid.
After starting his homestead, he left a job at the ER and took a job at the nursing home.
And this is where the birds come in.
The nursing home depressed him because there was such a stark contrast between the bored, lonely, and helpless life of the patients at the nursing home and his family’s exciting, abundant, and self-sufficient life on his farm.
He wanted to bring life to the nursing home. So he did just that.
Bill put green plants in every room, tore up the lawn and planted a community garden, and brought in animals- dogs, cats, and birds. The process was not always neat and tidy. For instance, when 100 parakeets were delivered, the bird cages were not set up, and the delivery driver did not know where to put the birds, so he left them in the nursing home’s beauty salon and left. The staff had to rush to put the cages together and catch the birds. Bill said the residents were laughing like crazy. Eventually, however, each room received a bird.
Staff members were also encouraged to bring their kids to the nursing home after school, and a playground was built for them at the facility. The awkward sounds of silence and intermittent moaning were replaced with children laughing, birds chirping, and ongoing conversations. The nursing home was now filled with life, and Bill said it was like watching magic happen before your eyes.
This was more than just a change in scenery. The residents were now, for the first time in a long time, given freedom over their lives. If they wanted to go for a walk (even if they were putting themselves at risk of severe injury if falling), they could. If they wanted to eat foods with higher calories (even if this made them less healthy), they could. They were, as much as possible, in control of their life.
Freedom
I read about this story in Atul Gawande’s book, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the end. In the same chapter as the nursing home story, Gawande touches on the human desire to have a certain level of control over our lives.
“All we ask is to be allowed to remain the writers of our own story. That story is ever changing. Over the course of our lives, we may encounter unimaginable difficulties. Our concerns and desires may shift. But whatever happens, we want to retain the freedom to shape our lives in ways consistent with our character and loyalties. This is why the betrayals of body and mind that threaten to erase our character and memory remain among our most awful tortures. The battle of being mortal is the battle to maintain the integrity of one’s life—to avoid becoming so diminished or dissipated or subjugated that who you are becomes disconnected from who you were or who you want to be.”
Purpose
The residents now had freedom, but even more importantly, they had a purpose. They felt a sense of purpose because they had clear responsibilities, and everyone willingly pitched in to help with the ever-present tasks that come with gardens and animals. One study found that residents who were given one plant to take care of in their rooms became both emotionally and physically healthier than those without a plant. We all have the desire to care for something outside of ourselves, and, as it turns out, a farm or garden is a great place to quench this desire.
In an interview with PBS, Bill said, “The nursing home takes good, loving, caring people and plugs them into an institutional factory-like arrangement. And it’s no good. So what I want is an alternative to the nursing home, an alternative to the institution. And the best alternative I can think of is a garden. I believe that every elder should have a chance to live in a garden.”
The nursing home was named The Eden Alternative.
God’s Story of Restoration
I like to remind my students that they are being invited to participate in God’s story of restoration. God is restoring his good world to an Eden-like state, to shalom, to the way things are meant to be. Bill Thomas used his gifts and passions to be part of God’s story of restoration. He combined his medical expertise and entrepreneurial spirit with his passion for gardens, animals, and homesteading to bring life to his nursing home. And now the Eden Alternative has a far greater reach than Bill could have ever imagined. What started as a grant-funded project in a single nursing home is now a global, non-profit organization that impacts hundreds of thousands of people across 22 countries.
Want Purpose? Take Responsibility.
The reality is that every person on planet earth has a purpose. But we need to take hold of that purpose. If you want to feel a sense of purpose, take responsibility for something or someone. Not sure where to begin? Start with a plant. You are the author of your own life. Use your gifts and passions to be part of God’s story of restoration.
