Page 174 - Nursing: The Philosophy and Science of Caring

Fr o m C a r at i v e FaC to r 9 to C a r i ta s P r o C e s s 9
around a framework that integrates conventional basic needs but now
within a context of what can be thought of as Caritas Nursing art/acts,
or, more deeply, sacred arts of nursing. As these acts are identified,
we acknowledge that nurses respond to the most primal, instinctual,
often embarrassing, private needs of another, touching their whole
being with each act. I repeat: it is the “dwelling” notion (more than
just helping to satisfy basic human needs) that takes on a philosophical
view of caring that allows one to “see with the heart’s eye” (Martinsen
2006:11).
Nurses have the honored position of entering another’s private
physical-environmental surroundings as well as having access to one’s
sacred body-physical-personal private space. Nurses enter this space
when carrying out acts, processes, and functions of caring for another
that the person/family often conducts in the privacy and intimacy
of their own homes. But when another is vulnerable, injured, inca-
pacitated, ill, weak, frail, suffering, confused, and dependent, Caritas
Nurses—in a spirit of loving-kindness, with an intentional conscious-
ness of dignity and honoring other, combined with “Caring Literacy,”
knowledge, and skill—administer to another. As the nurse carries out
these basic need functions with a caring-loving consciousness, as per-
haps an ultimate gift to this person, she or he is bringing spirit into the
physical plane, helping the other have space to “dwell” in his or her
body as well as in the institutional environment. This Caritas Nursing
consciousness makes new connections between basic needs and evolv-
ing spiritual needs, intentionally aware that each physical act is touch-
ing the spirit of the person and making a difference in that person’s life
in that moment.
However, any presenting need can be related to self-survival, even
if existential-spiritual in nature; our needs are not restricted to the bio-
physical in the usual sense of “basic needs.” These deeper, evolving
human needs beyond physical survival encompass the human in a uni-
fied way that expands and deepens our evolving humanity and being-
in-the-world. Examples of other aspects of human evolution include:

• The need for work-purpose, contributing to something beyond
self, something larger than self

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