1. Early Life and Education

2. Nursing Career

3. Later Life and Work in Spiritual Direction

4. Vision, Beliefs, and Selected Works
     On nursing, "the finest art"    On spiritual awakening    On the Way of Contemplation    Dancing    Beloved  

5. Main Published Works

6. References

Rev. Prof. Stephen Graham Wright FRCN MBE (born 20 September 1949) is a spiritual director for the Sacred Space Foundation, author^[1], and recipient of a Fellowship of the Royal College of Nursing. He is known for his innovations in nursing training and education, his consultancy with the British Council and World Health Organisation, and for creating the first consultant nurse role within the National Health Service (NHS). In his later years, he helped to establish the Sacred Space, and continues to offer spiritual direction and author books on the subject of spiritual seeking. He currently serves as a spiritual director of the Sacred Space Foundation.

Early Life and Education

Stephen Wright grew up in a working class background in Radcliffe, Manchester. He attended a modern secondary school in Radcliffe before transferring to Stand Grammar School in 1963. After completing his studies in 1967 he worked for 2 years as a trainee tax officer with Inland Revenue before moving to London in 1969, where he worked as a management trainee with Union International Ltd. He left London in early 1970 to travel throughout Europe, staying in Gibraltar in the summer of 1970 to work various service industry jobs in Gibraltar. He returned to the UK in late 1970. After successful application to nursing school, Wright worked temporarily as a nursing auxiliary at Fairfield General Hospital before beginning nursing training in January 1971. During his studies Wright was awarded a Rotary Club sponsorship to study nursing in France and the Netherlands. He also became an active member of the Royal College of Nursing. Following his qualification as a general nurse in 1974, Wright worked in various hospitals in the northwest of England while studying part-time for the Diploma in Nursing at colleges in Blackburn and Salford, eventually becoming a clinical teacher at Tameside and Glossop School of Nursing. In 1979 he was sponsored by Glossop to study the Diploma in Advanced Nursing Studies and Master’s Degree in Nursing at the University of Manchester.

Nursing Career

In late 1981, Wright returned to Tameside, where he was invited to take up the role of nurse teacher and charge nurse, a ‘joint appointment’^[2] role in the elderly care unit. The intention was to improve the learning climate for students and act as a change agent to improve care for patients in a care unit that was perceived at the time as offering poor quality of care.^[3][4] This joint appointment role was the first of its kind between a mainstream NHS hospital and a school of nursing and was modelled on that which was developed between the university and hospital in central Manchester.^[5] Under his leadership, more joint appointments were made and independent evaluation demonstrated significant improvements in patient care and staff experience.^[6] The unit became part of the Nursing Development Unit movement^[7] of the 1980’s, which received considerable government attention and sponsorship.^[8][9] Salvage’s study^[10] describes this period as the ‘New Nursing’ when there was a burgeoning interest in nursing innovations, fostered in part by greater numbers of educated nurses emerging from Master’s programmes such as that in Manchester, as well as changes in the UK’s NHS, the roles of women and in nursing education.

Apart from participating in these innovations in clinical nursing, Wright began to contribute more as a teacher of nursing practice across the UK and abroad and began a period of prolific writing and research about nursing, most significantly in the field of nursing theory^[11], change management^[12][13], nursing older people^[14] and patient-centred nursing^[15][16]. He became a consultant to the King’s Fund, the WHO (Europe), the Open University and the British Council.

Wright became the first consultant nurse in the NHS in 1986^[17], creating the role for himself, a move that subsequently influenced the development of more such roles in the NHS as government policy in 1997.^[18][19] In the meantime he was elected to council of the Royal College of Nursing (serving 6 years) and chaired its nursing policy and practice, ethics and international committees, which contributed to many nursing policy and practice development initiatives, especially in relation to the emerging AIDS crisis in the late 1980’s.^[20][21] His role took him to over 60 countries as conference speaker, course teacher and government adviser in the development of nursing services and he helped set up Nursing Development Units in Slovenia, Romania, Poland, Spain, Ireland and Germany^[22][23], as well as a nursing exchange programme between Tameside Hospital and Emory University Hospital^[24], Atlanta, USA. He was offered visiting professorships at the Universities of Cumbria and Southampton. While continuing to work at Tameside, he set up the European Nursing Development Agency^[25] to seek funds and support for these projects and worked with the WHO (Europe) on various nursing leadership programmes in the UK, Russia, Poland, Denmark and the then republic of Czechoslovakia.^[26]

Wright participated in or chaired many local and national committees, editorial boards concerning nursing and health care and wrote prolifically in many books, journals and distance learning projects^[27][28][29] on nursing, in addition to making numerous television and radio appearances, including acting as consultant to and participating in two television series on nursing: a Yorkshire Television series ‘Return to Nursing’ (1990) and the BBC Series “No more Nightingales” (1991). He was honored with a Fellowship of the Royal College of Nursing in 1991 and an MBE by HM the Queen for his services to nursing in 1992. In 1993 he was seconded for two years to NHS (England) as part of the Patients’ Charter Team^[30], taking the lead on developing the Named Nurse^[31] policy (intended that every patient should have an identifiable nurse responsible for their care) and producing the definitive text on the theme and other research on mixed sex wards, patient centred care and complementary therapies.^{[32][33][34][35]} He was commissioned by the RCN to lead a major research project on the future of nursing^[36] in 1998 as well as to chair several inquiries into settings where patient care had failed, producing confidential reports for Charitable and NHS Trusts.

In the late 1980’s Wright developed a particular interest in the application of complementary therapies to patient care, lecturing widely on the theme, setting up the journal Complementary Therapies in Nursing^[37] first published by Churchill Livingstone, promoting the development of an influential special interest group in the Royal College of Nursing and participating in HRH the Prince of Wales’ Integration of Complementary and Orthodox Medicine Advisory Group.^[38] At about the same time he also developed a personal and professional interest in the connection between spirituality and health^[39][40][41], editing Spirituality and Health International from 1999-2008 and writing a regular monthly column in Nursing Standard from 1997 to 2015 on the theme, receiving highly commended awards from the Professional Publications Awards in 2004 and 2005. In 2010 he received a Fellowship of the University of Cumbria for his studies and teachings on the theme.

Later Life and Work in Spiritual Direction

Wright's interest in the connection between spirituality and health was not just academic, as many of his writings in Nursing Standard and the account in his semi-autobiographical guide on spiritual awakening illuminated.^[42] It was also rooted in a shift in “a way of seeing”^[43] his life and goals through a series of transformative spiritual experiences. He studied with a number of significant teachers including Jean Sayre-Adams of the Sacred Space Foundation^[44], Michael Harner, Jack Kornfield, Stan Grof, most continuously Ram Dass and on many retreats in the presence of Mother Meera. This inner work led him to begin a significant shift in his personal and work life and towards an effort to integrate spiritual insights and principles into his work and teachings. To further this integration he trained as an interfaith minister and spiritual director at the Interfaith Seminary (now One Spirit Interfaith Foundation^[45]) and was ordained in 2003. He participated in numerous retreats and study programmes in Christianity, especially Christian spirituality, mysticism and contemplation and was hallowed as a member of the Iona Community^[46] in 2011. His current work focuses on spiritual direction with retreatants at the Sacred Space Foundation, facilitating retreats around the UK, teaching compassion programmes in the NHS^[47] as well as authoring further works of poetry, music and spiritual development.

Vision, Beliefs, and Selected Works

On nursing, "the finest art"

“And what is the form of this art? It is not always tangible or permanent, like some other forms of art. We integrate and use all our skills to help heal the broken limb and the person it was attached to, but there is also the invisible “end product” – what the person feels like, the wellbeing, the transformation at one or many levels – physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual – that can be so difficult to pin down. The art of nursing is often seen only in the moment it occurs as we draw upon creative imagination, endlessly shifting as needs shift. Perhaps of all the art forms nursing is most like dancing, for its process is constant movement, visible while it happens, often moving and inspiring us, yet, when the movement has passed has no substance but the memory of it. In the creation of this art form, we draw upon moral and ethical dimensions to support out action, forge the “special relationship” with patients that sets it apart from our relationships in other parts of our lives - and one thing that makes art is that it is “special”. The true artist seeks truth through true expression – and we have codes of conduct and ethical values to remind us of what these are – truth made extant in the world through caring for the individual and the collective in the search for health, wellbeing, healing and justice. Nursing has a dance-like appearance of action and reaction, of interplay between conscious and unconscious forces in ourselves so that we can act for a large part without even having to think about it. Even the “simplest” nursing act would take ages to perform if we had to consciously think through every one of them – and thus the dancer does not think “I will put my arms so, or my legs thus” – she has made the dance part of her whole being! Or perhaps the dance has also made her being?

The understanding of art does not put aside the need for science, indeed one of the beauties of nursing is our integration of the two. The arrival of more technology in nursing has often been decried, yet technology, like artists materials, may yet serve us well, adding to the opportunities for artistry. With technology as servant not as master, we may make refine the finest art yet further

Making art fills us with joy; it challenges us, disturbs us, rewards us, frightens us – giving all the range of the human experience. Peter, a profoundly disabled young man, struggled with the help of his nurse, Nick, who specialized in learning disabilities, to feed himself. The patience of the nurse, the imagination required to believe that Peter could succeed, the persistence when it all went wrong, the challenge of slow, patient often unrewarding work – anyone who has ever tried to do a piece of art – music, writing or whatever – will tell you these are exactly the same feelings/experiences. Nick new about the science of learning, but it was in his relationship with Peter that the art was revealed. And the art “form” for Peter was the transformation into self-feeding, and perhaps more importantly, the utter, immeasurable, unforgettable joy on the faces of Peter, his parents and his nurse when he finally did it.

Nursing is art when Carole, whom I worked with “on the district”, had the awareness to stop what she was doing and just sit and listen as a man who was dying finally broke through to speak of it, and to hold the silence while the words came and with them the transformation into a new way of being with his nurses and his family. And I learned from Carole and Nick too - is that not another sign of great art – the teacher who passes it on to the apprentice not just by showing what to do but how to be? Nurses like Carole and Nick are artists, using their very being in a synthesis of emotional, intellectual, spiritual and physical intelligence into a pattern that would not have occurred itself without the application of the total craftwork of the person. The art of nursing is the transformation at some great or small level, of a human being – and of ourselves.

All art tells a story at some level – not just what happens, but how it feels. Through our storytelling our world is made real, our lives are validated, our truth is revealed – that is why it is such a valuable tool for the novice nurse to learn about nursing, why it works in reflective practice. The ongoing story of our nursing lives, our deepening of our understanding of ourselves and nursing is an art form but it is art as therapy. Music and other arts are used to help and heal. Stories of good nursing are “music to our ears”; efficient work is “poetry in motion”; a job well done is “a work of art”; a good leader “harmonises” a team. Our language drips with artistic allegory and metaphor to describe the work of caring, simply because nursing is an art - the finest art, the healing art, the art of the Heart, the source of all compassion and love in practical action for the wellbeing of others."^[48]

On spiritual awakening

“… The journey Home, that urge to seek something which we know is there but which has sometimes lain long forgotten at the back of the mind, on the tip of the tongue not quite able to be expressed, some irrepressible urge barely touched upon. Sometimes it drives us on powerfully and unaccountably, we know not where, yet impelled towards some ineffable ‘something other’, the numinous, the mysterium tremendum. It is the search that seems to be a primary quality deeply ingrained in what it is to be human, driven onwards by a sense of something lost, although we may not be quite sure what – some sense of original perfection, harmony, home, an inner Eden where we were at One. We are all here to reclaim that Home; it is our birthright."^[49]

On the Way of Contemplation

“…Such a unitive consciousness, when we recover it, has many fruits for it informs every aspect of our being and doing in the world. This consciousness, free of ego agendas, is not neutral, but entirely loving and we bring this quality to our work, relationships and ourselves. The contemplative – as manager, doctor, nurse, teacher, shop worker, labourer, parent, friend, lover and on and on into every human role and endeavour – becomes a manifestation of loving awareness wherever we lead our lives. As servants and agents of change with this highest level of awareness, we become the compassionate Christ consciousness working in and through us in whatever we are engaged."^[50]

Dancing

"When you fell in love with Me,

wasn’t that when I asked you to dance?

It doesn’t matter what everyone else is doing,

From cosmic jitterbug to serene glide.

It doesn’t matter.

A loving relationship like ours makes its own steps.

Tentatively, at first, I reassured you.

Reassured you that I wouldn’t step on your toes.

Slowly you came to see that a relationship like ours

is a waltz across the dance floor of time.

Just the two of us spinning and spinning.

Anyone watching from the outside would swear

they saw two set off.

Swear to it.

And swear to it now that both had blurred into one.

Still dancing"^[51]

Beloved

“Speak, Your servant is listening!  Speak.”  No answer

comes at my command, but an impregnated pause

is felt, a pause with child full of hope and expectation.

How will I find the way?  Without You I have no compass?

The eagle stares; flies off leaving trails of awareness.

A golden thread binds me to You.  Love.  Though

I wander I am yet fixed, bound by the reins my

mother fastened about me when the busy road

threatened or the cooker was too close.  Yours

are long today in time and distance, impending

nevertheless and when I have gone, stretched

as far as I can go, as far as I need to go, as far

as You want me to go, then comes – pull, perhaps

violently, perhaps a gentle drawing in according to

my choosing.  Yes, I am hauled in, my extended

voyage (the ticket purchased with the price of a

cross) has completed its intended discovery.  Will

the ship be loaded with treasure gathered at many

ports?  Will there be barrels of salted fish and

dried husks scattered among the caskets of

silver and gold?  Will I reek of myrrh or be

fragrant with frankincense?  Or will my

hull be swollen and empty, devoid of goods and

expectant, ready to sail again, and again, in

search of lost treasure and Your cargo? I

cannot decide, I have no map or guide

save the wood and the nails, and the broken

body, and the empty, empty tomb and a

man transfigured who nobody recognised

yet offered the hope of the world and stood

there, stands there still, saying “This Way!” A

way where there is no curtain anymore.  Torn by

death, obstruction is obliterated.  Subverted by

sacrifice, sabotaged by surrender.  The veil shredded

provides no shield to encounter.  I see You.  The

altar is approachable, proletarianised, made accessible

by profound humility.  The landscape is borderless,

no customs and excise, no patrols, no watchtowers.

“Come. Come Home.  Touch the altar. We are

of one blood, you and I.”  No rail, no barrier to

the forward step, the planned inexorable return.

I can plan so little, organise only so much, the

rest is up to You and my dilettante nature who

fused in common cause might yet comprehend the

grid reference, read the runes and not get lost

in the bottomless sludge clinging at the

edge of Gethsemane’s drains.  I cannot decide,;

this is given only to You.  Empty or full the

servant can only follow, only dis-cover that he,

or she, is simply servant and will never be other,

never was.  I am in control of nothing.  The

illusion that said the opposite now lies crisp

and desiccated in a deserted, dusty, unvisited

back street, somewhere between here and

the time when like Tarzan I took a swing on

my last liana, missed and hit the tree, a dead

stop, a deadly stop, nowhere to go but down,

nowhere to look but up.   We are in control of

nothing.  All that we are is nothing and nothing

is all we can control.  The tide turns, the little boat

chugs across the sound, buffeted by the countercurrents.

A solitary light waves – is it a farewell or a greeting?

It swings on the surf, like a bell."^[52]

Main Published Works

References

• Mart Mariam Cathedral
• Mart Meos
• Mart Moura
• Mart Muurisepp
• Mart Müürisepp
• Marto Gracias
• Martolos
• Martolosi
• Martolozi
• Mart O'Malley
• Marton, Andrew
• Marton Barta
• Marton, Brian
• Marton District High School
• Martone, Michael
• Marton Erdos
• Martonffy, Alexander
• Marton Gyongyosi
• Marton Gyorgy Vamos
• Marton, Michael
• Marton-New Plymouth line
• Marton-New Plymouth Line
• Martonosi
• Marton Railway Station
• Marton railway station