When I was in college, I was part of a small but devoted Christian fellowship. We met on Friday nights, since every other night was already filled with a capella rehearsals, rugby practices, or good old-fashioned cramming for exams. I never missed a Friday. I loved God and my friends, and I looked forward to it every week. But, even though I never would have admitted it at the time, I think I also enjoyed a secret smug feeling that while my classmates were out partying, I was busy worshipping God. I was doing things right.
During my first year I became aware that a fellow student had been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. I didn’t know him personally, but I recognized his name. Another group of students immediately organized a benefit dinner for him on campus. I’m sure our meager college student offerings didn’t put a dent in his medical expenses, but it was an offering of support, of embrace, of love. It was on a Friday night. I did not go. I was busy worshipping God. I was doing things right.
I had another friend who occasionally came to those Friday night meetings, and her faith had more doubts and doors open than I would ever have permitted myself. We were spiritedly debating some issue or other (by which I mean that I was telling her that I had all the answers and was definitely right), and, in exasperation, she finally asked me, “Why didn’t you come to the benefit dinner?”
Why didn’t I go, indeed? I’m sure I sputtered some answer or other about the primacy of worship and prayer, but I knew that she was right. Why didn’t we cancel the worship service and attend that benefit dinner en masse? Why didn’t we see that showing up in love and support…would have been an act of worship, true worship of our God of compassion and tenderness and mercy? I had missed my opportunity to love.
But many years later, God gave me another chance. My faith had been on a wild roller coaster ride since those days in college. I had slowly become disillusioned with the limiting, black-and-white faith of my youth and come home to the Catholic faith in which I was raised. I reveled, for the first time in my adult life, in the celebration of majesty and mystery.
As a Russian literature grad student at Berkeley, I occasionally took freelance interpreting jobs, and an exciting one came up in my fifth year (grad school is long!). A local museum was showcasing the work of my favorite painter, Marc Chagall, and several employees of the Russian State Archives were coming over with the paintings to make sure that the art was properly handled and installed. The museum needed an interpreter between their staff and the Russian staff, and that’s where I came in, two hefty bilingual dictionaries crammed into my purse, just in case.
The installation was in the spring, during Holy Week, but my hours were only 10-4, leaving lots of time for me to make it to my favorite liturgies of the year. The last day of the job was Good Friday. As the Russian staff and I waited for the doors to be unlocked in the morning, I noticed that one of them was sporting a very swollen wrist. “So,” she said to me, in a remarkably even tone, “We have a problem. Last night we were out walking, and I fell.” She rolled up her jacket sleeve, and I audibly gasped at the sight of her arm.
She told me that she wasn’t in any pain and didn’t think it was broken, but that perhaps she should see a doctor. All day, in between opening crates and cataloguing paintings, we gathered in the conference room to make calls to her Russian insurance company and try to make heads or tails of her policy, which clearly wasn’t set up for an international emergency room visit.
As the day wore on, no one conveyed a solid plan to me. But I knew that I would not be going to my beloved Good Friday liturgy. I longed to be in my hushed and darkened parish in Berkeley venerating the cross, but I did not give it another thought. As surely as Jesus was there in the Blessed Sacrament, so, too, He would want this young woman in a loud and foreign downtown emergency room to be comforted and cared for in her native language. I took the train back to my apartment that night around 10pm. I had missed the liturgy. But I had been busy worshipping God. Finally, but finally, I had done something right. I am not saying that we should be looking for reasons to miss liturgies. I am just saying that sometimes we need to carry those liturgies outside the four walls of the church.
It’s been so long since that night in college when I missed my chance to be present for someone who was suffering. As I was writing this story, I nervously looked up the name of the student who had received the diagnosis. I held my breath, having no idea if he had survived. Tears filled my eyes as I learned that he was alive and well, a licensed counselor working with a children’s aid society and assisting with prisoner reentry and substance abuse counseling. As I looked at a picture of his smiling face, I realized that, as smug as I’d been about my faith, he’d been the one out there giving glory to God, through his kindness, his generosity, his compassion.
Do you remember those trendy and cliched bracelets of the 90s, the neon ones emblazoned with the letters WWJD, asking us to consider the question “What would Jesus do?” Well, at some point in the time between college and this Good Friday in the emergency room, God challenged me to ask myself a slightly different question: “Does Jesus care about this?”
Asking this question shifted my perspective in a profound way. I have always had a very deep sense of God’s love for me, but while I had considered myself as right and holy and special for so long…I’m embarrassed to admit… that it never occurred to me that God loved every single other human being just the exact same way, without exception. Justice had always been an abstract concept to me–I knew it was one of God’s top priorities, but…what did it have to do with me?
When I took my eyes off myself long enough to actually look at the world around me, to see the belovedness of every person I crossed paths with, it was as if a self-imposed blindfold had been removed from my face. And that question: “Does Jesus care about this?” became my constant companion. Does Jesus care about the person taking forever in front of me at the post office? Yes! She is beloved! The bus driver? Yes! Beloved! The cashier checking me out at the grocery store? Yes! Beloved!
Little by little, justice became less of an abstract concept and more of a deep and beautiful expression of the belovedness of every human being, each one made in the image and likeness of God. Although I still love every mass and liturgy, my understanding of God’s embrace has grown ever larger and larger, reaching far beyond the walls of the church, never relenting until not one single person is left outside it.
And the question kept taking me further–Does Jesus care about conditions of the people who are making my clothes in overseas sweatshops? Does Jesus care about the people picking my food, in terrible conditions, for insulting pay? Does Jesus care about the men, women, and, most terribly, children, treated atrociously for no reason other than the color of their skin? The answer has never been “no.”
Cameron Bellm is a Seattle mom of two young boys. After finishing her PhD in Russian literature, she traded the academic life for the contemplative life (well, as contemplative as chasing two small kids can be!). She is a great lover of Ignatian spirituality, Catholic social teaching, and strong black coffee. You can find her on Instagram at @krugthethinker.
A friend passed on your Prayer for a Pandemic. As I have more time than normal and less excuse to marginalize the nudge to send a note of encouragement and wait for a more propitious moment, let me say thanks. I am grateful for your kind and necessary reminder to expand our selfist myopia and enlarge the scope of our compassion to embrace those who have no margins, no excess, no recourse but the care of strangers. May we be the hands of Jesus in these diminishing, slowing-down, exposing times. May we allow Him to reduce us to love.
Timothy, thank you so much for this kind comment! I so appreciate it. Yes, thank God for the mercy that shakes me free from my own selfishness. May He pour it out richly on us! Thank you so much for praying with me.
Oh my goodness!
What a WONDERFUL story of awakening
I looked you up because your beautiful Prayer for a Pandemic
(It’s wonderful and I’m sharing it)
But THIS story of your own spiritual growth adds so much to the meaning of the poem (and the person from whom it came)
Thank you for BOTH
What a wonderful, serendipitous reminder for me during this strange time
Peter
Birmingham, AL
Thank you so much for your kind words, Peter! I’m so deeply encouraged by the connections we are making even in this time of isolation. Thank you so much for praying with me!
Hello, Cameron! I thought you’d like to know that we here at King’s Chapel in Boston found your “Prayer for a Pandemic” especially moving and we actually featured it in our worship this Sunday. I wonder if you might be in touch? We’re looking for ways to engage our members during this time, and I thought it might be nice to have a “podcast” like chat that we might share w/our community.
Many blessings,
David
King’s Chapel
Boston, MA
Hi, David! I’m so sorry I’m just now seeing this message! Yes, absolutely, that would be wonderful. One great gift of this prayer has been the way it has woven us all together, even as we are more apart than we have ever been. I will be in touch!
I will join the ranks of those blessed by your prayer – it was shared by a friend who a priest has shared and it seems to be filling up the cracks and spaces of emotional need all over the globe.
Thank you.
I love your above sharing too!
Thank you so much, Patty! In these days of isolation, I am so grateful to be connected to so many kind-hearted people. Thank you for praying with me!
I am the new editor of The Anglican Digest, with a readership in the millions in over 16 countries. In fact, I am so new that I don’t yet have an email address specific to The Digest and probably am not yet listed on the website. May I please have permission to print your pandemic prayer in our summer edition? I will put you on our mailing list, if you give me the address you would like me to use.
Hi, Fr. Robinson, and thank you for your kind message! I’m sorry for this late reply, as I’m just now seeing your message. Yes, absolutely, you may print the prayer! Also, I looked you up and saw that you once served in Monroe, Louisiana. My grandfather was a Presbyterian minister in West Monroe, just next door, many years ago! My email address is cameron dot bellm at gmail dot com. Please do write to me there–I’d love to keep in touch. Thanks again!
Hi Cameron, I shared your “Remember those” to my FB friends, thanks very much for those prayers! Yes, Jesus cared for every one including those who crucified him, even to be point of being utterly “forsaken” (unique act & meaning by God), that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
Yes, very true! Thank you so much for praying with me!
Only wishing I had the faith of a spiritual person, I saw and heard your prayer for the first time this morning while watching the Mass on line from St Theresa’s in Houston. Had to find it, and did so by googling the few words I could remember, “have no place to go” and “have no home.” A prayer for always, not just during this crisis, it will continue to get disseminated widely. Thank you so very much for a thought provoking prayer.
Oh, how wonderful! Thank you so much for letting me know! I’m glad to know you (and very much appreciate your Ruff Draught name!)