Prayers at the bedside
On the physical as the spiritual
The lights are off in room 18. I walk in quietly after getting report from the nightshift, listening intently, letting my eyes adjust to a darkness that glimmers eerily beneath the mechanically flashing monitors. I watch them for a moment, and then turn to my patient in the bed. I may appear lost in thought, but in reality my senses are gathering data, fully attending. He is sleeping; the breaths are regular. Flicking my gaze back to the monitor I keep listening, keep watching, letting these first images and metrics imprint heavily into my mind. I study him, preparing myself to catch the shifting trends of creaturely signals, to intuit any “variation or shadow due to change.”1
Once I’m satisfied with my initial assessment, I turn to my own breathing. Unconsciously I have synchronized my respirations with his. But now, in this unhurried darkness, I deliberately anchor them with a familiar prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ (inhale), Son of God (exhale), have mercy on me (inhale), a sinner (exhale).” Out of habit, I repeat the rhythm— breathing, praying, grounding myself. My own anxieties find a brief somatic respite. I glance over at the sleeping sufferer in my care, wishing I could impart some bit of embodied peace to him. The cellular brokenness just before me is still beyond me— yet I can be present. I can anticipate the ebb and flow of need, optimizing what resources I have as I keep watch— body, mind, and soul— over him: a body, mind, and soul.
All possible surgical complications were certainly explained beforehand. Still, nobody expects to find this burden of devastation thrust upon them. The body has a mind of its own, and in some cases its debilitating actions and reactions erase independence instantly for weeks, months, a lifetime. For a moment the corners of my heart peek out, tinged with the grief and love I hope my patients family feels. Tears form, and I swallow them. It is most kind for me to save sorrow for tomorrow; today calls for objectivity, compassion, presence. Martin Luther was right: “This life… is not health….”2 It wounds me to bear witness to these wounds.
Glancing at the photographs on the wall I see a stranger: lively, smiling, full-faced, strong. I’ve never met that person before, yet somehow he is the gaunt figure in the bed; I know him intimately. In the next hour or so I’ll be elbow deep in his business. Such vulnerability is not to be tread into lightly. It is holy ground, both messy and precious. Though my eyes, ears, and nose know full well that “all does not yet gleam in glory,”3 my heart is bent with reverence towards the givenness of this man’s intrinsic dignity.
I can’t help but wonder: in the systems of thought I inherited in younger years, systems that divorced soul from body, spiritual from material— did those people ever come face-to-face with broken bodies like this? Did they spend time in the thin space where the most significant interior landscapes of a person are so viscerally palpable?4 The physical is the spiritual, and the dirtiest, most mundane work is sacred. To tend the body of another is to tend the body of the incarnate Christ.5
My patients’ eyes flutter open as my shoe squeaks loudly on the floor. Even in the lowlight I can sense the exhaustion, defeat, and pain that wreaths his waking. Padding back to the bedside, I whisper a greeting and squeeze his hand, passing on a tactile message with my fingers: I am with you. I ask a few questions, adjust the pillows, listen with my stethoscope, and then I’m off. The beatitudes are embodied before me again today.
James 1:17b ESV
Ibid
Matthew 25:36
You have so eloquently and exactly described this scene/encounter. It brings me right back to some of those moments I've also had as a nurse. I love your writing. Thank you for sharing this moment in a such a beautiful way.
One thing I've come to appreciate about the Catholic tradition is their view of the sacramental nature of things. The physical speaks of the spiritual. The actual sacraments most of all, but of the natural world, our very bodies. Thanks for this beautiful snapshot.