Being There

In keeping with this month's theme, "visiting the sick and comforting the afflicted," I want to recommend a book which has something special to teach about works of mercy. Tracy Kidder's Mountains Beyond Mountains is the story of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Duke alumnus and the co-founder of Partners in Health, an organization which fights disease and poverty all over the world. Farmer began what is now an influential, global effort by borrowing from friends to build a hospital in central Haiti, a place of incredible misery, where the population is ravaged by sickness, particularly tuberculosis and AIDS.

It's difficult to read about Farmer - at least it was for me - without feeling one's own charitable efforts almost nullified by comparison. Yet Farmer describes his life's work as "fighting the long defeat." Because so much sickness is caused by poverty, and so much poverty is the result of geopolitical forces, Farmer has few illusions about his ability to "fix" the world. But that understanding in no way discourages his effort.

As you read about this hero, you learn that his strength comes not from some kind of messianic complex, but from performing simple acts of mercy: visiting the sick and comforting the afflicted. He is a man figuratively in charge of millions of dollars, a globetrotting influencer of life-saving political policy; his time is very, very valuable. But he will hike a day and night on foot to make sure one of his Haitian patients is taking her medications properly. "The best thing about Paul is those hikes," an associate observes. "You have to believe that small gestures matter, that they do add up."

Farmer's house calls are more than gestures, however. Kidder writes: "If you do the right thing well, you avoid futility. [Farmer's] patients tend to get better. They all get comforted. And he carries off, among other things, images of them and their medieval huts. These refresh his passion and authority, so that he can travel a quarter of a million miles a year and scheme and write about the health of populations."

I once heard the phrase "ministry of presence" used to describe the charity we convey to another person simply by being there, by paying attention. In this era of accelerating social and technological advances, it's easy to be obsessed with fixing things, and difficult, perhaps, to understand the value of being present when we can't "do" anything. Why repeatedly visit a comatose patient? Why extend unconditional and apparently unappreciated love to someone suffering from depression? The answer is that God loves us in all situations, and our most important charge as Christians is to demonstrate that love to each other.

In this issue you'll hear from a pastoral care minister and a bereavement counselor. Msgr. Hadden writes movingly about being ill and receiving comfort from others. You'll also read about a special retreat in our diocese where physically disabled people and the able-bodied, together, encounter Christ.

Thank you as always for your feedback. You can write me at 715 Nazareth Street, Raleigh, NC 27606 or reece@raldioc.org.