The Nurse Is In

Last Sunday as we were settling in before community worship was to begin, the person next to me turned and said, quite seriously, "Judi, I have a small bruise on my arm." Then she smiled and added, "Just kidding!" We laughed together. It was a brief interchange, but one I'll remember for a long time; it epitomizes for me what it means to be Sojourners Fellowship's resident nurse.

For one thing, it means always being on call, and the calls come at any time and all times--mealtime, bedtime, worship time, party time. No time or place is holy. I've been interrupted while praying in our poustinia to answer an "urgent" phone call, spent "passing the peace" during Sunday worship examining someone's cut finger, and at our Wednesday night community meetings I've looked in many an ear and given a multitude of allergy injections.

Given the busyness of our lives, connecting with another Sojourner for even the simplest thing requires a great deal of flexibility. Recently I arranged to give a community member a tuberculin skin test one morning before work. We chose a day when he would be at my house for a tenant organizers' meeting. It takes a lot of grace to give a skin test without disrupting a meeting. After a few whispered instructions, he rolled up his sleeve and had his test, never dropping his conversation.

I'm coming to expect the unexpected. Whether removing sutures from George (one of the community's cats), drawing blood from someone at the dining room table while people wander in and out with their breakfast, making a house-call to diagnose chickenpox, or trying to inconspicuously carry a full urine bottle back to the clinic where I put in regular hours, life is never dull.

I have a unique opportunity for loving and serving. But as our community exists not just for itself but for the world in which it finds itself, so my professional skills are not confined to Sojourners.

I work as a nurse practitioner at Columbia Road Health Services, a neighborhood clinic. The clinic provides wholistic health care--seeking to meet the emotional and spiritual, as well as physical, needs of anyone who comes for care, with a particular concern for the poor and the underserved.

The clients come in all ages, sizes, races, and nationalities. The diversity is enriching. For me they are the instruments of conversion, for we are converted to the poor by the poor themselves. Each person we touch and let ourselves be touched by becomes a shepherd to lead us further on our journey, as Jean Vanier describes in his book Community and Growth.

To come to recognize God in each of many guises--in the poor, the lonely, the sick, the needy, the fearful, the distressed, the homeless, the unloved--evokes a twofold response: greater self-giving and service, and increasing openness to receive from the ones we serve.

To be in relationship with the poor is very humbling. They endure hardships and suffering such as we'll never know, often with beauty and strength of character. At the same time their vulnerability is inescapable. To be drawn into relationship with the poor is to be brought face-to-face with my own humanity--my own woundedness and need. So as I learn to love the least ones who come to Columbia Road, I am also learning to love the "least ones" that are parts of my self. The poor are instruments of healing and wholeness in my own life.

We are always being touched. A woman from Vietnam, a refugee whose husband is still in that country, recently brought a special Vietnamese dessert to celebrate her child's birthday with us. It had a most unusual, fishy taste, but we all felt lavishly loved by her.

We are a society and profession so work-oriented. Yet for all of our doing, it is our being that is most important--being ourselves, being present to people, being with them in their suffering. I remember sitting with a woman from El Salvador in my examining room. As we talked she began to pour out, in her own language, the horrors of life in her country. We could only sit and weep together. That experience created a deep bond between us, and since then I've been much bolder to speak my limited Spanish.

As clients present themselves to us with their many needs, often we find that needed resources are non-existent or unavailable to ones so poor. And so our involvement entails much pain and frustration; the needs are so great, and we are so limited. But the people are gifts which nourish and renew us in our small efforts.

One person who has nourished me in ways he'll never know is Mr. Lee, a homeless man well known on Columbia Road. I have been deeply touched by him--and by God because of him--many times. For nearly two years he parked himself with all of his bags, which held an assortment of possessions, on our bottom steps, before he first came up the stairs seeking friendship. As winter progressed, he made a habit of having his breakfast with us every day, and became freer to come and go throughout the day, often to our inconvenience. He finally became trusting enough to shed innumerable layers of clothing to expose a bare elbow to be bandaged. Later, he even let me soak his feet and clip his toenails. One day he broke out of his hallucinations and constant humming long enough to ask me how I was and how my weekend had been. I retreated to the clinic's kitchen and cried that day.

God blesses our small efforts with small miracles.

Judi Floyd had been a member of Sojourners Fellowship for two years when this article appeared.