The Nurse Who Prays in the Stairwell

It happened in about four seconds and it was six weeks ago and she still has it.

Somebody was talking about a patient on the ward, a hard one, one everybody was worried about, and she said, without thinking about it, the way you would say I will keep an eye on him: "I will pray about it."

And a woman by the kettle, who is not unkind, who has been decent to her for two years, did her voice back. Not viciously. Two words in a small pious sing song, and a couple of people laughed the way you laugh in a staff room, and it moved on within a second and a half.

That is the whole event. Nobody would remember it. If you asked the woman by the kettle she would have no idea what you were talking about.

She has not said it in the staff room since.

She still prays. She goes to the stairwell between the second and third floor where nobody goes because the elevator is faster, and she stands on the landing by the tall window and does it there. Ninety seconds. Sometimes with her eyes open because of the door.

And at first that felt like wisdom. Discretion. Not putting things where they will be trodden on.

Lately it has started to feel like something else, and she cannot make the distinction, and it has been sitting on her since about week four. Because she has noticed that she now checks the corridor before she goes in. And she has noticed that when the same woman asked her on Thursday whether she was doing anything Sunday, she said "not much".

If you have found yourself getting quieter and cannot tell whether it is tact or fear, you know that landing. And you know the question: am I being wise about this, or have I started being ashamed, and how would I tell the difference from in here.

He put this one on the list on purpose

Let me name the low thing first, on the landing, because you have not said it to anybody in six weeks.

It is not the mimicry. Four seconds by a kettle from a woman who is decent to you is survivable and you have survived worse on that ward before lunch. It is what you have watched yourself do since. The corridor check. The "not much". You have caught yourself managing your own faith the way you would manage a rumor, and that is the thing that is actually sitting on you.

So let us go to what Jesus said, and notice where He put it on the list.

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.Matthew 5:10-11

He put it last. After the poor, the mourning, the meek, the hungry, the merciful, the pure, the peacemakers. Last, and then He expanded it, which He does not do for any of the others. He says it once in the third person and then turns and says it again in the second person, directly, to the faces in front of Him: blessed are YE.

He knew. He was looking at people it was going to happen to and He wanted it on the record before it started.

And blessed, again, does not mean it is pleasant. It means God's favor is resting on that person, His face is turned toward them. Jesus points at the people who get talked about and says: God is toward these ones.

You are in the one line on that list that Jesus said twice, and He said it the second time straight to the faces of the people it was coming for. Matthew 5:11 turns to the second person on purpose, and it is the Holy Spirit whom Jesus later promised would give His people words in exactly those moments, which means the equipping was arranged before the staff room was.

Wisdom and shame, and how to tell them apart

Now the actual question, because it is a good question and it deserves a real answer rather than a rousing one.

There is genuine wisdom in not making every room a battlefield. Jesus told His people to be wise as serpents. Paul made decisions about when to speak and when not to constantly. A woman on a ward has a job to do, and patients whose care must not become collateral in somebody else's argument, and there is nothing holy about being tiresome by the kettle.

So how do you tell?

Here is a test. Wisdom chooses. Shame avoids. Wisdom looks at a room and makes a decision about the room. Shame makes a decision about you and then dresses it as a decision about the room.

Apply it honestly. The stairwell: that could go either way, and if you were choosing it because it is quiet and you can think, that is wisdom. The corridor check: that is not about the room, that is about being seen. And "not much" on Thursday was not a decision about the ward at all. That was about a woman finding out something about you.

One out of three. Which is not a catastrophe and is not a scandal, and you are not on trial here. It is simply that you asked a real question and the honest answer is that some of it has drifted.

You have been given the ability to tell the difference, and the unease you have been carrying since week four was the telling. Scripture calls the Spirit the one who guides into all truth, and it is the same Spirit who has been making you uncomfortable about a two word answer on a Thursday rather than letting it pass.

And notice how gentle the drift was. Nobody threatened you. There was no cost. Four seconds by a kettle and then six weeks of quiet self management, which is how it almost always goes, and which is why Jesus put the line on the list rather than assuming anybody would notice.

Rejoice, and be exceeding glad, which is a strange instruction

Now the sentence He puts straight after it, because it is the strangest one in the passage.

Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

Read the reason He gives. Not: it will be worth it. Not: cheer up. He says: this is what happened to the prophets. In other words, the thing you have just been handed is a family marking. It is what it has always looked like to be one of these people, and the line you are standing in is a long one.

Which does something quite specific to a staff room. It stops being an incident and starts being a category. Four seconds by a kettle is a very small instance of a very old thing, and there is no version of following Him where the category disappears.

You are standing in a line that goes back a long way, and being in it is what He said it would look like. Matthew 5:12 gives the prophets as the precedent rather than giving a promise about the outcome, and it is His Spirit who has rested on that whole line of people, so the company you are in is not incidental.

I am not going to tell you what happens on that ward. I do not know. I do not know whether the woman by the kettle ever thinks about it, or whether it happens again, or whether it gets easier. Nobody can promise that and I am not going to try.

What is written is where God's face is pointed while you stand on that landing, and it is pointed at you.