Reflecting on carers and caring through the lens of scripture — the anonymous, indispensable people who enable miracles to happen.
The opening of Chapter 3 of the Acts of the Apostles tells of the story of how Peter cured a man who was lame:
Once, when Peter and John were going up to the Temple for the prayers at the ninth hour, it happened that there was a man being carried along. He was a cripple from birth; and they used to put him down every day near the Temple entrance called the Beautiful Gate so that he could beg from people going in.
The story is familiar but the words then spoken by Peter – "I have neither silver nor gold, but I will give you what I have: in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, walk!" – could not have been said, and the miracle could not have been performed, had not the blind man actually been at the Gate. How did he get there? Note the words "being carried along" and "they used to put him". Who did this? Who were they? The answer, of course, is his carers. Such carers appear many times in the Bible.
Take this passage, from Matthew 4: 23-24.
He went round the whole of Galilee teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing all kinds of disease and illness among the people. His fame spread throughout Syria, and those who were suffering from diseases and painful complaints of one kind or another, the possessed, epileptics, the paralysed, were all brought to him, and he cured them.
Again we see miracles performed and we notice the person performing it, Jesus or Peter, and the persons on whom the miracle is performed. We do not notice the indispensable people in the middle who enable the miracle to be performed. They are anonymous. Caring relationships are like this, because when one cares it becomes difficult to separate out the interests of individuals.
It is not so much that our individuality is lost, but our identity, well-being and value becomes mixed up with others. To value a vulnerable person is to value her carer; to harm that person is to harm the carer. Many of us are carers often without realising it. Perhaps we care for a person who lives with us; now, with modern transport and communications, caring can be long range with occasional direct contact. Above all, though, it is in that forgetfulness of self in caring that we can come near to Christ.
None of this is to hold up some sanitised version of carers and caring: caring can be utterly draining and exhausting; it can try us to our limits. So now is an appropriate time to reflect on carers and caring and the support that carers need especially as June 12th-18th June 2017 is Carers Week with the theme of "Building Carer-Friendly Communities". See www.carersweek.org/about-us.
Are you one of the UK's 6.5 million Carers of any age who provides unpaid support to family and friends who could not manage without this help? This could be a relative, partner, a child or friend who is ill, frail, disabled or who has mental health or substance misuse problems.
How does your Church community support and value unpaid Carers?
Anne and John Duddington