Dcn Leah Sandwell-Weiss

Dear friends,

When growing up in the sixties, it seemed the only options for a woman who wanted a career were teaching or nursing. And I really didn’t want to do either. So, reading “inspirational” stories of Florence Nightingale, the “lady with the lamp,” comforting the wounded British soldiers in the Crimean War didn’t inspire me.

I’ve since read more about her, and I’m more impressed.

She struggled to become a nurse when it just wasn’t done. She worked hard to get British officials to listen to her pleas for more resources for the wounded soldiers. And she challenged the bureaucracy that impeded efforts to clean the hospitals. She even used statistics to make her arguments for sanitation and other health reforms, and was one of the first to use graphics, like pie charts, to illustrate them.

She wrote and advocated for the professionalization of nursing, better health care, sanitary conditions, and social reform.

But why do we commemorate her?

Turns out there was some controversy when she was first considered for commemoration in the church because she doubted or denied some parts of the Nicene Creed.

She was a mystic—she heard God call her to dedicate her life to his service when she was sixteen. She began an anthology of mystical writings, called "Notes from Devotional Authors of the Middle Ages, Collected, Chosen, and Freely Translated by Florence Nightingale." She argued that mystical prayer was not just for monks and nuns but should form a part of everyone’s life.

She also questioned the goodness of a God who would condemn souls to hell and believed that even those who die without being saved will eventually make it to heaven. She was also critical of organized religion and the role the Anglican church played in the oppression of the poor.

Her collect concentrates on her nursing work, but maybe we ought to look beyond that to her strength to continue to advocate for the needs of others even while homebound with illness.

O God, who gave grace to your servant Florence Nightingale to bear your healing love into the shadow of death: Grant to all who heal the same virtues of patience, mercy, and steadfast love, that your saving health may be revealed to all; through Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

—Dcn Leah