Day 21 - Pray for me

Christopher Samuel, Pray For Me, 2025, Stained glass in bespoke light box, 2025

I recently visited Birmingham and one of the things I didn’t realise is that its museum has a large stained-glass collection, particularly pieces by the Pre-Raphaelite Edward Burne-Jones. They often include impossibly beautiful biblical figures or angels. Figures who are nearly always white and able-bodied.

Christopher Samuel collected stories from black and brown disabled communities in the city. He found that the attitudes of others around them were often a disabling factor. The title ‘Pray For Me’ is ambiguous. Who in the artwork needs praying for and what type of prayer? The central figure has a halo and light emanating from him but on closer inspection he is in a wheelchair. Is he praying for the characters in white or are they praying for him? Samuel is challenging ableist pity and the idea that disabled people always need to be the recipients of healing. Samuel also used his own experience as a black, disabled artist to inform his work.

Jesus asks Bartimaeus in Mark 10: ‘What do you want me to do for you?’. He doesn’t assume and he doesn’t take away Bartimaeus’s choice. I wonder if today Bartimaeus might not ask for his sight to be restored but ask for adjustments at work, access to education or the opportunity to lead and use the gifts he has. As a chaplain, where prayer is appropriate, I often ask the patient what they’d like prayer for. I’m surprised that healing is not mentioned 100 per cent of the time. Often people ask for growth in another area of their lives or a deepening faith or request prayer for their family and friends.

Holy Spirit,

Show me what to pray for,

That might mean removing my assumptions first,

The way that I limit people in my mind,

Making some recipients and others givers.

When we all flow between the two.

Help me not only pray for justice but pray justly.

Amen.

Suzanne Nockels