Facing lupus with spiritual life supports

National Catholic Reporter, Nov 19, 2004 by Arthur Jones

"As my resume shows, I've been a high achiever, thrived on challenge. Lupus has been one thing I've discovered I really can't fight, so it was very difficult for me," she said. "I have to limit an awful lot of things in order to be as productive as I can be." But productive she is.

Her memory was so bad she started keeping lots of notes about things that helped her a little. Recipes, tips, sources for protective clothing. "A couple of years into it I realized there were no books written by patients for patients that were practical in nature," she said. The result, with Dr. David Hallegua, was Taking Charge of Lupus.

Now she's awaiting publication of Peace in the Storm (Doubleday, 2005), a collection of meditations and prayers she's written for people suffering chronic, life-altering pain (see excerpt). Peace in the Storm reflects her own faith search in sickness.

She has not experienced a dark night of the soul. "I only look upon life as a stage to heaven. So, to me, death is not something to be feared," she said. At its worst, the disease is "like a cloud which the sun--in the sense of positive things--comes through. Sometimes."

"Being the achiever I am, in the beginning I tended to overdo it, Again, my faith has helped tremendously in identifying balance and helping maintain balance," she said. "I think a lot of the good of Catholicism is moderation and balance. Honestly, I don't know how people who do not have faith have a peaceful life with chronic illness."

The prospect of death? "It's always there. It hit hardest when my brother died," she said, then gave a little laugh. "We were driving away from cemetery and the funeral home person turned around in the limousine and informed me and my mother that he wanted us to know he'd left enough room for the urns that would contain our ashes." Pratt laughed uproariously at the recollection.

Pratt is a classically trained singer fluent in French and Spanish, who sang at St. Louis Church, the French Dominican parish in Washington.

When her job took her to Los Angeles, she thought she'd lead a Spanish choir to keep up her regular music worship and ministry.

At St. Eugene, "everybody down there immediately attracted me by their openness and spirit and joy. So I signed up. Absolutely fantastic years. I wish more people could experience African-American worship. The prayer, the worship and the spirituality are so alive. So unfettered by what will people think."

Pratt gave her energies to the music ministry. It gave energy back.

Said Pratt, "Andre Crouch has a song called 'Through It All.' It was a staple with our choir. One of the lines is, 'If I'd never had a problem, I wouldn't know that he could solve them, I'd never know what faith in God could do ...'

"The positiveness of the faith, that God is good all the time. The importance of witness, even in terms of witnessing to your trials, and the absolute prayer-warrior kind of attitude, that's what's uplifting," she said. Pratt recalled a choir member's response when her son, away at college, was shot on the street. "The choir member came to church the next day before catching the plane to be with her son. She told the church, 'You know, Satan wouldn't want me to come to church and praise God. But I'm going to show him he cannot stop me from my God.'