'Ministering angel' heard voice of God

What would you say if a person told you he -- or she -- heard the actual voice of God? I use a long-abandoned literary convention, "Dear Reader," to respond.

Dear Reader, you might be a bit suspicious of such an utterance.

Those who claim that God speaks to them are suspected, at the least, with having a touch of eccentricity. (If the foregoing sentence does not describe you, accept my apology now.) Direct, personal revelation is seen often on television programs such as the "700 Club," during which hosts claim to receive -- on the spot -- "a word of knowledge" from the Lord (e.g., "I'm getting a word of knowledge about a person needing a knee transplant.")

Florence Nightengale, who was born 194 years ago tomorrow, lived her entire life before the advent of TV, yet she claimed to hear the voice of God calling her to do some important work. In Victorian England, "important work" for a woman was to be a wife and mother. Period. Surely, civilization is built and maintained by those who freely choose this lifestyle. My mother did, so did my mother-in-law -- so have many women of my acquaintance. When I left for school in the morning, my mother was there. When I came home, she was there. In retrospect, her choice to be a stay-at-home mom translated as stability in our family unit.

Florence Nightengale didn't want that kind of future and more to the point, believed God was pointing her in a different direction. She found the life of privilege in which she was reared to be stifling, even suffocating. A wealthy suitor proposed marriage after an eight-year courtship, which she declined, much to the consternation of her parents. W.E. and Fanny Nightengale, knowing the convention of the time, patiently explained that the family fortune could never pass to Florence because she was female. That convention, known as "entail," familiar to anyone who has dutifully watched the TV show "Downton Abbey," kept family inheritance in the hands of male heirs -- and the Nightengales had only daughters.

Realizing that her refusal to marry could mean a future life of destitution, Florence Nightengale pressed on -- single and celibate for a lifetime -- devoted to her dream of becoming a nurse.

Her exploits during the Crimean War in the 1850s brought Nightengale worldwide fame. She became, in her middle thirties, the most famous woman in the world. Arriving as the supervisor of 38 nurses at a Crimean hospital treating British soldiers, she found dreadfully poor hygiene and substandard sanitation -- which she believed were key factors in the high mortality rate at the facility. Using her financial resources, she bought hundreds of fresh linens, plus mops and buckets. She instructed her nurses to use a freshly washed rag to mop an infantryman's brow, abandoning the long-established practice of using the same sponge on everyone, over and over. Orderlies were directed to keep the floors clean, which kept vermin at bay. Nightengale established the first hospital laundry, so insistent was she on cleanliness. Electricity was decades away, so at night, Florence Nightengale could be found walking the hospital wards carrying a kerosene lamp -- leading biographers to refer to her as "The Lady With the Lamp," the "ministering angel" to the wounded and weary. In a book published in 1911, one year after her death, it was suggested that through her Crimean reforms, the death toll at the hospital dropped from 42 percent to 2 percent. Even if exaggerated, there is little doubt her efforts saved many lives.

Upon her return to England, she established the first secular nursing school, still in operation in London -- and popularized the use of statistics in the nursing profession. She was, without hyperbole, the founder of modern nursing.

Was it a happy life? Only she knows. Florence Nightengale spent fully the last half of her 90 years as an invalid, struggling with chronic brucellosis. A biographer suggests she never left her bedroom in the last 20 years of her life.

Happy, as the book "The Cider House Rules" suggests, is overrated. Much better to be useful than happy. Florence Nightengale, who believed she was obeying the voice of God, led a useful life.

If she was an eccentric, the world is a better place because of it. Happy birthday, Ms. Nightengale.

Dr. Jeff Long of Jackson is executive director of the Chateau Girardeau Foundation and teaches religious studies at SEMO.