To Be Healers
“All who, while unable to be saints but refusing to bow down to pestilences, strive their utmost to be healers.” ALBERT CAMUS · THE PLAGUE
Near the close of The Plague, Camus names the kind of person the whole book has been quietly honoring. Not saints. He is clear about that. Most of us cannot be saints, and he does not ask it. But between the saint and the person who surrenders, there is a third figure, and it is the one that matters. Those who, unable to be saints yet refusing to bow down to pestilences, strive their utmost to be healers.
Hold on to that middle position, because it is where nearly all of us actually live. You will probably never be a saint, morally perfect, luminous, above the fray. Fine. Camus lets you off that hook. But you do not have to bow down either. You do not have to accept the pestilence, whatever form it takes in your life, the cruelty, the resignation, the slow spread of harm. Between sainthood and surrender lies the honest work of the healer, the one who simply tries to reduce the suffering within reach.
This is the vocation the month has been circling. Not heroism, not purity, just the steady effort to heal rather than harm, refusing to bow to what wounds people.
Today, choose the healer’s part in one situation. You need not fix everything or be blameless. Just refuse to bow down, and do what you can to reduce someone’s suffering. That striving is enough. It is the whole calling.
