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NCNWR 16th Annual Conference 
SEPTEMBER 21-24, 2010
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News

Photos by Cancer Surviving Nun Inspire Prayer

June 12, 2008
Lisa Bellomy, Communications Director. Congregation of the Humility of Mary, Davenport, Iowa

Congregation of the Humility of Mary, Davenport, Iowa

For more information contact: Lisa Bellomy, Communications Director, 336-8404, Lbellomy@chmiowa.org

When Sr. Elizabeth Thoman, CHM, started chemotherapy for breast cancer in 2004, she expected many of its inconveniences and side effects - losing her energy, losing her appetite, even losing her hair. But nobody warned her about how hard it would be to pray.

"Cancer treatment just takes all the stuffing out of you," explained the retired founder of the Center for Media Literacy, a national non-profit organization she led for over 30 years in west Los Angeles. "Words jumble together; you have no energy; concentration is impossible. Just when I needed prayer the most, it eluded me.

She recalls that one afternoon she picked up a book of nature photographs, "and suddenly I felt a great calm come over me. The images spoke to me of the grandeur of creation; I felt enveloped in the love of God. As I turned page after page, I found myself, as the catechism used to say, ''''turning my heart and mind to God.'''' I was praying! I was delirious with joy; it was one of those insights in life that transforms you forever."

Not content with photographs taken by others, she began to take her own. A "so-so" journalistic photographer in college, as she recovered her strength, she picked up a digital camera she had bought but never used. Discovering a unique eye for color and composition, her flower photography is being likened to the work of painter, Georgia O''''Keeffe. "The pictures seem to take themselves," she says. "The lens allows me to see right into the heart of the flower. To me, the act of photography is itself a prayer."

Four years later, Sr. Elizabeth, a member of the Sisters of the Humility of Mary of Davenport, Iowa, since 1964, is clear of cancer but deeply committed to the power and potential of images to inspire prayer and meditation, especially among those who are sick or elderly. Having known first hand the impact of pain and illness on one''''s everyday ability to function, Sr. Elizabeth''''s goal is to bring affordable beauty to those in physical or emotional pain and to inspire new ways to image the Divine.

"Healing Petals / Images for Prayer and Reflection," as the project is now called, promotes the placing of her elegant close up photographs of flowers in hospital rooms, nursing homes and the bedsides of cancer patients and those who are chronically ill. The photographs, each in a unique frame, come in a variety of sizes so that they are affordable to all - as gifts to others or to keep for oneself. Any disease, but especially cancer, says Sr. Elizabeth, "is a spiritual journey. You learn to slow down and pay attention to what is important. When you''''re feeling lousy, just gazing at a photograph on your bedside table of a sunlit tulip or the intimate folds of a gorgeous rose can create the calm and quiet needed to relax and heal - physically, emotionally and spiritually."

You don''''t have to be sick, however, to be inspired by "Healing Petals." Sr. Elizabeth notes she is receiving more and more requests for larger prints framed to place on a personal altar, to hang in a chapel, counseling centers, medical offices - or any room where they can help set a tone of calm and serve as a focus for meditation, prayer or quiet breathing. "We''''re all in need of healing every day," says the one-time religious executive who has lived in Los Angeles since 1970. "Thomas Merton told us, ''''We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent, and God is shining through it all the time.'''' We shouldn''''t wait to get cancer to discover how to experience the presence of God all around us," she added.