by Phoebe Farag Mikhail

“Look for the faithful,” Traci Rhoades writes in her new book, Shaky Ground. When I read her words about who to look to in times of crisis, these words stuck, because I recognized that over the past two years, truly a period of “shaky ground” for almost everyone, that is what I have been doing.

Slightly altering Mr. Rogers’ famous words to children, “look for the helpers,” Traci writes:

When it comes to growing in the faith and finding those “helpers” with whom to surround ourselves in times of crisis, the faithful are our guides. They’re out there, only a step or two ahead of us, showing us what real and lasting change Jesus makes in a Christian’s life.

During the unprecedented global crises, sicknesses, and personal struggles, I recognized that my writing over the past two years has focused on faithful people. In my article for Plough, “An Angry Activist Becomes a Peacemaker,” I wrote about the Orthodox Christian peace activist Jim Forest, who died in January 2022. His life of faithfulness, despite the many, many setbacks and frustrations that can befall someone who works in social justice. His beautiful book The Ladder of the Beatitudes was on my 2022 Lenten reading list.

Also on that reading list was Fr. Deacon John Grisham’s book full of faithful people, Lent with the African Saints, and I got to interview him about it for Faithfully Magazine. During our interview he shared a story about St. Cyprian of Carthage in his life that didn’t appear in the article, but that he agreed I could share here:

[St. Cyprian] chased me down, he would not let me go. I spent half a year in Kenya and the Catholic missionaries I was working with in northern Kenya, were building these outstation churches, they were using Ethiopian style iconography which made me consider looking into this Orthodox thing. When I came back from Kenya there was an Orthodox Church in America parish at one time located near the Virginia Union University campus where I was doing some study in religion, St. Cyprian of Carthage Orthodox Church. I visited and I saw that on one side of the Iconostasis was a full size icon of St. Moses looking like my father, and another icon on the other side, of St. Cyprian looking like me, and the icon of Christ and the Theotokos were about the same skin tone as my mother, and all these white people were bowing down and kissing these icons. And just the image of St. Cyprian really caught my attention, but I went along my merry Baptist way. Several years later I was asking questions about how to deepen my prayer life. Then, while playing this video game called Second Life, just for fun I went looking for Orthodox Christians in Second Life, and, I kid you not they had a Second Life version of St. Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai. And one of the icons in this monastery was of St. Cyprian of Carthage. So I printed up a little picture of him from the internet… and I eventually came to visit that parish again, and I walked in… and I could almost imagine that icon of St. Cyprian looking back at me and saying, “told you to come home, boy.” 

I love hearing stories about faithful ones who “follow us around,” appearing in our lives when we least expect it. Mother Irene of blessed memory was one such saint for me. Although I never met her in person, I have learned so much from her example. I wrote about her and another important faithful role model in my life, Marie Assad, in my article for Faithfully, “Knitting Together the Community of Love: Lessons from Marie Bassilli Assaad and Mother Irene.” In it I draw from their lives and examples to answer the question, how can Christians work together for a just world?

There are faithful ones that remain faithful even in the gravest of injustices, like the 21 Martyrs of Libya. I wrote about them for Sojourners in “The 21 Martyrs Story Can’t Be Molded to Political Ends.”  Their faithfulness until death reminds us that victory through the cross is not an earthly victory but an eternal one.

With my husband, Fr. Bishoy Lamie Mikhail, I wrote an article for Christianity Today about two faithful leaders who pastored and discipled Christians around the world through the ancient practice of letter writing: the martyr Bishop Samuel and Fr. Abadir El-Souriany of blessed memory in “Letter Writing Isn’t a Lost Art in Egypt. It’s an Ancient Ministry.”

I’ve had the honor of hosting the stories of other faithful ones on this blog. John Halim wrote about Fr. Luke Sidarous of blessed memory in “Take the Test: A Tribute to Fr. Luke Sidarous.” I wrote about my late mother in law, Wedad Gendy, in “Muscle Memory.” My sister Dr. Mary Farag wrote about St. Pachomious in “Plague, Paschaltide, and Pachom: What is Really at Stake during a Pandemic.” Nardine Loka wrote about Tasoni Angel of blessed memory in “Just to Look At Her Face: A Tribute to Tasoni Angel.” I share some wise words from the late Uncle Sameh Mitry in “Please do not spend hours praying… and other wise words for the college bound, twenty-three years later.”

I wrote about Mother Alexandra of blessed memory in my review of her memoir in “From the Battlefield to the Monastery: A Memoir Not to Be Missed.” In “The Giants Who Walked Before Us,” I wrote about two women whose generation helped build the Coptic community in the United States, the late Tant Awatef Geerges and the late Tant Souad Sourial. And in “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth,” I wrote about the departure of Fr. Youhanna Tadros.

Mr. Roger’s advice to “look for the helpers” is advise to children in crisis. As adults, our injunction is not to look for the helpers but to be the helpers. Similarly, while we all, young and old, should “look for the faithful,” in Rhoades’ words, we also need to grow into being the faithful that others look to. But there is no better way to do so than to learn from the models these faithful people give to us to emulate, build the virtues they cultivated and live the wisdom they shared.

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