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Beauty
Fiona Campbell a young journalist shares how God has called her to serve him through portraying beauty
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Quietly, God was schooling me for His own purposes, to be who I am and to work as a writer and artist. But my own ideas about ways to serve God were not at all subtle. When I graduated I decided that I should become a missionary. Not a Catholic at that stage, though already showing interest, I signed up with an evangelical missionary organisation that supported students and moved to Paris, working as a teacher to support myself. At first it seemed as though I had made a terrible mistake. I didn't have a definite role, I had to sit through 25 hours of bible studies a week. I felt increasingly frustrated and found myself sliding deeper and deeper into depression. Then I made a decision that had been brewing for a long time, I decided that I wanted to become a Catholic. The evangelical missionary organisation felt that I couldn't legitimately work for them and be a Catholic, so we parted ways. Feeling a total failure, I asked God what I could do for him. The answer was unusually clear and very surprising. Get a large flat, and have lots of parties for the students that I had been working with. The following day, by extraordinary coincidence, someone offered me a large flat in the Place des Vosges, a very central and beautiful area of Paris, at a cut down rate. It was large, it was scruffy, and there were no neighbours to disturb. It was perfect for holding parties. I worked during the week as a teacher, then held parties at the weekend. I felt that by holding beautiful, colourful parties I could portray a sense of heaven It sounds like a strange mission, I know, but I felt that by holding beautiful, colourful parties I could portray a sense of heaven. They were exceptional parties. A priest once said that they had shown him a little of what Jesus would be like at the heavenly banquet, mindful of each one of his guests. No one drank or took drugs and no romances were kindled, but no secular party has ever been as exuberant. We would dance until four in the morning, then sleep on the floor. Those parties provided a place for the students to forge firm friendships and reinforce their faith. Partly because of them, the Christian Union blossomed. One of the students told me later that those parties are one of the most beautiful memories of his life. Later I got a 'real' career, working as a journalist for the national broadsheets such as The Guardian and The Evening Standard. I now work as a writer and a photographer, still trying to evoke a sense of the beauty and extent of God's love through my work. It is not easy work, and the frustration is that one cannot mention Catholic ideas in the mainstream press, which amounts to a kind of censorship. Christ is there beside me through it all, however totally protecting me and restoring my soul. The work is about subtle culture change and influence, and because God is glorified when we do our work to the best of our ability. God calls us to serve him in surprisingly creative ways. Most recently I was asked to submit ideas for a bank of photographs for teenagers to send each other as text messages. Hesitant at first, I realised that teenagers were crying out for God's love, and that God could use my work as an artist to portray a sense of real love. And that is one just clear example, there are so many other times when we are not aware of how we are serving God. Everything we do, if done with prayer, can serve His kingdom. His ways are not our ways - His ways are so much better.
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The
one thing that always obsessed me when I was going through university
was a longing to serve God, to change the world, to do something that
would really have a positive impact on the world. I prayed and prayed,
having really no clue what I should do with my life. And what confused
my religious beliefs was an underlying fear of growing up.
