- Dr. Clarion Johnson, photographed by Scott Suchman for Sarah Lawrence Magazine
Full Immersion: A Physician Contemplates Healing and Grace
Sarah Lawrence Magazine, Fall 2012
Sarah Lawrence College
Editor: Suzanne Gray
Moments of grace can be as ordinary as the hand of a father touching his son. Clarion Johnson recalls just such a moment—one of his earliest memories. He was about 3, wearing a little blue suit, walking to church with his father: “Hand in hand, just the two of us, and later coming home, seeing my sister just about to sit up—she’s 11 months younger than I am—sitting on a newspaper, eating bacon.” A father’s hand, a little blue suit, a slice of bacon. Moments of grace, often mundane, make pictures that can be carried with us for a lifetime.
But what about miracles? As human beings, we find it both too easy and too hard to contemplate the miraculous. We use the word too casually, almost negating its true meaning. When we think that something’s unlikely, we might say, “That would take a miracle.” When something positive transpires against the odds, we say, “It’s a miracle.” And we accept life’s simple gifts with optimism that “miracles happen every day.” [read more]