Empathy

3 Hard Times Friends

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The latest episode of Everything Happens drove me home a few hours ago. The guest was Sam Wells, Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square, London, since 2012. The conversation centered on this question: How do you stay close to someone whose pain you can’t fix, whose questions you can’t answer? I encourage you to listen.

In her conclusion, Kate shared these thoughts:

I loved Sam’s three categories for being a friend through hard times. There is being for someone. That’s all the actiony stuff that we can think of when someone is struggling. That’s the boy, oh boy are they helpful. Dropping off a meal, organizing a fundraiser, driving them to and from an appointment, just the like checking it, doing it in the mix. Then there’s the being in with someone. That’s practicing empathy of seeing and understanding someone’s painful realities, of not making them feel other. Like there’s this Plexiglas wall between you. And then there’s being with them. Now, this is the toughie. Being with means staying present without any words to say, any tangible comfort to offer, or any ability to fix their circumstance. Being a friend involves one or all of those three. Being for, in, and with. 

I was baptized into being with in a room at Baptist Hospital in Gadsden, Alabama. I was 12. My dad was the cancer patient in the bed needing his trachea tube suctioned periodically. There was no talking. There was little to do. There was little choice but to be with.

Over the last 44 years I’ve tried to be a hard times friend. There’s been a lot of being for. Not as much being in with, but some. But it’s been the last decade where being with has resurfaced the most. And I have to say it comes with a little “no thank you” mixed with “what an honor.” “No thank you” because it rarely comes without flashbacks. “What an honor” because it’s sacred, beautiful, and lifegiving.

I recognize with Kate that hard times friends can be one or all three. Truth is, we can rest in being the right one in the moment; there’s no pressure to be them all. As for me, I’m striving to recognize when it’s my time to be with, run toward the pain I can’t fix, and sit in the unanswered.

Photo by Frederic Köberl on Unsplash

Against Empathy (book review)

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Took me a while, but I finished Paul Bloom’s Against Empathy.

As a more rational than emotional human, not only did I appreciate Bloom’s premise and defense, I also gained perspective. The sense of empathy he addresses is this:

Empathy is the act of coming to experience the world as you think someone else does.

Chapter 1, Other People’s Shoes

The title of that chapter is certainly something I’ve attempted to pursue in compassion growth. Try walking in other people’s shoes. What Bloom suggests is a balance of emotion that can go awry when rational compassion is untapped. For example, he shared this truth about himself:

…in the year of the Sandy Hook killings, more schoolchildren were murdered in one American city-Chicago-than were murdered in Newtown, and yet I’ve never thought about those murdered Chicago children before looking that up, and I’m not likely to think about them again…while my mind often drifts back to Newtown. Why?

Chapter 1, Other People’s Shoes

Bloom argues what really matters in everyday life is self-control and intelligence about compassion not being highjacked by high empathy caught up in the suffering of other people. Caring for the suffering must involve assessing how best to do so. This assessing is what effective altruists define as combining heart and head.

With each chapter, Bloom digs deeper touching on intimacy, violence and cruelty, and the age of reason. He admits his views are not readily appreciated, but stands his ground with fair judgment of his own work and other researcher’s results.

The result: I’m no longer going to mindlessly nod my head in agreement the next time a voice heralds a need for empathy. I’m going to check my own voice. I wouldn’t use Bloom’s declaration that empathy is something to avoid. But I am going to go deeper than the surface of immediate reaction to suffering. If Bloom’s premise raises any level of reaction for you, add this title to your list to read.

By the way, it’s available on hoopla.

An Altar in the World, Meditation #5

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On recommendation, I recently read An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor. It’s subtitled A Geography of Faith. In the spirit of that lane, rather than offer a review I’ve selected my top highlights and will offer a meditation post for each one. Here’s quote #5:

To become fully human means growing gentler toward human weakness. It means practicing forgiveness of my and everyone else’s hourly failures to live up to divine standards.

Chapter 7, The Practice of Living with Purpose

What Taylor is describing in the paragraph containing this quote is her view of loving God and neighbor as oneself. She calls that the vocation of becoming fully human. These thoughts are two of the six she offers to explain what she means. They are all examples of living with purpose.

What if we all were working toward growing more gentle?

What if we all were empathetic toward other’s weaknesses?

What if we all were forgiving toward failures, including our own?

What if we all were after the glory of God?

What if we all were becoming fully human?

Photo by freestocks on Unsplash

Be Light

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As the Community Care Director for a counseling center, it’s not uncommon to be in conversations about suicide. Yet, no matter how common it may be, it has yet to feel normal.

And the reason why is because it’s not. It’s a sign of hurt and pain. We live in a broken world, which can result in people’s minds taking them down this dark road. And it’s no respecter of minds.

  • The middle-age pastor’s mind that goes home after leading a Sunday service and questions why he should go on.
  • The twelve-year-old middle schooler’s mind that leads her to a parking lot where she chooses to end her pain.
  • The senior citizen’s mind that says, “I’m done fighting this battle with my body.”

As I witnessed again this morning, when a hurting mind is met with love, empathy, and strength, healing is available. It’s not instantaneous; it’s one step at a time. A step, however small it may be, toward the light may be all that mind needs to stop spiraling into darkness.

Be light to those you know or suspect are lonely, hurting, or in pain. That is normal. And it needs to be more common.

Photo by Melissa Askew on Unsplash

In the Ditch

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This week I toured a new residency for a nonprofit whose mission is to provide homeless women and men with mental health challenges a hope for the future. Second Heart Homes is the name of this Sarasota-based nonprofit.

The facility my colleague and I toured-the first residence in their program designed for women-just opened in December. At the moment, three clients are in the program; the facility will eventually be prepared to house 12 women.

My first visit in one of Second Heart’s Homes was in the fall of 2020. I revisit that first tour every time I enter a new residence. Each visit in each residence breathes new life into everyone in the room. Why? Because their is love and hope in each heart and smiles on each face.

Yet, the reality remains that behind that smile is a heart and mind with wounds waiting to be healed. Steps have been taken to start the healing, but the journey has just begun.

This hit home as I heard a simple illustration about one of the new clients in the women’s facility. Although she’s been there for several weeks…although she was friends with one of the other women before moving in…although she no longer has to rely on the Salvation Army for shelter each night, she has to have lights on and her purse is under her pillow while she sleeps.

Take a moment. Imagine what’s behind these necessities.

The image of a purse under a pillow stuck with me. Many thoughts went through my mind, so many to chew on. The one that I most appreciated was this: Thank God someone got in the ditch for this lady.

True empathy cares about not just providing a pillow but what it might be used to protect. True empathy gets in the ditch.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

It Will Be

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Today is World Mental Health Day. And unintentionally, this afternoon I finished a book on the subject of overcoming grief. As I reflected on the book, the intersection of those two moments didn’t go unnoticed.

Pastor Wright gifted his book to me about this time last year. It’s his personal story of moving through the grief journey after losing his 32-year-old son in an accident. Knowing that context, it’s not a book you just read for fun.

It sat on my desk for much of the year, waiting for the right time to read it. I can’t say what that trigger was, but it came. Sixty-five chapters later, I’m glad it came now. I could make a lengthy list of reasons why, but here are a few:

  • Just last week I sat with a couple who will soon be experiencing the second anniversary of their son’s passing. Listening to them, it feels like it was only last week. Pastor Wright’s book helped me help them. And now I’m passing the book on to them for their journey to hope.
  • Speaking of sitting and listening, although I knew this already, this book has shown me how much room I have to grow in being empathetic. It’s probably true we never arrive at showing empathy right all the time, but I’m not where I want to be either.
  • I may not be where I want to be in the empathy realm, but I can say that I am much better in the grieving realm. In the last year, I’ve engaged grief-some by force and some by choice. Embracing communal grief due to the pandemic and other happenings along with the loss of a friend to suicide has deepened my appreciation and desire to let grief do its work.
  • In June I blogged about Ungrieved Loss. As I read this book, I engaged my own ungrieved losses. Some as far back as childhood and some as fresh as 2021. Some I didn’t know needed grieving; some were top of mind.

What I believe with Pastor Wright is that those who mourn are comforted. The timing will be what it will be, but it will be. On this October 10, if you find yourself in the throes of grief, know that hope is possible. And I echo Pastor Wright’s prayer to end his book:

Dear God, it was only through the dark night that we came to find your light. Had we not stumbled through the cold dark, we would not have come to the warmth of your hearth with frozen hands and hearts. We are grateful for your comfort especially as we have experienced your love through those who have journeyed with us. May your grace and compassion fill us. May we sense your hand in ours. May your tears blend with ours. May we be willing to walk alongside others. Thank you for the promise that one day you will wipe away our tears and that death and mourning will be no more. Amen.

8 Ways to be Kinder

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Recently I received a card that included an article cut out of The Wall Street Journal. The columnist wrote about the effects of kindness to our brains, particularly if we are the giver. She referenced Jamil Zaki’s book The War for Kindness: Building Empathy in a Fractured World. Beside the article was a list of kindness suggestions, particularly needed in our current climate. Check it out below.