Difficult Seasons

Do you have a compassion defense mechanism?

You may think this is a strange question. But stay with me for a minute.

What’s your gut reaction when you’re given an opportunity to be compassionate, but either suspect or are warned that entering the situation may be painful or physically difficult to experience or emotionally disturbing?

Lots of us have a built-in defense mechanism that tells us to run the other way, to avoid the pain, the difficulty.  I think it was instilled in most of us in childhood by parents trying to protect us from seeing things or being in situations that were uncomfortable.

It’s probably even one of your life commands:  Avoid Painful Situations.

Some choose to disobey that life command, and all of us are thankful they do.  EMT’s respond to grisly accident scenes.  Doctors and nurses provide care for people suffering terrible diseases.  Palliative care and hospice folks help individuals and their families live their final months and days with dignity and good quality of life.  People like Mother Teresa care for lepers.  And the list goes on.

But never fail to understand — these folks that choose to show compassion pay a price.  As they encounter the pain of others, they experience their own pain.  And they are limited in how much of another’s pain they can encounter.

I know a number of these people.  I’m thankful for them.  They’re my heroes.

I forget the rawness of emotion the loss of a loved one produces in others.

It’s not intentional.  And it’s not that I’m not sensitive to it.

It’s because I don’t get to see it frequently.  People are pretty good at covering it up.  Folks avoid showing the raw emotion that they feel, both to protect themselves and those they’re with.

But there are some situations where people let down their guard and you get to see the pure, raw grief that they are experiencing.  Seeing this rawness is difficult for us.  It’s almost shocking, because we had let ourselves believe that they must be handling it so much “better.”  Instead, we see the deep pain, the raw emotion of loss.

I saw it Sunday during our service of remembrance as we took turns saying the names of those we have lost.  Tears were being shed by those saying the names.  And tears were being shed by others of us as we saw their pain.  I’ve seen the same thing in grief support groups.  Pure, raw pain.

Those are some of the few situations where people feel comfortable in letting down their guard and showing how much they are really hurting.

So I forget the rawness, because these situations don’t come around often.  And I forget the rawness because my short term memory wants to ease the pain I feel at seeing others’ pain.

But, it allows me to be freshly aware the next time I see it.  And that’s good.

Today I saw pain.

Not the pain that powerful chemicals can dull.

But the pain that so often we hide from others.  The pain that comes from having our normal lives ruthlessly interrupted.  The pain that comes from not being able to do those important things that we often take for granted.  The pain that hurts all over, yet whose source can’t be seen on a PET scan.

For one person, it was pain from not being able to provide care for her husband and her 94-year old mother, instead having to focus everything on her one hope to add years to her life in a battle with an unrelenting disease.

For another, it was a still two-week-fresh devastating diagnosis, and the fight of his life, for his life.

And for another, it was recurrance of a nasty cancer that had been gone for 13 months, that remission itself against huge odds.

They allowed me the special privilege of seeing what they hide most of the time from most people.  They allowed me to connect with them in a special way, in a special place.  And I’m honored by their trust.

We talked about how precious hope is, how important the opportunity to fight is.  We prayed to the One who has the power to heal for healing.  And I prayed to the One who has the power to remove their non-physical pain to do so for each of them.