Our shared humanity

Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded

It’s a relationship between equals

Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others.

Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity

                                                            Rene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection

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If you want to help people you cannot stand above them

You cannot be separate from them

You have to be with them

In extremely profound ways

This is a truth as old as the scriptures

Remember that baby in a manger?

Remember “God WITH us?”

And Every time I read the story about the Baptism of Jesus

One thing always strikes me

Jesus does not stand on the bank

Cheering the sinners on, as they slosh into the muddy waters of the Jordan

To be baptized by his cousin John

No, he sloshes down into the river with them

Which merely confirmed that God understood what we too should understand

You cannot be a force for healing, if you do not some how

Identify with

And join with

Those you wish to help

Or should I say serve

God had a history, even before Jesus

Of tenting with the people

Wandering with them in the wilderness

In their midst

There

Camping with them

This is not a easy thing

The bible says that in order to do it we have to “empty” ourselves

Who the heck wants to do that!

Empty ourselves of pride, comfort, power

Kenosis

If I want to work with that person with addiction

I have to face and acknowledge my own addictions

If I want to work with that person who is caught up in poverty

I have to step down from my own affluence and privilege

This does not have to mean I give away my affluence, although I suspect that would help

But at the very least it means I have to go into the homes of poverty

And “tent” there, be there

And be there comfortably, happily, humbly

Mostly humbly, grateful for the hospitality

Received, but probably not totally deserved

This is perhaps why compassion is so hard

And why condescension is so easy

It is hard to enter into the pain

The want

The lack of control

The fear

The hopelessness

It is easier to stand on the bank and,

Our own clothes clean and dry, reach out and hand

“here ‘little one’, let me help”

I am fortunate

I have really screwed up at times in my life

I have lost a job, and deserved to lose it

I have gone from being a shooting star to being a falling star

I have had to leave most everything behind, and start all over again

I have been “relieved” of a job in way that was fundamentally unfair

I have lived on donated food

No, I am not there now

But I have been there

I have struggled with an impulsive personality

And I have done things I regret, deeply

And even though, right now, for this moment

I am in a good space, and have nothing to hide

I remember

And I can connect

I can understand, at least to a degree

Because of my own moments of darkness

I can stand in the dark with others

That is why I always have loved President Carter

Who admitted that he sometimes “lusted in his heart”

Bravo Jimmy!

And now look at him

Still married

Still serving

Getting sawdust in his hair

Building the right kinds of walls

Walls to embrace and comfort

Not walls to exclude and punish

I understand

That when I am truly useful

It is when I am with others as just another sinner

Just another person in pain

Just another anxious soul

That I am a healer

Not when I am the one with answers

Not when I am the one who is strong, or brilliant

Or even… good

I am a healer when I am just present

Holding hands with another

As we stumble through the dark