Healing Rays of Righteousness

Your Pain in My Heart

The prophet Micah told his contemporaries that what God has shown us to be good and what he requires of us is “To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”  (Micah 6:8).

Even though each of these virtues is worthy of thought and comment, I want to focus on the middle one – “love mercy.”  The Hebrew word for “mercy” is chesed.  Sidney Greenberg writes in a devotional that “Judaism did not permit mercy to remain merely a feeling, a kind of inner glow of benevolence or pity.  It demanded that the feeling be translated into a host of benevolent acts.  Such are called gemlut chesed, an act of loving kindness.  … An act of loving kindness is a humane response to human need.  It is your pain in my heart.”

He concludes his devotional with this challenge – “Loving-kindness reveals the inability to remain content in the presence of a person who is troubled; the inability to remain comfortable in the presence of a person who is uncomfortable; the inability to enjoy serenity when one’s neighbor is distressed.

The most important art to be cultivated in life is the art of loving-kindness.  The person who has mastered it is doing God’s work here on earth.” 

In his book, “When a Congregation Cares”, Abraham Schmitt states “It is not possible to care unless one is willing to enter into another’s pain.”  My years of training and experience in chaplaincy ministry have repeatedly confirmed this to be true. 

However, to carry “your pain in my heart” seldom fines acceptance or practice in today’s fast-paced, high-tech world, which is continually convincing us that to do so is too emotionally costly, too time-consuming, too physically exhausting, and the risks to our happiness are too great.  For those reasons, we tend to distance ourselves from and ignore those who are hurting and need the sterling presence and touch of caring compassion.

I believe our word “empathy” to be a good word for carrying “your pain in my heart.”  One of the things that I would tell new staff members in their orientation at Menno Haven Retirement Community is that a good caregiver “empathizes” with the hurting person, and that “empathy” is not the same as “sympathy.”

Empathy is the “mental entrance into the feeling or spirit of another person.”  It is the capacity to look at life from another’s perspective, to walk in their shoes, to keep in step with them.  Empathy is feeling with the other person.  Empathy is the offering of our precious time,full attention, and sincere love to the other.  I believe these to be the three most valued gifts we can give to one another.

To become an empathetic, compassionate friend who carries “your pain in my heart” is the greatest gift we can give to anyone who is deeply hurting and urgently needs the reassurance of being loved by God and neighbors.

Empathy is not a natural human response.  It must be learned through sincere desire and commitment to repeated practice.  This is not always an easy task.  I confess that at times I have been inclined to quickly give my advice and exit the time-consuming and emotionally demanding situation. 

But the good news is that with God’s help and heart, heart-filled empathy can be learned by anyone who sincerely desire to be a genuine, trustworthy, compassionate friend to those hurting physically, emotionally, socially, or spiritually.  I pray we all will accept the challenge and do so whenever we have the opportunity.  May it be so!

Bless’d Be the Tie That Binds

Bless’d be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love.

The fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above.

Before our Father’s throne we pour our ardent prayers;

our fears, our hopes, our aims are one, our comforts and our cares.

We share each other’s woes, each other’s burdens bear,

and often for each other flows the sympathizing tear.

When we asunder part, it gives us inward pain,

but we shall still be joined in heart, and hope to meet again.

(John Fawcett, 1782)

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“Healing Rays of Righteousness” – July 21, 2021

www.geigler13.wordpress.com

Ray M. Geigley

Think of Community as “Assisted Living”

We usually relate “assisted living” as a need for persons during their later years of life.  Yes, aging happens and most of us are going to need help with our daily activities as we grow older.  However, such thinking is very shortsighted and can easily distort our attitude toward others and cloud the reality of our living together as humans.    

One of the most contagious social disease in our Western society is individualism with its consequence of a diminished sense of community.  In a culture that glorifies rugged independence and individualism, we need to be reminded that none of us goes it alone.  None of us goes through life totally independent and unassisted from our birth to our death. 

We are “assisted” in life from the cradle to the grave.  Countless people, our parents, teachers, friends, pastors, neighbors, employers, have all helped us along the way.  So, if we might need some “special assistance” later in life, it is no embarrassment;  that is, if we have acknowledged that others have been helping us all along as neighbors and friends in community.

God, in His great wisdom, created all of us to be relational human beings.  Shortly after God created man, he said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.  I will make a helper suitable for him.”(Genesis 2:18).  In doing so, God created inside man a kind of “human-shaped-void” that can only be filled and satisfied when in relationship with other human beings. 

 And so, every human being has a need, a yearning to belong, to be accepted, included, and cared for in a family of families, better known as community.  But today, in our nation and world, so few people seem to understand that this yearning for belonging comes from the one God who created us all to live in community with other human beings. 

The fact is that our life on earth has been “assisted” living whether we know it or not.  “Assisted” living is the only way we can get through life with any sense of worth and purpose.  To think otherwise is to be extremely unrealistic.  There is no such thing as “independent” living.  It is a myth.  Yet, as true as this is, most of us find it hard to ask for help, or even to extend help to the stranger in our community.

If we are honest with ourselves, I think most, if not all of us, would admit to having tried in some manner to live life independent of others and found it to be inadequate.  We have learned, sometimes the hard way, that such efforts are extremely unrealistic and dangerous. 

That is why hikers are warned not to travel in the high country alone, mountain climbers never to climb alone, and swimmers never to swim alone.  That is why women are encouraged to be careful when traveling or walking alone in the city, and children are given a buddy when taking field trips to the zoo.  And that is why God gave Adam and Eve to each other.  God knew it was not good nor safe for us to be alone and independent of others.

I share the following prayer by Marjorie Holmes as my desire and prayer for an “assisted-living community” in every church and neighborhood of our divided nation and world.

“Oh, God, we go through life so lonely,

needing what other people can give us, yet ashamed to show that need. 

And other people go through life so lonely,

hungering for what it would be such a joy for us to give.

Dear God, please bring us together, the people who need each other,

who can help each other and would so enjoy each other.

AMEN!

I sincerely believe the cry of every human heart is for an “assisted-living” community.  A place where no one need to fear asking for help or being taken advantage of.  A place where all individual gifts and abilities are acknowledged and accepted as enriching community. 

May we always remember that the one purpose of community is to be in relationship, striving together in assisting one another toward living a meaningful life of purpose and enjoyment.     

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“Healing Rays of Righteousness” – July 14, 2021

www.geigler13.wordpress.com

Ray M. Geigley