Resilient Empathy
I think I have compassion fatigue. Those of us with hearts for justice and mercy are feeling it deeply. The heaviness has been compounding for months. With each weighty story that rolls out, there is a sadness that overwhelms me and a breath of each event rests with other layers of heartache and helplessness somewhere on my heart.
In a recent Atlantic magazine article, author Jacob Stern discusses the effects of our empathetic response running low. He quotes Joe Ruzek, a PTSD researcher at Palo Alto University saying “There is a sense in which people’s coping reserves are sort of finite entities. So if you have to cope a whole lot you can kind of diminish your resources.” Our collective empathetic resources are drained. Sometimes the compassion required for a small sadness seems harder to garner than a large tragedy. Other times, when the numbers of injured or dead rise, it seems beyond comprehension, a sort of crisis exhaustion sets in.
Maybe stories of tragedy will slow in the coming weeks. Maybe they won’t. But in the midst of the overwhelm I don’t want to lose my ability to empathize. These layers should continue to make a mark on my heart. It’s a small way that I feel connected to heaven when I imagine the Trinity sitting together and quietly sharing the weight of yet another natural or manmade disaster inflicting pain and death on their precious and beautiful creation. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit together, holding the cries, hearing the prayers, and continuing to plan for our healing within this heartbreak. Being witness to the suffering of others draws me into the heart of God. And yet, I’m tired.
In 2016, I had the gift of spending a month working inside an Afghani refugee camp in coastal Greece. Hundreds of people had fled violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan. One of the most meaningful experiences for me was sitting on a wool rug, knee-to-knee with families who had left their country with only what they could carry (their children). One by one, they shared the stories of their journey, what they had left behind, and the trauma they had endured to arrive in Greece (not a welcoming country). The act of listening, of hearing, and carrying these stories has connected me in a broader way to every tragedy since. To step into these stories with empathy was easy, but the listening allowed a bit of someone else’s pain to become a bit of my pain. Seeing their eyes fill with tears, watching shoulders straighten and strength rise, hearing the simple desire to have meaningful work and a safe home for family brought me into each story. And they were the lucky ones. Of course, their stories are echoed in every place facing war and disaster. Each earthquake, wildfire, mass shooting, and war-torn country creates waves of individual experiences. But now I’m feeling depleted in my ability to empathize.
As Stern writes, “For those of us lucky enough to observe a disaster from afar, the experience of having lived through one before could make us more empathetic toward the survivors. Or it could leave us fatigued to the point of inurement”. And so, I put down my news-app laden phone to ponder how I can have resilient empathy: a compassion perseverance.
Jesus. He understands compassion fatigue like no other. In Mark 6, the emotional suffering of Jesus . His own neighbors and friends in Nazareth have rejected him, His cousin and friend John has just been served on a platter to Herodias, and people swarm around him with their needs and hurts by the thousands. He has already suggested to his disciples that they go to a remote place to rest. This is a level of emotional exhaustion I cannot fathom. It is verse 34 that catches me. In this state of grief (for John), rejection (from Nazareth), and now looking out over 5,000 people there to draw more from Him, he “saw the huge crowd and had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd”. He leaves His little boat of refuge, the boat that could give him escape and rest, and joins them on land to heal and feed all. How tender and significant, to be experiencing His own agony in crisis and still find deeper wells of empathy. Maybe today I am the sheep without a shepherd. Or maybe I can open my eyes and look out to discover others who need my compassion. I find my empathy gaining resilience. The suffering of others will always be, but I cannot look away. Not when Jesus saw the flock without a Shepherd and put aside His own suffering to see and feel what was happening right there, in that moment. I center on the fact that Jesus never looks away from our pain. His compassion is never fatigued. His empathy is resilient.
May this phrase from Kate Bowler’s blessing carry our hearts along in the now and the future
remind us that you, oh God,
are our home and our refuge
when life’s cruelty and our fragility
are too difficult to shoulder alone.
be with us, oh God of all comfort.