…[W]hen one has the courage to enter where life is experienced as most unique and most private, one touches the soul of the community. Those who have spent many hours trying to understand, feel, and clarify the alienation and confusion of one of their fellow human beings might very well be the best equipped to speak to the needs of the many, because all of us are one at the well-spring of pain and joy.
After so much stress has been laid on the necessity of leaders preventing their own personal feelings and attitudes from interfering in a helping relationship, it seems necessary to re-establish the basic principle that none of us can help anyone without becoming involved, without entering with our whole person into the painful situation, without taking the risk of becoming hurt, wounded, or even destroyed in the process.
None of us can stay alive when there is nobody waiting for us. Each one of us who returns from a long and difficult trip is looking for someone waiting for us at the station or the airport. Each one of us wants to tell our story and share our moments of pain and exhilaration with someone who stayed home, waiting for us to come back. […]
Human beings can keep their sanity and stay alive as long as there is at least one person waiting for them. The human mind can indeed rule the body even when there is little health left. A dying mother can stay alive long enough to see her child before she gives up the struggle, a soldier can prevent his mental and physical disintegration when he knows that his wife and children are waiting for him. But when “nothing and nobody” is waiting, there is no chance to survive in the struggle for life. […]
Thousands of people commit suicide because there is nobody waiting for them tomorrow. There is no reason to live if there is nobody to live for. But when someone says to a fellow human being, “I will not let you go. I am going to be here tomorrow waiting for you and I expect you not to disappoint me,” then tomorrow is no longer an endless dark tunnel. It becomes flesh and blood in the form of the brother or sister who is waiting and for whom the patient wants to give life one more chance.
Currently reading: God Save Texas by Lawrence Wright 📚
It is not the task of Christian leaders to go around nervously trying to redeem people, to save them at the last minute, to put them on the right track. For we are redeemed once and for all. Christian leaders are called to help others affirm this great news, and to make visible in daily events the fact that behind the dirty curtain of our painful symptoms there is something great to be seen: the face of God in whose image we are shaped.
But here we must be aware of the great temptation that faces Christian ministers. Everywhere Christian leaders, men and women alike, have become increasingly aware of the need for more specific training and formation. This need is realistic, and the desire for more professionalism in the ministry is understandable. But the danger is that instead of becoming free to let the spirit grow, ministers may entangle themselves in the complications of their own assumed competence and use their specialism as an excuse to avoid the much more difficult task of being compassionate.
The task of Christian leaders is to bring out the best in everyone and to lead them forward to a more human community; the danger is that their skillful diagnostic eye will become more an eye for distant and detailed analysis than the eye of a compassionate partner. And if priests and ministers think that more skill training is the solution for the problem of Christian leadership, they may end up being more frustrated and disappointed than the leaders of the past. More training and structure are just as necessary as more bread for the hungry. But just as bread given without love can bring war instead of peace, professionalism without compassion will turn forgiveness into a gimmick, and the kingdom to come, into a blindfold.
backyard vibes
Currently reading: The Wounded Healer by Henri J. M. Nouwen 📚
View of Scheveningen Sands (c. 1630s) by Hendrick van Anthonissen :
