It is easy to stand at a distance when others hurt. Getting into the weeds can be messy and frustrating. It requires courage and resolve. “How are you doing?” is one of the most important questions in existence because in it we discover both ourselves and others. Are we willing to ask this question when needed and be prepared for an answer that requires more than a nod and a wave?
When we are people who allow for answers other than “Fine” or “Good,” we open ourselves up to a potentially challenging, sometimes messy, but always important relationship where no conversation is off-limits.
The days all seemed to run together—she’d get up and be weighed and eat breakfast. Then she’d sit in the hallway until lunch. Then, she’d have art and a visit with the doctors. Then, she’d sit in the hallway until dinner. All of these were under supervision. There was never a time Lisa could be unsupervised. Finally, it would be bedtime.
Once a week, though, something amazing would happen. Lisa would get a visit from a chaplain named Susanna. Susanna would sit with her, play games with her, and most importantly, listen to her as she talked about her frustrations with herself, with the hospital, with God. For those few hours each week, Lisa was able to express herself without another’s judgment or commentary.
Brene Brown once said, “Empathy is simply listening, holding space, withholding judgment, emotionally connecting, and communicating that incredibly healing message of you’re not alone.”
All of us can do that to varying degrees, and all of us enter into varying degrees of empathy in another person’s life. But regardless of how deeply we can go into another’s pain, the results are remarkable. Lisa met with Susanna no more than 10 times total. But the memories of those visits have stayed with her all these years later.
All of us can be Susanna. And many of you already are. This is one level of empathy.
But there is the next level as well—the one that begs us to die to our own opinions and narratives daily due to the proximity of what we know of a person.
There were two people during those times in the hospital who impacted Lisa even more than Susanna. And these were Lisa’s parents. Nearly every day they would travel an hour and a half to visit her. They would sit with her, play games with her, bring her books to read.
This level of empathy is nearly impossible to understand—it’s the one where even in spite of all the bad, you are never alone. Even when you are hurting, you offer yourself to others.
A man recently betrayed by a friend but who nonetheless loves him anyways and seeks to understand why his friend betrayed him.
A girl who sits with another girl who is being mocked and bullied by others as she cries each day after school ends.
A woman who notices a young lady sitting alone with her head down and who makes a bee-line for her, asking, “Do you need someone to sit with you?”