in late november, the air finally tastes of autumn, cool and coppery, tinged with the scents of chimneys fully alive and stews that simmer on the stove tops. its sameness is a comfort, but it's also marked by a different sort of feeling. although it is familiar in some ways, in that it is reminiscent of a fear i felt over fourteen years ago, a fear that has continued to live inside of me, often underneath my day to day awareness, only awakened when i turned on the t.v or read the paper. the difference is, now the fear is changed by a more matured understanding and intimacy with the world.
and i take comfort that with growth it has become a fear that although still exists inside of me, it now resides alongside hope. which makes it a bit less taxing of an emotion to reckon with. what i fight for now is not to live in and by fear at all. while recent events have left many of us reeling, and i suppose that is their intended effect, i know that is not what i am called to live in.
tragedies such as 9-11, the recent terror attacks in paris, the events of sandy hook, aurora and littleton, colorado...and smaller scale events that have happened closer to home often send me into a very inward and downward spiral i don't often share or put words to. i let them pervade my heart and mind and they do their work of stirring up anxiety and fear, so much so that i don't want to board a plane again, or every time i go to the movies i am surveying the audience frequently, checking the exit doors often, and when i am at school, i wonder...what if? often tragedies like these need no added words. why give more attention to their evils? other than the tacit and shared prayers of comfort, hope, protection, peace and revival that we continually offer up, they don't need our words. they often leave us feeling helpless and inadequate because there is little we can do to resolve their pain and nothing we can do to reverse it. it is out of our hands. we can only act and pray in ways that hope to bring some sort of healing and solace to those affected.
but fear hinders that. fear causes us or maybe it's just me to shut down, to close myself off to these deep aches, pains and anxieties in our country and world. often times i think it might be empathy that prevents me from wanting to be in such a connected community of people and living in a world attune to pain and tragic events. i often think i'd be happy if i went and lived in a rural place where it could be just me, maybe a few animals and nature, where i'd never turn on the t.v. or open a webpage again. i think of it often and i find such contentment and comfort in the dream. a place where people and their problems don't stir up so much hurt, so much emotion, that often for me becomes so difficult to manage that i feel my only choice is to shut off and detach. but it is sometimes too hard to shut off the parts of me that ache deep down and threaten to take over like a tidal wave of emotion, a force so strong that it drowns its victim. sometimes it is manageable and sometimes the smallest of things happens and it all erupts on me.
the other day, a stray, shaking, wet and visibly battered puppy crept timidly into my classroom and i lost it. i fell in love with it at first sight. i couldn't handle the fact that he had been abandoned or worst, separated from a family that loved him. i cared for him throughout the school day and afterwards i had to take and leave him at the shelter in hopes that he would be reunited with his own family. my heart was twisted and torn up over this little furry thing, and i could hardly bear it.
a broken heart over a lost puppy is such a small thing amidst a landscape of tragedies that have left many in our world are so grieved, fearful and worried...but i live in a place where i am equally as affected, that i am left wondering what do i/we do with the weighty emotions that stir inside of us? i don't know if there is an easy answer for this question. i know that for me, the struggle is real, and shutting down and detaching cannot be the answer to cope with these things.
when i feel things so deeply, i often get lost in it and wonder how can i stay true to what i feel and more importantly who i am and not get swept up in the waves and steal from anyone else what they are feeling. i think leslie jamison, author of the empathy exams put it best saying:
there is something so poetic, so perfect really, in her words. it is more than the storm of feelings that swirls around me and envelops me in its grey. empathy must equate to some kind of action for it to be empathy. empathy doesn't detach and ignore the pain. it feels and it bears. it says, 'okay, this really isn't about me, i am feeling with you, and that can somehow lead me to help me understand you' and hopefully a result of that understanding is some kind of action that helps not only the ones in pain and need but somehow myself...that is keeping myself from drowning in it.“Empathy isn't just something that happens to us - a meteor shower of synapses firing across the brain - it's also a choice we make: to pay attention, to extend ourselves. It's made of exertion, that dowdier cousin of impulse. Sometimes we care for another because we know we should, or because it's asked for, but this doesn't make our caring hollow. This confession of effort chafes against the notion that empathy should always rise unbidden, that genuine means the same thing as unwilled, that intentionality is the enemy of love. But I believe in intention and I believe in work. I believe in waking up in the middle of the night and packing our bags and leaving our worst selves for our better ones.”
so then i realize, when it comes down to it, what really is inhibiting me is a certain sense of inadequacy, a feeling of slight (it is no longer a totality) of inadequacy. i don't quite know where it comes from anymore. its roots are a stronghold though, ones i have yet to fully yank out. they creep up and grow and wrap themselves around the most real parts of me and i suddenly am immobile. what masks itself at times as unwillingness, is actually inability because of inadequacy. and i think, perhaps, the inadequacy stems from the excess of emotions and feelings i am constantly swimming in.
what i've begun to realize lately in this overwhelmed state is that somewhere along the way i stopped doing the work. i stopped trying to deal with, be attentive to, and let the emotions and feelings teach me something and thereby allowing me to impart something to others, to give something of myself..that is hopefully wholly good. instead i've let the chaotic mess of emotions and fear define me and my expectations. i lose sight, thinking this swell inside of me is solely a curse.
i cannot forget the work that it takes, the attention it requires as well as the admission of truth that these feelings are true to me and who i am and how i interact and connect with the world around me. truly it is in my design. and i am imago dei. i am made in the image of God, so these emotions and feelings that reign so heavy in me, must be some reflection of how God has fashioned me.
so the struggle is worthy of a pause and reflection. i owe the struggle my gratitude. it is the struggle that has brought me to the word empathy, perhaps the truest part of me. it is the constant struggle that has led me to deal with the all pervasive fear this world too easily hands us on a daily basis. it is the struggle that makes me aware that often i feel void of value, but it is that struggle that leads me to fight and recognize what is true about me so i can take these feelings and emotions and use them to help others, to allow them to spur me onto connection and community rather than to run from it.
i am thankful for the wonder of empathy, for the struggle of inadequacy and this life that may more often than not be a fight, but the victories make all of the toil and the grappling worthy.
