Return to Dear Ones index.

March 11, 2008

Dear Ones,

People sometimes go through really hard times. Most of us know quite a bit about what it’s like for others because the same kinds of awful things happen to us. Disease strikes. An accident happens. A child is born that has special needs. The job search stretches into another month or a second year. A teenager struggles to confront and overcome addiction. The soldier returns, alive, but traumatized in body and mind. A parent, life partner, best friend, beloved aunt dies. A marriage devolves toward divorce…. When it happens to us, we cope as best we can, and if we are lucky, people who care about us gather ‘round to see us through. When bad things happen to other people—friends, neighbors, colleagues, relatives—it is sometimes hard to know how best to be helpful. People respond differently to crisis and loss. Some need space, some meals and rides. Some need to come to acceptance quickly, some need solidarity as they ease through their denial. Some long for ears that can hear their hard truths and feelings. Some draw from strong faiths. Some are angry with God or whoever and find Hallmark clichés utterly nauseating. 

One thing is sure: the average person gets plenty of practice responding to people who are suffering. Doris Brenner, a long-time member of the Care Committee, is probably a bit above average. She responds every week to some of the folks who light candles on Sunday mornings. She borrows the service tapes in order to capture all the names and stories and then decides which ones call for immediate response. She has a genius for writing a card or making a call that hits the spot. She shared with me one of her rules of thumb not long ago. “I never use the word ‘I’,” she said. “It’s not about me. It’s about them.” All her words are her own and the right ones—intimate, warm, insightful, generous and laced with hope. Her messages are never generic. She writes to you, oh, maybe twenty or thirty cards a month. You know who you are.

Coming up this month and next is a workshop series for people who want to be able to reach out to friends in need with more confidence that what they say and do will be truly helpful. There’s an event flyer in this issue of Soundings: Reaching Out to People in Need: The Practice of Compassionate Presence: three Sunday afternoons (3/30, 4/6 and 4/13) from 2PM to 5PM in three different Westport congregations: Jewish, UCC and Episcopal. The fascinating ecumenical/interfaith aspect of the series is pure bonus! Lynn Crager (chair of our Care Committee and a Clinical Pastoral Education student at Norwalk Hospital) is facilitating with me along with two others: Elsa Worth, the new Associate at Christ and Holy Trinity Episcopal Church and Diana Mrotek, a member of the Pastoral Care Team at Greens Farms Congregational.

Our working definition of good spiritual care is “the ability to be compassionate in the face of pain, with the courage and willingness to stand in the presence of suffering, offering a radical hospitality toward those who are in despair.” We have organized the three sessions using the steps and modes of the Hospitality paradigm I developed for my 1/27/08 sermon “Whoever You Are.” 

Some principles of Nonviolent Communication enrich our discussion of empathy, compassion and the meaning of “help” in Session I. There’ll be opportunities to develop and practice listening and observation skills in Session II. In session III we explore the nature of a possible third presence in the helping relationship. “The Holy” is one of the many names by which it is known. I hope you’ll attend. Both U and UCW will be richer for the experience. Of this I am confident. 

In the practice,

Margie

Return to Dear Ones index.