Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

suffering

News travels fast (and then what?)

We wake up to the news that an earthquake has devastated Nepal.

And my day begins with a burdened feeling for people I don’t even know. I search Twitter for news. For photos. I scan Facebook for news about people I know who live/work/travel in the area. I am hungry for information and in the information age, news comes as quickly as fast food through a drive-up window.

Quick. Now. Instant. I want to know everything and I want to know it now.

On the one hand, it’s a blessing. Tragedy strikes and we can know within hours if loved ones, friends, acquaintances are safe. We can mourn in real time with those who are suffering. We are connected across oceans in ways that still astound me.

News travels fast.

Pavan Trikutam | Creative Commons | via unsplash

Pavan Trikutam | Creative Commons | via unsplash

Sometimes, though, it’s a curse. News travels so fast that it’s often just as quickly forgotten.

Today, we are focused on Nepal. And maybe tomorrow we will be, too.

But our attention will fade long before the work is done. We will move on and those who have suffered loss will remain in their pain.

We swear we’ll never forget but we do. All the time.

Remember Ebola? There are people in Liberia and other West African nations who have daily been unable to forget because they are on the ground in the midst of the outbreak, doing the work.

Or what about the university attacks in Kenya?

Or how about Hurricane Sandy? Or the Midwestern tornado that leveled an Illinois town called Fairdale? Or any other countless disasters that wreck lives on any given day?

We can’t remember them all. We’re human, aren’t we? And the world is so messed up that bad news seems to be the only news, and who needs that to drag them down day after day? Right?

I confess: it’s easier to turn off the TV, or not watch the news in the first place, or scroll past the Tweets or Facebook posts about tragedy, or scan them with a “not-another-one” attitude. I do it all the time.

I’m not proud of that.

When I was a newspaper reporter, the pressure was high to publish breaking news and follow up on that news in the days after. But every day was something new and sometimes one tragedy trumped another. We’d make it to the one-year anniversary of an event and I’d think, “Has it been a year already?”

News travels fast and time passes quickly and life goes on.

But what if it’s your tragedy?

We can blame the media, but it’s not really their fault. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine. (And yours. But I can only deal with my fault. You’ll have to deal with yours.)

As I scrolled through Twitter today, looking at pictures from Nepal, I wondered about the role of the photographers. I questioned the sanity of people tweeting while running from an avalanche on Everest. I even wondered if I should believe everything I read on the Internet.

When news travels fast, it’s not always accurate, at least not at first, but there are circumstances where some news is better than no news, even if it’s wrong. (The journalist inside me is screaming “NO” at that statement.)

It is good for us to see that people are huddling in tents in Kathmandu as night falls. And it’s good for us to be reminded that the water supply is dwindling. And it is right that we know that the death toll is climbing. Because the more we know, the more we’ll connect, and the longer we’ll remember.

At least, I hope so.

We want to help, I think. Most of us do, anyway. So we send money. We pray. Or if it’s a closer-to-home tragedy, maybe we bring food. Send a card. Take a team to help.

Maybe you respond to suffering and tragedy like I do. You want to do something NOW. You want to spring into action. Head to wherever the tragedy is, to whomever is suffering, swoop in and fix it.

The truth is that there are no quick fixes to tragedy, and lots of organizations (the Red Cross, Samaritan’s Purse) respond immediately. Even individually, we are good at clearing our consciences by helping or offering to help right away.

But what happens a month later? Or a year later? Or 10 years later?

The woman who has lost her husband unexpectedly continues to grieve well after the funeral is over. The mother who loses a child aches forever. When the camera crews go home after a hurricane or a tornado, the work continues. The rebuilding doesn’t stop. I remember standing in the moldy, water-stained house of a family in North Carolina a year after their community was destroyed by a hurricane. Almost everything they had belonged to FEMA, and our little crew from Indiana barely remembered the storm.

My heroes are first-responders of any kind. The men and women who rush in when others are fleeing. They are a special breed of human, and sometimes I think that if I am not built to be a first-responder then maybe I can’t help at all.

We need first-responders. Desperately. But we also need second-responders. And third. And tenth. We need–and need to be–people who show up not just on the day of but on the day after. And days after. Who step in when the wounds we can see have been bandaged but the wounds we can’t see are still oozing.

I don’t know how we do that except to be responsible for our own intake of information. Maybe we need to clear our Twitter feeds of celebrity gossip and TV shows (guilty) and fill it with news sources, relief agencies, charitable organizations. Maybe we need to watch the news once in a while or read a newspaper.

Maybe we need to do more. (Check out what a couple of guys from our denomination are doing to support the Ebola relief in Liberia.)

Maybe we need to read the articles and look at the pictures and sit with our grief when these things happen. We don’t need to feel good and happy all the time. We can mourn with those who mourn. (I should also say that there are times when we need to not to do this, too. Say, if a personal tragedy is still fresh and raw. We can step away for a time from situations that will cause us more grief personally. It’s just easy for that to turn into an all-out avoidance of any kind of suffering. I know this from personal experience.)

What other ideas do you have?

An inspiring book on this subject is Eugene Cho’s Overrated. What a challenge to us to stop being in love with the idea of changing the world and actually start changing the world.

And if you’ve never heard the song “Now the News” by Eli, check it out and let yourself be challenged by its message.

How close is too close? {The Proximity of Pain}

“I can’t imagine.”

I saw the words again recently in response to someone’s pain.

I don’t think anyone means to offend or hurt when they say those three simple words. The heart behind them is often “I have no idea what that’s like or how to comfort you.” But sometimes they come out sounding more like “I don’t want to think about what that would be like. I can’t–and won’t–identify with your pain.”

I’m guilty of it. Thinking that the words will soften the situation because if I can’t imagine then whatever it is must be tragic.

But I’ve used the words to distance myself from tragedies. (The greater tragedy is that the words have been spoken to me in the midst of personal crisis. Shouldn’t I know better?) I’ve given myself permission to go about my life without thinking about those who suffer. (Until I, myself, suffer.)

I can’t imagine. Or I won’t.

The difference is slim.

—

I’m not a great conversationalist, at least not when I’m on a mission to complete a task. I’m not likely to chitchat on the phone if I have a specific reason for calling. I usually try to get to the point quickly because I’m wired to value tasks more than people, I guess. Give me a to-do list, and I’m on it with enthusiasm. Ask me to manage relationships with the same enthusiasm and I’m overwhelmed to the point of inaction.

But God is working on me.

A few months ago, I delivered a meal to a couple who are battling the wife’s cancer. I don’t know them well, but I’m generally eager to make food and take it to those who are in need of some relief. I was ready to drop off the food and leave, but the husband kept me at the door, talking about his wife’s progress and the treatment schedule. It’s not that I wasn’t interested; it’s just that I don’t like to pry. I figure people get asked the same questions all the time and maybe they get tired of talking about it.

I listened. Maybe that’s all he needed.

A month or so later this would happen to me again. I was planning a funeral meal for another family in the church. I had a question for the daughter about meat and cheese. She ended up talking to me about the shock and pain of losing her mother unexpectedly. It was another of those situations where I didn’t know the family well. I listened, having no intelligent response.

I have little firsthand experience with things like cancer and death, so I think my questions will somehow be offensive or silly.

Maybe I don’t need better questions. Maybe all I need is to know how to listen.

—

We’ve been watching the TV show “About a Boy” which is about a boy, yes, but also about a man, Will Freeman, who lives a pretty self-centered lifestyle until he meets the boy, Marcus. Until recently, I didn’t know this was also a book. So, I read the story, and one passage in particular grabbed my attention. Marcus, a 12-year-old with problems at home and school, starts hanging out at Will’s bachelor pad, and this is what Will is thinking:

Will had spent his whole life avoiding real stuff. He liked watching real stuff and he liked listening to (songwriters) singing about real stuff but he’d never had real stuff sitting on his sofa before. (p. 117)

Real stuff is easy to read about or listen to or watch, but when it sits in your living room crying or talks to you over a cup of coffee, it’s hard. And uncomfortable. I’m not always ready to invite the real stuff into my real life. Because real stuff is messy and I have a hard enough time keeping my own space tidy.

What would have happened, though, if no one had let me in when I was a mess?

That, I can’t imagine.

—

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted,” the psalmist writes, and I begin to see the error of my ways.

I keep distance between me and those whose hearts are breaking out of fear that my heart might break, too. It’s not as if tragedy is contagious, so why would I rather not immerse myself in someone else’s trouble? Am I afraid to get too close to cancer or death or loss or sadness because it might rub off? I do tend to be swayed by the emotions of others, and there are days my emotional cup is already too full.

Elisabetta Foco | Creative Commons | via unsplash

Elisabetta Foco | Creative Commons | via unsplash

But what if I’m doing myself a disservice? What if by closing my eyes to tragedy, by holding suffering at arm’s length, I’m distancing myself from God?

If the Lord is close to the brokenhearted, is it possible that I might get a glimpse of God if I would take a step closer?

—

For too many years, Phil and I kept others out of our pain. Not everyone, but most people. So it’s different to be letting people in again. The wounds we’ve covered over are open again and healing this time, and sometimes that means I’m raw with my feelings, emotions, and reactions. But the difference is: I’m letting people in to those painful spots. Instead of covering them up, I’m exposing them. And it’s not always pretty.

There are days I think it would be easier to live independently. To avoid the hurt that comes from being in community. In marriage, in friendships, in church, hurts are inevitable because all of those relationships involve people. And people are messy. (Guilty as charged.)

But there’s a kind of pain that wounds further and a kind of pain that heals, and I’m starting to learn the difference.

We are grateful to be in community with people who care enough about us to challenge us to do things we don’t always want to do, to help us heal and become better people. Is it painful to hear someone you care about say, “You know, you might want to think about that differently” or “Maybe that wasn’t the best decision”? Yes, it is.

But it is pain that heals if I let it.

—

What if Jesus had decided to keep his distance?

Our sermon series at church is in the book of Luke right now and it is hard not to notice how close to everyone Jesus is. He sits and talks and touches and listens and people are always crowding around him. He could have healed people from afar, and sometimes He did, but sometimes He purposely touches people to heal them.

Sometimes I wonder if He could have saved us if He’d never left heaven. Did He have to become human and live in our dirty, messy world? I don’t know if He had to but I know that He did.

communion

And He didn’t keep His distance from those in pain and suffering. He became our pain and suffering. He gave His whole self for our salvation. He entered our world and identified with our pain. He embraced us when we were unworthy. He brought healing and restoration.

But it cost Jesus His life.

It was painful, yes, but it was pain that heals.

And I forget that when I hold the bread in my hands–His body broken for me, and drink of the cup–His blood shed for me.

Broken body. Shed blood. Is there ever an instance when those actions don’t hurt?

—

I am human. (Shocking, right?) So my capacity to enter someone else’s pain, to identify with suffering and draw near to tragedy is limited.

But it’s not impossible.

And instead of avoiding suffering and tragedy and pain, I want to see Jesus in it.

If the Lord is near to the brokenhearted, then this is what I know: He is near to me in my pain and I can see Him in it. And I just might see a different side of Him when I embrace the brokenhearted, too.

Will I dare to imagine?