One of the roles of ministry is to sit with people who are experiencing pain in their lives. When I’m in this role, I recall one of my favourite pastors – Rev Nadia Bolz-Weber. She has a gift for bringing God’s grace and love to people experiencing pain and despair. We’re sometimes tempted to pity people who are suffering but Rev Nadia shared this beautiful insight after a prison visit:
“I look those two young men in the eyes and think, I will not pity you. But I will, in this moment, see even just a fraction of your pain, and acknowledge how it is like mine and very much not like mine.
In my mind, pity isn’t even analogous to compassion. Pity is just the paternalistic cousin of contempt. It allows us to see others as “those less fortunate than ourselves” (a term I loathe). Pity keeps the other person at a distance and me in a rarified state of satisfaction.… Compassion, on the other hand, draws us close. I have found [healing] in: Eye contact with another person who is in a tender place, the rare moments I stop filling in the blank about another person, compassion toward myself and others, remaining open hearted in moments I want to shut down, … using my pain to see it in others rather than only in myself.”
Rev. Paul Whynacht
