Sharing Tears

Someone is missing in my exercise classes. He was there all through the first part of this year, his long hair shaggy with sweat, his piercings and tatoos accenting a body that was in enviable condition.

Then he was gone. Then he came back! "Where've you been?" I asked him. He measured me, then said shyly, "I've had a little problem with depression...". I tried to appreciate his vulnerability, said something to indicate that I did, and joked with him a little. "Welcome back. I've missed you," I offered.

A couple weeks later he came running up to me as I left the gym. "Good to see you! Haven't seen you in class...," I started to say. "No," he said, "I'm not in good enough shape yet. I'll be back..." "Lookin' forward to it," I small talked. I noticed he'd removed his piercings.

It was the last time I saw him. I've been thinking about him, wondering where he is and how he's doing. Has the black hole of depression swallowed him again? I don't know.

We don't know each other very well, really, at the gym. We see each other in such limited contexts, and make the talk small enough to fit the moment. How he managed to squeeze that word "depression" into the cubicles of conversation we usually allow ourselves, I don't know. But he trusted me enough to do that, and I've felt myself caring about him more ever since.

In the paper the other day there was an article about the outpouring of affection for a homeless man who'd died when someone poured gasoline on him and lit it. Turns out, this man had family-- three sisters who looked after him as much as he would allow. He had sunk into depression years back and couldn't stand the treatment so chose the streets. He'd made friends of the people in his neighborhood. In addition to his family, 200 people came out for his memorial service! An astonishing outpouring of caring...

I am marveling about this phenomenon of human caring, that happens everyday, and that mostly goes unnoticed or at least unremarked upon. Henri Nouwen writes that our word "care" has its roots in the Gothic "Kara", which means "to lament." Thus "the basic meaning of care is: to grieve, to experience sorrow, to cry out with." I'm reminded that "compassion" in the Latin means "to suffer with." Nouwen adds: "in fact, we feel quite uncomfortable with an invitation to enter into someone's pain before doing something about it."

Ah, the American way of caring: doing something about another's pain. And when we find out that there is likely nothing we can DO about it, we add our discomfort with our helplessness to the uncomfortableness we already feel about entering another's pain-- and we move away, or otherwise shun.

There is another way to respond, and it has to do with affirming the "with" of caring and compassion. For human pain and suffering is not a "problem" to be solved; it is, first and last, a mystery to be lived with... It is in fact an act of extraordinary hospitality when someone opens up to us and invites us "in" to where they are in pain. They likely are not even expecting us to "relieve" the pain for them-- they are simply expecting us to share that pain-filled experience with them. I think that's what the sisters and neighbors of that homeless man discoverd. And I'm trusting that I responded adequately to the honor my friend at the gym bestowed upon me...

To be able to enter that space of the "with" means that we have to be comfortable with our own pain, with the "with" of our own suffering-- for our pain and our suffering are always "with" us, too. And, being "with-in" us, they are the sources for whatever hospitality we can offer to others to come, be "with" us.

Odd that we feel that our pain is best kept hidden. No wonder we end up feeling alone and isolated. Our pain is our invitation to be open about our humanity, and to share ourselves with others. Somehow my friend and that homeless man seemed to know this. Maybe I can come to know it, too.