Fellow Feeling

Compassion. Have you ever received it at the moment you were desperately in need of it? Have you given it? Have you ever felt it but been at a loss for how to express it? What does compassion feel like to you? What does it look like? What does it sound like? Even in the uncertainty of how to express it, is there still a weight to it in your belly? Do you often, show (even in the simplest of ways) concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others? If you do then you are likely a compassionate person.

Compassion literally means to suffer together. One researcher defines it as “the feeling that arises when you are confronted with another’s suffering and feel motivated to relieve that suffering.” Did you hear that? Compassion is feeling motivated to relieve the pain of another person.

Oh, how I long to see more of this. To do more and to feel more compassion. Literally, our culture, our very humanity, especially on social media seems to seek the opposite. Rather than seeking to relieve someone’s pain people delight in others’ pain or seek to inflict more.

I know we may have this perception of compassion as of a touchy-feely weepy reaction from someone or to someone. It’s not. It is a glimpse of the Divine in us. It is the best part of humanity – a streak of light throughout the dark shadows of the human sense of self - selfishness, self-centeredness, self-awareness, self-confidence, self-preservation, self – We really have “self” down pat. But compassion is others-centered and not only others-centered but also revolves around another’s suffering.

There is one synonym for compassion that I love. Fellow feeling is sympathy and feeling existing between people based on shared experiences or feelings. It is a sense of joint interest. Can we find at some level a fellow feeling toward all people we encounter? Empathy? Can we pause? And listen?

I encountered compassion today. From a total stranger. A woman named Robin. I encountered her at a vulnerable moment - my vulnerable moment. And she had feelings for my suffering. She expressed encouragement and understanding. She did not embrace her sense of self, her time, her job...but rather she embraced the pain, emotion, and the problem of someone else…me. She took the time. She listened. She did not have solutions. But actually, she did. She had a solution to the human condition of pain – fellow feeling.

This is missing in much of our culture today. Self is stronger than fellow feeling. It takes practice. It takes closing our mouths and calming our minds and listening to someone else. Listen to the other. Listen to the Other, the still small Voice.

Self says:

What about me? What about my pain? You have no idea what I have been through. I, me, mine.

Fellow feeling says:

Well first, it says nothing. Simply listens. Then we may say, I’m so sorry. Words fail but if I could, I would say the ones that bring comfort. How can I help? What do you need? I have once been where you are now.

I have learned - because I have lived and suffered and lost and loved - that the most profound way to give and receive comfort and empathy is simply to give out experience. We empathize from the place of our own suffering. We comfort and express compassion from the reservoir of comfort and compassion we have received. Oh, may that reservoir be deep!

Lord let me listen to others - not in a way that is eager to get to my turn - but rather with a fellow feeling heart that reaches into the deep well of pain and suffering, and draws our waters of healing compassion. Lord, please let Your Voice be sweeter to me than my own.

2 Corinthian 1:4 “He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us>’

Selflessness and Slippers

Years ago, when asked by my children what I wanted for Christmas, I responded "Slippers".

"Momma could really use some house shoes. Any color is fine but I DON’T want the kind with the toe cut out.” I hate those. What’s the purpose of the cut-out toe when you’re trying to keep your feet warm? They remind me of old lady slippers because, well they are old lady slippers.

Not a huge task. I felt that was easy enough right? Slippers. Any color. Correct size preferably and NOT with the toes cut out.

So you can imagine the strength it required to keep an expression of happy gratitude on my face when I opened my box to find…..old lady, toes cut out of the end, granny slippers!

Did they not listen? Did they not care? Was mom an afterthought while Christmas shopping? So the answer to those questions is at least to some extent, yes. To be fair, while my kids were old enough to share my request, they weren’t old enough to actually be the ones picking them out and purchasing them. I can’t blame them. - thanks, dear.

Nevertheless, I pulled the cardboard stuffing out of the toeless slippers and put them on. Smiling with gratitude as moms do - observing everyone delightfully moving on to the next gift to give or to open. Except for my Elizabeth, probably 5 or 6 then. She could not move beyond the slippers. “Angel, what’s wrong?” I asked. Through her tears…real tears and heartache, she said she was so sorry the slippers were wrong. They weren’t the slippers I wanted, in fact, they were the slippers I specifically did not want. And she was heartbroken. Her heart’s desire was for me to get the slippers I asked for, but she had been left out of the shopping experience. My heart then broke because I knew she’d been feeling this way ever since those slippers were brought home.

Of course, I quickly and adamantly let her know they were wonderful and that I completely understood her predicament. She had so wanted to get me exactly what I asked for and deeply, truly was broken that I did not receive the perfect gift. At that moment I fell in complete love with those slippers! I no longer cared about the cut-out toes. I no longer felt unheard. I only saw this beautiful soul in front of me and felt the depth of her love. The disappointment in my heart over the slippers. dissipated in the presence of so much wholly selfless love being shown to me.

I wore those slippers for years until they finally wore out. They brought me physical comfort. But more than that they brought my soul comfort. Every time I saw my toes peek out the ends of those shoes, I remembered the love of my daughter and the profoundness of her care for others.

To this day she is an amazing giver. Thoughtful, searching for a unique or special gift. Something truly meaningful. When all along, she is the gift.

It’s a beautiful thing to be brought from disappointment to delight. It’s even more beautiful I think to be someone that walks another through disappointment and into a place of hope.

How can I be that person to someone else? To empathize with their pain. How can I through authentic care walk them through that dark place and into a place of light, hope, faith, and love?

I can tell how. Through the perfect Gift. The greatest gift of all time is the gift of Liberty and Love found in Jesus Christ.

Praying today for sensitivity to Spirit’s leading. I want to have eyes that see beyond the surface and into real needs. I want to have hands ready to applaud, lift, hold, give, dig, and get dirty meeting those needs.

Selah