Good morning…

As a class, we found Parker Palmer’s insights very, very convicting. We all love people who experience seasons of suffering. We all want to help people out of their pain. Yet, when Parker was “in his misery,” loved ones came to offer “sympathy that led him deeper into despair.” Experience this excerpt from Let Your Life Speak and ponder how you might be more deeply present for people who are in pain.

******

FROM THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN

Some visitors, in an effort to cheer me up, would say, “It’s a beautiful day. Why don’t you go out and soak up some sunshine and look at the flowers? Surely that’ll make you feel better.” But that advice only made me more depressed. Intellectually, I knew the day was beautiful, but I was unable to experience that beauty through my senses, to feel it in my body. Depression is the ultimate state of disconnection, not just between people but between one’s mind and one’s feelings. To be reminded of that disconnection only deepened my despair.

Other people came to me and said, “But you’re such a good person, Parker. You teach and write so well, and you’ve helped so many people. Try to remember all the good you’ve done, and surely you’ll feel better. That advice, too, left me more depressed, for it plunged me into the immense gap between my “good” persona and the “bad” person I believed myself to be. When I heard those words, I thought, “One more person has been defrauded, has seen my image rather than my reality – and if people ever saw the real me, they would reject me in a flash.” Depression is the ultimate state of disconnection, not only between people, and between one’s heart and mind, but between one’s self-image and public mask.

Then there were the visitors who began by saying, “I know exactly how you feel…” Whatever comfort or counsel these people may have intended to speak, I heard nothing beyond their opening words, because I knew they were peddling falsehood: no one can fully experience another person’s mystery. Paradoxically, it was my friends’ empathetic attempt to identify with me that made me feel even more isolated, because it was over identification. Disconnection may be hell, but it is better than false connection.

…One of the hardest things we must do sometimes is be present to another person’s pain without trying to “fix” it, to simply stand respectfully at the edge of that person’s mystery and misery. Standing there, we feel useless and powerless, which is exactly how a depressed person feels…

In an effort to avoid those feelings, we give advice, which sets me, not you, free. If you take my advice, you may get well – and if you don’t get well, I did the best I could. If you fail to take my advice, there is nothing more I can do. Either way, I get relief by distancing myself from you, guilt free.

Blessedly, there were several people, family and friends, who had the courage to stand with me in a simple and healing way…they reassured me that I could still be seen by someone – life-giving knowledge in the midst of an experience that makes one feel annihilated and invisible…a kind of love that neither avoids or invade’s the soul’s suffering. (61-64)

******

With the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit, we can be present with people in pain, neither avoiding or invading their soul’s suffering. I ask—ask the God of our Master, Jesus Christ, the God of glory—to make you intelligent and discerning in knowing him personally, your eyes focused and clear, so that you can see exactly what it is he is calling you to do… (Ephesians 1:17, NIV).

…Sue…