Hurting with the Hurting

A few months ago, I drove to Duke to visit with a friend and poke around the Div School once more. While I was there, I was fortunate enough to catch a forum/discussion between a local news anchor and Stanley Hauerwas, Duke professor and one of the more renowned theologians in the country. The forum, titled, “Christianity in the World Today: A Conversation with Hauerwas,” centered on current and cultural events and how they related to Christianity in the world.

Inevitably, one of the first topics that Dr. Hauerwas was asked about was the then-hot topic of health-care reform. If we’re being honest, I expected a much different answer than “America’s Best Theologian,” dubbed by Time Magazine, gave. Being the academic bastion of modern Christian ethics that he was and is, I anticipated an answer that indicted the current health-care system in its for-profit nature; I expected a scathing attack on the insurance industry, the far-right supercapitalists who held no regard for each human life that deteriorated because of inability to afford costs, and lastly (and probably least) the lobbyists and politicians that fought for the current system to stay in place. I’m sure my expectations weren’t much different from everyone else in the room, either.

What I got was much, much different.

Hauerwas instead spoke of modern aversion to pain, suffering and mortality. In a short, slightly annoyed sounding response, he spoke of how people today are so sickened by the thought of death we try to avoid it at whatever cost. The human touch, he said, is a lost art. Instead of being there with a loved one as they die, we insist on looking for the newest cure that will, at best, lengthen the life by a few years. We are so insulated from feeling pain and being with those that are sick, he added, that we cannot imagine having to actually care for someone in their last days.

On the hoof, I felt it was an overly callous response. What could someone, high atop his or her ivory tower in the academy, know about real pain anyway? Isn’t this just another example of people like him talking at an issue rather than speaking words of wisdom?

That was all before Haiti.

When the earthquake struck, I simply could not bring myself to watch the videos and look at the pictures. It was a catastrophe for which I saw no light, no hope and no way out for a nation that had no hope to begin with.

Why could I not allow myself to feel some of the pain that an entire country was feeling? Sure, I jumped quickly to donate money through the Red Cross, UMCOR and other organizations that would aid the victims. I knew they needed prayer, so we collectively prayed at Wesley on Thursday. But, what held me from feeling the pain through the pictures and videos?

Could that brilliant, cranky old professor have been right?

It is easy to throw money at a situation. It is not so easy to get down on the level of the victim of a situation, to feel that pain with them, to hurt with them, to cry with them. What I discovered through my episode with the pictures and video was that I, indeed, had become insulated from feeling such immense pain and suffering.

Walter Brueggeman submits it is easier for us today to practice charity, when, what Christ actually calls us to is solidarity with the poor and those that hurt. How true I’ve found that to be. When we open ourselves to the hurts of others, we allow ourselves to feeling that hurt ourselves. Just as Christ poured Himself out for us, we pour ourselves for others, taking up their cross just as He, in a sense, took up ours. Our humanity is tied to their humanity. This ubuntu leads us to feel the same pain they feel.

The same pain we've somehow managed to insulate ourselves from.

Solidarity…not charity.

Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, kyrie eleison.