Tag: empathy

Helped Are the Lonely

Background: This month at Christ Church Easton, we are offering Blue December services on Wednesday evenings leading up to Christmas. These services recognize that people have a difficult time leading up to Christmas for any number of reasons–loneliness, grief, depression, anxiety, or just feeling out of step and out of place in a commercially-consumed culture. These services include lighting of candles, prayers, quiet music and singing, Scripture readings and reflections, some silence, Communion with previously sanctified elements (often called a Deacon’s Mass), and they are for are for anyone going through something this time of year who might want to come together for a quiet worship service in the evening in the middle of the week, and have some fellowship and discussion after. Our hope is that people will feel God’s presence and love and experience the company, care, and fellowship of other people.

The Gospel reading for the service on December 4 was Matthew 5:1-12, often called the Beatitudes from Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount.

“Helped Are the Lonely”

The cards are stacked against us if we are going through a hard time in December. It’s getting colder, it’s basically dark after lunch, Christmas movies and music are streaming 24-7, and we feel like we are supposed to act like we are happy, even when we are the farthest thing from it.

States of being that include loneliness, grief, depression, and anxiety are all connected, we can move back and forth between them. And I say states of being because these aren’t things we can just change our mind about and decide, “I am not going to be lonely or sad,” “I am not going to grieve anymore,” or “I am tired of being depressed.”

But we can reach out. We can show up. We can give ourselves permission, allow ourselves to be low or hurting, or questioning. It may be counter to what we see when we look around this time of year, but it’s honest. Let’s start where we actually are.

How’s it going? Fine. How are you doing? Good. Granted, when someone asks us that when we run into them at the grocery store, that may not be the time and place to bare our souls. But we need to have some place we can do that.

Different people have different ways of coping with life. I don’t know where I would be without distance running and reading, two things that have helped me keep going through some of my darkest times. Reading, in part, because I find people who are describing the same thing I am feeling—someone who helps me give words to something I feel but can’t describe.

There is a poet named David Whyte. In his book “Consolations,” he talks about loneliness.

“Loneliness can be a prison, a place from which we look out at a world we cannot inhabit; loneliness can be a bodily ache and a penance, but loneliness fully inhabited also becomes a voice that asks and calls for that great unknown someone or something we want to call our own.”

One of the questions that led me to searching and to the journey I am on now was wondering in my bones and in my soul, “am I really and ultimately alone—are we only ever truly alone in the Universe?” It’s a question I came back to often enough, and one of the times that it had legs and kicked me in the gut was when my marriage was ending. I knew that even together, I felt alone, I knew that even among friends, I felt alone, like no one was out there, or really understood who I was.

But I wanted there to be. The fact that I didn’t want to be and feel alone, sent me both inside myself and out into the world.

This is David Whyte again:

“Loneliness is the very state that births the courage to continue calling, and when fully lived can undergo its own beautiful reversal.

“Loneliness is the place from which we pay real attention to voices other than our own; being alone allows us to find the healing power.”


Lonely human beings are lonely because we are made to belong. Feeling alone is hard because we aren’t made to be alone. As many times as I feel like living as a hermit would be a lifestyle-change I would embrace—even for an introvert, there are times I need connection.

In one of the most counter-intuitive sermons in the Bible, Jesus says that these low times we experience have a purpose. We call this section of Matthew’s Gospel, the Beatitudes, for its use of the word “blessed.” This is one of the key parts of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. He tells us:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
“Blessed are those who mourn,
“Blessed are the meek,
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…”

Ummm… Jesus, what are you talking about? I’ve felt those things, and no offense, but I’d like to be done with all that.

In her book, “Into the Mess & Other Jesus Stories,” Debie Thomas writes:

“What Jesus bears witness to in the Beatitudes is God’s unwavering proximity to pain, suffering, sorrow, and loss. God is nearest to those who are lowly, oppressed, unwanted, and broken. God isn’t obsessed with the shiny and the impressive. God is too busy sticking close to what’s messy, chaotic, and unruly.”

What our faith tells us, what Jesus showed again and again with his teaching, his healing, his life, is that it was the outcast, the low, the hurting, the people no one wanted to think about or deal with, who were his people.

Self-reliance and independence are very American values. I can take care of myself, I got this, I don’t need anyone’s help. Those ideas are NOT Christian values. They are not love-centered values.

One of the biggest Christian values we hold is surrendering. Realizing that we don’t control the Universe; that there are so many things in our own lives that we don’t have control of and that we are helped when we surrender our need to be in control to a higher power, to God.

It often happens that we don’t experience a need for God, a need to accept that we aren’t always in control, until things start to fall apart.

And it’s those times that God is closest to us. It’s those times when what we’ve been fed by society—that if we have the right house, the right family, the right job, the right car—then we ‘ll be happy. When that turns out not to give us what we are looking for, or pursuing those things stops making sense, and we are looking for something more substantial, then we are open to another way of thinking about life.

One of the most useful things I’ve run into in thinking about the Beatitudes is the novelist Alice Walker, who wrote “The Color Purple,” in coming up with a similar list for a character of hers, changed the word “blessed” to “helped.” Listen to Jesus’s teaching like this:

“Helped are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Helped are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
“Helped are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
“Helped are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
“Helped are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
“Helped are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
“Helped are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

The world wants us to be hard, tough, to put our heads down and be productive. To be good, to be fine, to be surface level.

Jesus wants us to have soft hearts. To go deep. To care for one another, to help one another, to love one another. Our ability to do these things is part of what constitutes the Kingdom of Heaven.

We are not meant to go through life alone. We need each other. We need to be there for each other.

To have soft hearts, to be able to be there for someone, we are helped by knowing what they are going through.

Brene Brown describes herself as a storyteller and social worker. This is how she talks about empathy:

“Empathy is feeling WITH people. I always think of empathy as this kind of sacred space. When someone’s in a deep hole and they shout from the bottom and they say “I’m stuck. It’s dark. I’m overwhelmed.” and we look and we say “Hey” and climb down and say “I know what it’s like down here, and you’re not alone… Empathy is a choice and it’s a vulnerable choice. In order to connect with you, I have to connect with something in myself that knows that feeling.”

Helped are the lonely.

Helped are those who struggle.

Helped are those who feel lost.

Because they are closer to God. And God can help.

And we can help each other.

The world we return to

Thankfully, life rarely comes down to desert island preferences. You know the scenarios: if you were stranded on a desert island and could only have five albums, or if you could only eat one kind of food, or if you had to watch one movie, and on and on. But they make for great conversation scenarios. You get to know someone by cutting through all the white noise and cocktail party chatter and learn something about what is important to that person. And those questions often circle back to things like music, food, books–things that open up something about what we love.

Here is one for me: if I could only read one genre of writing for the rest of my life, it would be poetry. I don’t have to think about it, I don’t need the Final Jeopardy music playing, I can say that instantly. Poetry fills my soul, speaks to my heart, and expands my mind in ways that no other kind of writing can.

This time last year, John Miller and I led a course through Chesapeake Forum: An Academy for Lifelong Learning, on how poetry connected us to and helped us understand what it is to be human. The class was held on Zoom, had close to 30 participants from multiple states including Georgia and Florida, and it was a fantastic experience, with insightful and searching questions and comments from those taking the class. I wrote about our time together in Tidewater Times Magazine.

When John and I thought about what poets to discuss for that class, we went with some of the well-known writers; it’s maybe a stretch to say that a poet other than Shakespeare can be a household name, but Milton, Blake, and Wordsworth are close. Talking about a class for this winter and what poets read and talk about, we had a different approach.

Poetry often seems to be the realm of old, dead white guys. What if for a follow up, we let people know that poetry is as meaningful, powerful, and relevant today, that poetry matters and has a much broader range of accomplished writers than those from the past. Let’s look at three living women of color who are carrying on the mantel.

Tracy K. Smith, Joy Harjo, and Rita Dove have won Pulitzer Prizes, National Book Awards, and just about any other recognition you can think of for their writing. And they have each served as Poet Laureates of the United States.

Smith’s book, “Life on Mars,” Harjo’s “Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings,” and Dove’s “Playlist for the Apocalypse,” have come out in 2011, 2015, and 2022: they are recent, relevant, and are evidence that these writers, these women, are wrestling with and trying to make sense out of life, experience, and so many of the alienating forces at work in the world. These are writers, and books, that belong on our bookshelves and in our hearts and minds as we try to walk through life doing the same.

Our class, “Poetry Matters!” will meet on Zoom, Thursdays January 26, February 2, and February 9, from 10:00 to 11:30am. If it sounds like something you are interested in, you can register by clicking on the link.

I go back to Robin Williams’ line from the movie Dead Poets Society frequently because I think it says it so powerfully:

“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”

Or maybe we give the floor to Tracy K. Smith, the first poet we will read and discuss in our class. “Life on Mars” is a book that took a hold of me from the first time I picked it up. Smith’s father was an engineer on the Hubble Telescope, which is something that comes out in her searching and brilliant poem, “My God, It’s Full of Stars.” You can read more about Smith and hear her read from that poem at the link.

Smith talks about why she loves poetry:


That’s a lofty but worthwhile goal. It’s part of the hope of a class like this: that the world we return to after reading and discussing Smith, Harjo, and Dove might seem fuller and more comprehensible as a result.

What should a king know?

If you had a chance to educate a future king (or queen), what would you want him/her to know? Let’s say that key things we would want them to have include kindness, justice, empathy, humility, compassion, courage, love. I mean, if we have a chance to help form someone to rule the right way, wouldn’t we want to go all in?

In T.H. White’s novel, “The Once and Future King,” we meet the character who is to become King Arthur, first as a boy, who knows nothing about his parents, who has been taken in by a kind nobleman, Sir Ector, and raised side-by-side with Ector’s son Kay. It is expected that Kay will grow up to be a knight, and Arthur, who everyone knows as “Wart,” will be his squire/servant.

The Wart believes himself to be of lowly, common descent. He feels like a second-rate citizen without much control over his own destiny. Out on an adventure, Wart meets the wizard Merlyn, who becomes his tutor. Merlyn lives forwards and backwards in time and knows who Arthur is and that he will be the King of England. Merlyn does not tell the boy this and as he directs his education, one of the bits of learning Wart likes best is when Merlyn turns him into different creatures–a fish, a hawk, an ant, a goose, a badger–and the boy has to talk to others of the species and experience life from their perspective.

This is empathy in action and not just with humanity. With all of Creation.

In broader form, Arthur experiences moments. And not just moments, but moments as other creatures.

Here he takes flight with other geese in the reverie of flying at first light:

“The dawn, the sea-dawn and the mastery of ordered flight, were of such intense beauty that the boy was moved to sing. He wanted to cry a chorus to life, and since a thousand geese were on the wing about him, he had not long to wait. The lines of these creatures, wavering like smoke upon the sky as they breasted the sunrise, were all at once in music and in laughter. Each squadron of them was in different voice, some larking, some triumphant, some in sentiment or glee. The vault of daybreak filled itself with heralds…”

T. H. White, “The Once and Future King”

Imagine experiencing (and thus acknowledging) epiphanies, transcendent moments from other, non-human viewpoints. Of course Wart/Arthur and any of us would have to relate it from our own vocabulary and ways of thinking. But imagine people in power making decisions who consider the wider world, not just our human interests. Because if we don’t consider the wider world, we won’t have anywhere left for our human interests.

There are other things that are critical to Arthur’s ongoing education, had by different adventures, experiences, and learning, but I want to stick to these moments as that is the thread that started my mind moving.

Moments give our own lives meaning.

Red-Breasted Nuthatch in Worchester County, 2016. Photo by Bill Hubick at Maryland Biodiversity Project.

The magnolia tree in my front yard has become a home and stomping grounds for nuthatches. Lately when I fill my birdfeeders, they come visit and chat. Saturday afternoon, Holly and I stood and watched a few feet from four Red-Breasted Nuthatches circling from branches to cylinder feeder, in chirp-and-song conversation, sounding precisely like a group of Woodstocks from Peanuts/Charlie Brown. They didn’t mind that we were there and they let us into a frenzy that I can still glimpse in my mind, something bigger than me or us, something we were able to be a part of.

It’s not like Wart’s experience of being among geese flying at dawn, but at the same time, it lights up that these experiences are out there to be had, to be a part of, in a way that connects us to Creation.

Later, as Saturday moved into evening, I was walking from the parking lot behind Christ Church Easton to go to our Saturday worship service. The sun was beginning to set and was casting an incredible light on the steeple of the church and as I watched a “V” of Canadian Geese flying in formation flew over, like the light was shining specifically on them, and the low point of the V came directly overtop the point of the steeple. It was another transcendent moment, there for only a few seconds, but showing something so much more.

All it took to experience these two separate moments, in one afternoon, was to pay attention.

I was looking through photos on my phone, in search of moments. It seems natural to try to capture and share the moments we have. I couldn’t catch either of them from Saturday with a picture, so I try to communicate them in words, in a similar way to White in his novel.

Bubbles and sunsets.

A few years back we were at The Claggett Center on an Alpha Retreat. A handful of us were coming back from a walk through the woods and there was a woman blowing huge bubbles that had the youth group mesmerized. Our friend Dave, who might be the most youthful person you will ever meet, jumped in with the kids chasing bubbles around the yard. It was a happened-upon moment, easy enough just to walk right by, but seizing it, embracing it, enjoying it, colored everything in a way that could have been missed.

Going back further, an evening we were at the yacht club in Oxford for dinner and my daughter Ava, my father and I walked out onto the dock as the sun was setting. I remember it being a beautiful scene, but I can’t tell you anything about that particular sunset. What I remember, what the moment was for me, was looking over and seeing my Dad trying to catch it, trying to capture something of what he saw. In addition to being an accountant, my Dad has always taken pictures–from getting slides developed when my sister and I were little, of ice storms and sailboats, to grandkids’ sports games in the digital camera era, to now having our cameras on our phones; looking over to see my father pulled into a moment was my moment.

These moments, by themselves, don’t make for a complete education. But without moments that make life, that give life depth and feeling, what good is an education?

There is a scene in “The Once and Future King” where the young Arthur first encounters the sword that he will pull out of the stone, which will show him to be the king. Upon touching the sword, he sees more deeply into life:

“I feel strange when I have hold of this sword, and I notice everything much more clearly. Look at the beautiful gargoyles of the church, and of the monastery which it belongs to. See how splendidly all the famous banners in the aisle are waving. How nobly that yew holds up the red flakes on its timbers to worship God. How clean the snow is. I can smell something like fetherfew and sweet briar–and is it music that I hear?”

Arthur’s adventures and experiences, his being changed and living in different perspectives, has given him a deeper soul to experience this moment of his destiny.

He is not able to pull the sword out of the stone immediately. But because he is intimately connected with so much of Creation, something happens:

“All round the churchyard there were hundreds of old friends. They rose over the church wall all together… there were badgers and nightingales and vulgar crows and hares and wild geese and falcons and fishes and dogs and dainty unicorns and solitary wasps and corkindrills and hedgehogs and griffins and the thousand other animals he had met. They loomed round the church wall, the lovers and helpers of the Wart, and they all spoke solemnly in turn. Some of them had come from the banners in the church, where they were painted in heraldry, some from the waters and the sky and the fields about–but all, down to the smallest shrew mouse, had come to help on account of love. Wart felt his power grow.”

There it is. Part of Arthur’s education was to gain insight and understanding and appreciation for creatures and history and all of Creation. And what happened in turn is that Creation embraced and had a love for Arthur.

That isn’t all we might want a king to know in order to rule justly and compassionately. But it’s certainly something we would want on the list.

When we can experience and appreciate moments; when we can see that life and the world is bigger than we are; when we can acknowledge and understand that other people are open to experience these transcendent moments just like we are; when we can learn that every living thing can be part of the moments that we have; when we can look into the eyes of someone or something and see something reflected back to us that causes love to grow in us, for others and for all Creation… those are things that would make a king, and a kingdom, worthwhile.

In the Weeds

When I worked in restaurants, being “in the weeds” meant you were up to your eyeballs in orders, trying to make sense of everything and get the food out, and kindly don’t talk to me right now unless you are here to help. When I was writing for the Coast Guard, it meant something different.

If you were in a meeting and someone said you were “in the weeds,” it meant you were too far down into the finer details to see the big picture. You needed to zoom out.

Last night, watching the sun and blue sky battling against a weekend’s worth of gray clouds, or this morning, skateboarding around the Oxford Conservation Park and cemetery, “in the weeds” means looking from a different perspective. It is looking at the sky from the terrestrial perspective of being in the weeds. And it shifts things.

It is a way of being grounded, balancing lofty with land. There are times when it is helpful to look closer.

There is a non-profit organization called “The Moth,” which is dedicated to storytelling; to helping people tell their stories, “live, onstage, and without notes.” If we know each other’s stories, we become human to one another. I’m just beginning a book they put together called “Occasional Magic: True Stories About Defying the Impossible.” It’s a collection of stories told on stage, collected around a theme, some by famous people, some by people you’ll meet along the way. As for the title, it:

comes from a story told by Vietnam veteran Larry Kerr. It’s about his intense love for a young woman named Omie, whom he describes as “smart, meltingly lovely, and strong, with a fierce belief in the possibility of occasional magic.”
Occasional magic refers to those moments of beauty, wonder, and clarity, often stumbled upon, where we suddenly see a piece of truth about our life.
(from the introduction by Catherine Burns)

What if we took the time to get to know people’s stories? Like each of us, stories can be everyday, they can be epic, they can be heartbreaking, they can be uplifting, they can be tragic, they can be miraculous, they can be filled with hope, they can be funny, or some combination of each of those and more. There are more stories than people. And in taking the time to get to know them, we recognize ourselves in each other.

Maybe, on Memorial Day, we can wrap our minds and hearts around the stories of the men and women who have died while serving our country. We can remember them not as numbers or statistics, or even names, but as individuals, with stories and connections; with families, dreams, hometowns, friends; and think about the thread that they are, woven into the tapestry that is our collective story. Each thread is a story, each story a person.

These are stories to remember. And if you remember their stories, tell them.

“Sharing tales of those we’ve lost is how we keep from really losing them.”

Mitch Albom

Today, as I think about being in the weeds, I think about shifting my perspective, being grounded, being connected, seeing into the heart of something too easily overlooked. I think about people and their stories, and remembering them.

Spiritual Friendships

We build community by coming together to share meaningful experiences. It’s the same with friendships–it’s by spending time together, doing things we love, or helping each other, creating memories and shared stories together is how we grow closer.

Having church be a part of all those things is still fairly new to me, just a few years old. Over the years, I’ve formed friendships and stories through running and trail running, writing and reading, skateboarding, paddleboarding; through kids and mutual friends; through hiking, and sometimes through coffee houses, book stores, or bars. And of course through work, which is where we spend most of our time.

I’m fortunate and grateful that work and church get to be the same thing for me right now. And that has led to building some wonderful friendships through small groups, Bible studies, and worshiping together. Our stories overlap and intertwine in trying to deepen our connection to God and to each other; in trying to get a better understanding of Scripture; in trying to continue our spiritual journeys collectively and in community (we recently read N.T. Wright telling us, “there is no such thing a solitary Christian”). I especially dig that groups that meet at a church don’t look or act like you might have in your head. There is deep laughter and relevance in Bible studies, groups that have gone kayaking and paddleboarding, and hiking and bonfires at retreats. And there is frequently food.

An afternoon hike and high wire act during an Alpha Retreat in Buckeystown, Md.

Gathering intentionally each week is a great first step. For church, that time is for worship, which is a time to recharge our spiritual batteries; to get inspired; to pray with and for each other; to be lifted up by incredible music; to be united in body and spirit by sharing communion. And then we are sent out “to do the work (God) has given us to do.” Though for so many of us, that is wrapped up in running errands, getting or keeping things straight at home or with our families, doing our jobs.

It’s hard to make time to be intentional about our spiritual lives or formation. What would it look like if we did? And how would we do it. I am biased, but I’ve found small groups–whether at church, a running or hiking group, a workout group, a writing group, a book club, a group of friends–to be such a key way to make things happen. And Lent is a perfect time to start. Make Lent a time for renewal; a time for clearing out habits that aren’t serving us. And a time to begin some practices to enhance our sense of community, our spiritual friendships, and our relationship with God.

Christ Church Easton has a few ways to help get started.

A small group from an Alpha Retreat at Camp Arrowhead in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

The Alpha Course has been a community-changing and relationship-building program at the church. It is a program designed for people who aren’t sure what they think of church or Christianity, but it can also enliven those who are farther along in their faith walk. Alpha asks questions, including, “Is there more to life than this?” and provides groups to have discussion without judgment or preaching to get a sense of what people think. And Alpha is known for feeding people, so dinner is included as well. We will be starting Alpha on Saturday, February 29 (that’s not a typo, it’s leap year!) after our Alive @ 5 service. Alpha is a free program. There will be a weekend retreat in the spring, which has a cost, which the church can help with if need be. There are a number of people at Christ Church and around the world who will tell you to “Try Alpha” if you can. You can sign up here.

For anyone who is curious about Bible study, or who would like a daily devotional practice during Lent, Christ Church will be offering “Lent for Everyone, Matthew Year A,” where scholar and former bishop N.T. Wright leads us through Matthew’s Gospel from Ash Wednesday to the week after Easter. The group will meet once a week on Wednesday evenings at 6:30 pm (beginning March 4) to discuss the week’s readings. This is a great way to get a feel for the Gospel of Matthew. It is uncanny how relevant it is to our daily lives. Two years ago, we offered the Mark year version of this study, and almost everyone in those classes has gone on to further and deeper Bible study and become a part of groups that meet almost year-long.

“Walk in Love” is a series of talks that focus on listening, compassion and empathy, and walking with someone who is grieving.

The “Walk in Love” Series has been in the works for some time now at the church and folks are excited for how it might help us each to walk in love with each other, through listening, empathy, and being with those who are grieving. It’s a three evening event that will take place on Thursdays of March 19th, 26th, and April 2nd at 6:00pm in the church’s Parish Hall. All three presentations speak to our call to give humbly of ourselves to those we love and those who need our loving compassion, by bringing greater awareness to how we listen, love, and walk with courage with our family, friends, and neighbors. You can come to all three sessions, or whichever ones you can make. The series is free.

Life is tough to do alone. Faith might be even harder, with how easy it is to get distracted or knocked off our paths. Thankfully, there are ways for us to connect, to each other, and to God. Spiritual friendships, small groups, and community, created by time together, by shared meaningful experiences and practices can help us form bonds, memories, and stories to keep us going.

Being Neighbors: Our Sacred Call to Empathy

If you take Jesus at his word, loving our neighbors is a big deal. In the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they record the same to-do list from Jesus, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:36-40 NIV)

These are important. And if we take to reading, studying, reflecting and meditating on, and praying on Scripture, we’ll find new depths and heights for how to connect to and love and obey God.

I’ve got to say, the Bible is my favorite book. That is not a statement I could have made 10 years ago. And part of the reason I say that is that I’ve spent the last three years reading Matthew, Mark, and Luke’s versions of the Gospel, slowly, chapter by chapter, studying with different groups, using the help of N.T. Wright’s “New Testament for Everyone” commentaries. And we’ve prayed, laughed (a lot), cried, wrestled with things, been confused, found grace, found ourselves in the stories, found God and Christ in the Scriptures, found poetry, and soared to new heights of feeling and depths of understanding. I can’t recommend it enough and it has become one of my favorite things to do. We’re currently studying John’s Gospel and, wow.

But about this loving our neighbor thing: what if our neighbor has no interest in the Bible? And there are plenty of big reasons they might not (disdain for organized religion being one). One of the best things we can do is look to Jesus for an example. Jesus is constantly reaching out to the lonely, the outcast, the disenfranchised, the unclean, the sick, the marginalized–the people who the “church people” of the day wouldn’t have anything to do with. And when he reached out, he didn’t tell them to go to church, read their Old Testament, etc. He heard them. He met them where they were. He healed them. He loved them. He knew them and spoke to them. In the story of the Samaritan woman at the well, who society would have told Jesus he had no business talking to, Jesus talks to her, tells her things about who he is and who she is; the woman is amazed and tells others he “told me everything I have ever done!” He told her HER story.

At a time where we don’t know our neighbors, or their stories, and in many cases, maybe we don’t know ourselves the way we should, it’s our sacred duty to recognize the divine in each of us. In a 2018 sermon at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, Brene Brown reminds us that,

“If you are a person of faith, you are called to find the face of God in every single person you meet.”

Brene Brown

Sometimes that is not the easiest thing to do. Especially when we disagree with someone, maybe don’t like them; or if they look, think, love, or act differently than we do. A key way to know someone is to hear their stories; to understand who they are. Brown shows one way of doing that in a short, narrated cartoon video about empathy. Sometimes it is no more simple, and no more profound, than just being there.

Brown says that empathy fuels connection and cites Theresa Wiseman’s four qualities of empathy: perspective taking, staying out of judgment, recognizing emotions in others, and communicating that. If we want to love our neighbor as Christ both told us and demonstrated, this is a pretty solid beginning.

Part of the problem is that this isn’t an easy thing to learn. It doesn’t come naturally to everyone. And it isn’t always easy. We need all the help that we can get.

This fall, we’ve had two evening classes reading and discussing Brown’s book, “Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead.” It’s been interesting, hearing some folks who are not church-goers, who say, “A church discussing a Brene Brown book? Wow, that’s really cool, I’d love to be a part of that.” And some folks at the church, who wonder about discussing a book that isn’t the Bible and doesn’t talk directly about the Bible or God in the way that we are used to. And both of those things are great and right and fair discussions to have.

I love the idea of thin places–places where heaven and earth are closer, or places where we are closer to God. There are absolutely physical places in the world where that space exists. But I think it that space can also be a state of mind or emotion. And when we feel vulnerable, that is one of the places–being exposed, and truly seen and heard, where we feel our need for God and for each other. Brown defines vulnerability as “uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.”And she points out that love for us feels uncertain, incredibly risky, and leaves us emotionally exposed.

She points out that, “vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.”

This is not easy stuff and it’s not necessarily a feel good book, in that it asks us to look past all the barriers we build to protect ourselves and be open with ourselves, each other, and with God. Being open to God is to be vulnerable, to put our hearts out there, which is the business God is in: the battle for our hearts.

Brown gets the title for her book from Teddy Roosevelt’s famous speech, about the “Man in the Arena:”

“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly…”

God calls us not to be on the sidelines, but in the arena. He tells us that Jesus has come so that we may “have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). He wants us to get to know Him and get to know each other. And He knows it is a struggle, a journey to get there, one where we lay down our old lives to have a new life in and through Him. And that it’s worth it.

What keeps us from having that life in all its fullness? The life that we might dream of, or that God dreams for us? What, in our culture, are the things that most stand in our way? If most of us had to name it, it would probably involve fear, shame, vulnerability. We are often afraid of failing, afraid of falling, afraid of being ridiculed, afraid of being exposed. This is true in our personal lives, in our education system, and at work. And in Daring Greatly, Brown helps us to look at this, to name and understand it, and talks about how we can connect with one another and develop a resilience that could allow us to try; to dare.

In the Gospels, Jesus compares himself to a physician, who is not here to help the healthy, but here to help the sick. He asks Peter and his disciples to continue his work. He asks us to continue his work today. And when we can diagnose something that keeps people down, keeps us from knowing each other and knowing ourselves; keeps us armored up, numb, and therefore not open to God or His love for us and what plans He might have for us, maybe He asks us to reach out to people where they are. Maybe he asks us to open ourselves up and help others connect to us and to Him.

And maybe we need to use every tool, every language, every means that He has given us to help do that. It’s a sacred call, to love our neighbors. And to love them, we have to know them, and know ourselves.

There are different paths to come to faith. I know my own did not involve the Bible until it did. And that has begun one of the coolest lifetime adventures there is. And our paths also involve finding God in all of creation, in other people, and in books, some of which are obvious, some of which are subtle, but all of which are part of God.

At our best, maybe we are called to synthesize secular and sacred texts, or to view everything as sacred, seeing with the eyes of a Creator who loves his Creation. Maybe we can create a language and a vision with room for both. I appreciate folks like Rev. Arianne Rice, who in her practice is both an Episcopal priest and a certified Daring Way instructor, bringing together Scripture, faith, social work, research, vulnerability, and empathy. And who may be able to help us, and others, do the same. It’s cool to see Christ Church Charlotte offering classes, lectures, and an evening with Brene Brown; Stonebriar Church in Texas talking about healing from shame; and the Episcopal Church and United Thank Offering talking about return, practice, and gratitude, citing Brown’s work. The point here is not about Brown, but about cases where churches are looking to engage their congregations and communities by being open to new ways of thinking about connection, empathy, vulnerability, and how to be neighbors. It doesn’t change our sacred calling, it engages it on the ground.

I have so much to learn from so many different people. And so much to learn about God’s love, and grace, and Word. And I am grateful for all those in the arena, trying to do God’s work , through their unique gifts, perspective, and place in the world.