When I was a teenager, I recall a street preacher from inner-city LA telling me, "unless you are willing to hug someone who looks like they haven't showered for a month, and smells like garbage, don't bother doing homeless ministry." His words cut deep and his point; it was unmistakable. Unless we ourselves are willing to embrace suffering, we have no business trying to alleviate it.
When I talk to student about it whether in youth group, college Bible studies or just my own kids during our night time devotions, I get this sense that seeing and understanding the suffering of others are two different yet inseparable parts of appreciating what it means to suffer. So before I over use the word in this blog entry, allow me to access on online thesaurus to come up with some synonyms: afflicted, ache, agonize, ail, convulsed, handicapped, impaired, wounded, deteriorate, droop, endure, experience, feel wretched, grieve, hurt, languish, pain, sicken, and writhe.
There are probably many more, but this is a good start. The point here isn't to use an elementary composition tool, but to show that suffering can refer to all sorts of afflictions from a handicap, to pain (emotional or physical), to illness, or being at a disadvantage. So many of us endure so much but those of us who don't, well we spend a good deal of our lives in a bubble avoiding suffering, until, finally, it finds us.
A recent Reject Apathy article cites the experiences of a professional photographer and filmmaker drawn to Haiti following the 2010 January earthquake that devastated the sprawling urban city of Port-Au-Prince, killed upwards of 300,000 people and continues to claim the lives of countless others through the cholera epidemic, malnutrition and the resulting infra-structure collapse. While great strides are being made toward rebuilding this country and reports on the news seem hopeful, there is still an enormous disconnect between what we see and what is really the state of affairs in the nation. Rural Haiti is largely forgotten by the media and their own government. Cité Soleil, a major city, is still in dire straights and the largest slum in the Western Hemisphere. Access to medicine, safe shelter, education and clean drinking water still remain the most dire concerns in the nation of almost 8 million people.
Just yesterday, there was an blog article published about crime rates going down in the city of Stockton. A little background on that city: Stockton has cut its police force dramatically. The town is probably one of the hardest hit in the nation by the recession. Forbes repeatedly marks the city as the worst or most miserable places in the country to live. The city has the 10th highest crime rate in the country.
I work on an ambulance there. I see what has happened since cops have been sacked. The homicide rate may not be quite as high in July as it was in June, but we should bear in mind that there are a lot of factors at work in preventing trauma patients from dying. The problem is that when news writers see a decline in crime rates for 1 month, they conclude that perhaps this isn't as big a problem as we once thought. So the public says, "Great! One less thing to worry about. Instead of getting more cops again, let's focus on the warped ceiling tiles at city hall." Although, this is admittedly a straw man, I'm using this hyperbole to make a point.
The problem is that seeing suffering becomes a novelty. Unless we are actually invested in it and digging deep to be involved in the solution, usually leading to some serious personal sacrifice, effectually, all we are is a wealthy tourist giving a little something akin to paying $5 to feed a giraffe at game park. It just isn't enough. We have to be willing to actually embrace that suffering, willing to endure some of it ourselves and lighten the load for others. I believe, that, like the filmmaker in the article, once we are in it, once we start to experience it ourselves, we fight two conflicting desires, to run away and to stay right where we are in the middle of it.
My advice is to take a chance. Suffer a little bit. Give until it hurts. Work until your back aches and trust God to teach you how to be effectual and make a difference.
I invite all readers to comment or ask questions. I am open to all sorts of inquiries, whether on issues of faith or social justice, I would love to discuss these things with anyone. Thank you for reading my blog.
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