"Tremble, Tremble, Tremble"

Good Friday

April 18, 2014

Most of today's reflection is what you'd expect from any Good Friday message, but then, all of a sudden, is a question I've actually spent a lot of time examining from multiple angles and worrying over.  I won't write down all of that because this is the first glimpse of Internet access my apartment has produced all day and I don't know if it will last, but the question is this:

"How do we retain a sense of compassion without developing compassion fatigue?"

I have reached that point with one friend -- the point where you are just out of compassion for their problems and the situations in which they first find themselves and then obsess over.  I had to cut ties.  I couldn't see another way out, and I was getting increasingly rude without that compassion.

And I've hit smaller flash points with others -- running out of compassion for one specific problem that I don't perceive the person as taking any steps to correct.  My mother thinks I have a failure of compassion for a certain young man with whom I think she is fast reaching the point of compassion exhaustion.

And I worry about it with my students.  This was a trying week, and I think about two incidents.  A student of mine was complaining about the homework assignment, demanding why why why and why again they had to do it.  And I remembered a phrase I had heard once about resorting to the "Because I said so" response -- that it's what parents say when they are too tired to treat their children like people.

So I made the effort and decided to explain -- exhaustively, as it turned out.  But then later in the week, another student tried the same thing and I did snap, "Because."  It took me a moment or two to calm down and say, "The real answer is..."

But that's what worries me about hard weeks and my endurance for the teaching profession.  Compassion fatigue.  Compassion exhaustion.  Aren't we supposed to find limitless reserves through the eyes of Christ?  Or is that little voice in my head that reminded me of that phrase at just the right moment instead of an hour later the voice of God stepping in?  Is that, and the quick slap of regret for the second student, the most we get in the way of divine help?  I suppose it would be a lie to say that it wasn't enough.

Just a moment to remind us of the choice before us -- to show compassion or not.  Because I think when most people fail to show compassion it is not a willful choice so much as a failure to recognize that choice.  They don't see the other path.  And that only gets harder as you get more and more tired, I think, rather than easier because you've seen the path of compassion before.  It starts to feel like a trap, like no way out, or like you haven't made a real difference.  Or you're just too tired and involved in your own things to recognize the choice.

So sometimes, perhaps, grace just looks like a well-timed memory bobbing to the surface.

It's a little thing to offer on Good Friday, when the ultimate sacrifice was made, but perhaps the only way to show our gratitude for the grand gesture is following the prompting of the small voices a little more often.