Journal of Sacred Work

…compassion means a radical understanding of the essential unity between one’s own suffering and the suffering of another. – Daniel P. Sulmasy, M.D., PhD

   "You need to stay busy," a friend once told me when I was feeling melancholy. Frenetic activity is an interesting way to escape suffering. Sometimes, it is also a way to avoid Love. Lots of us seem to be afraid of silence. Dr. Sulmasy (left) offers a reason for this: "In silence before God, there is no place to hide." And, he says, this means pain will surface.
   I have seen this phenomenon many times when I ask large groups to sit with their eyes closed for five minutes. There are many who are unable to do this…

   "When I close my eyes, I get scared," some will say to me. "All of the lists jump up in front of me so that I become more anxious instead of more calm. And all I can think about is trouble."
   It’s tragic that so many of us have lost the courage and the will to face into our own silence. It is a great spiritual practice to sit with our own loneliness because it is through this kind of work that we learn, as caregivers, to identify with the suffering of others.
   Imagine the hundreds of thousands who lie in beds at this moment staring up at florescent lighting outside radiology departments, in ER waiting rooms, or outside operating rooms.The healthy caregivers
who bustle about these folks may have forgotten how frightening it is to feel both sick and alone. As St. Bonaventure wrote: "The strong and the healthy do not suffer as a sick person does and hence may have no compassion with the sick. But they will know it later on when they themselves suffer affliction."
   How can we remember our suffering so that we may stay in touch with the suffering of another? It takes a conscious focus and the practice of meditation. And it takes presence.
   I remember, during many experiences of illness and pain, envying the healthy doctor standing above me and the healthy visitors who strode in and out and out of my room. I also remember the sweet presence of both my mother and father during illness as a child, my father, for example, nearby in the middle of my nausea – unable to stop the physical pain but near enough to relieve the pain of fear and loneliness. Each parent gave me the gift of their presence.
   We can be companions to those in pain. Our presence alone can bring relief. For our loving presence signals to the other that they do not suffer alone.

-Erie Chapman