Oh wad some power the giftie gie us
to see oursels as ithers see us. – Robert Burns (above – Scottish – 1759-1796)
The dentist, exhausted from a long day of volunteering at a clinic for the poor, had experienced enough. The small boy before him had terrible teeth. "When did you last brush?" the dentist asked.
"It's been a pretty long time," the boy said. "Maybe a month."
"That's ridiculous," the dentist shouted at the boy and his mother. "You should be brushing twice a day, every single day."
The boy looked down. So did his mother. They knew the dentist was right. He had shamed them. "We'll try to do better," the mother said.
After the pair left the clinic, the dentist raged at his hygienist: "Can you imagine a mother letting her son go a whole month without brushing?" he fumed.
"There's something I should have told you," the hygienist said. "That mother and her son have been living in their car."
Now it was the dentist who was humiliated. "Oh my God," he said. "I cannot imagine that."
He's right. How many of us can truly imagine what it's like to be living in the cabin of an old car every day and night week after week?
More than two hundred years ago, the Scottish poet Robert Burns challenged us to see ourselves as others see us. The dentist suddenly saw himself as not a loving volunteer but a harsh judge.
How often do caregivers look down with pity and condescension on the homeless alcoholic, the obese mom, the drug addict? How often do we hear that someone is dying of lung cancer and ask "Did he smoke?" If the answer is Yes, how often do we find ourselves shaking our heads as if to say, "Well, he asked for it." Perhaps, to ease our own pain, we like to think the smoker deserved the painful death he will face instead of experiencing the loving care we have it in our power to offer.
What do you think? How do you fight the temptation to judge instead of Love? I know I have often been guilty of feeling pity instead of compassion. How do you transform your pity into Love?
-Erie Chapman
Erie's movie recommendations for films that help caregivers learn more about compassion:
1) The Reader
2) Slumdog Millionaire
3) Revolutionary Road
Journal of Sacred Work 
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