Empathy/Sympathy

King James Bible - 1 Peter 4:15

But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men's matters.

I have learned from being around misery, that it loves company.  There is nothing more depressing than sitting with someone who is clearly depressed and finding yourself so emerged in their plight and dilemma that you go through the same emotions that they are experiencing.  You begin to push back your plate and take up a lamentation.  The problem is that you can destroy the complete joy that exist in your own life.  The sun could be shining, the flowers blooming and the honey bees dancing, but you are locked inside someone else’s life where the sky is gray and doom is despair.  You have to learn to empathize and not sympathize.  When you empathize, you understand as if you are in their shoes, but you don’t take ownership of any of the pain.  In sympathizing, you own some of the pain.  You allow yourself to cry with the one who is crying.  You grieve with those who grieve.  You rejoice with one who rejoices.  Empathy comes in when the consequence is a part of a chain of choices that you did not make.  Someone who buys a home that they can’t afford will one day be faced with losing that same home.  You can empathize, but the feelings of loss that accompany the ill fated friend must be owned by them.  It was not you who made that decision.  I believe that people must learn how to bear the consequences of their own actions.  If that means that they no longer will ever be what they were in your life, than let the chips fall where they may. It pains us that some relationships end the way that they do.  They are supposed to end that way. It is the consequence of the actions of the person’s who are involved.  It is what they agreed to.  It is what they volunteered to put up with.  I will understand that you have no money, but will not step in to give you any when you decided not to work or to marry someone who would not work.  I will understand that you are sick, but I will not feel sorry for you if your illness is a part of a chain of bad choices like smoking or drugs.  I will empathize that you are in prison and that must be tough, but if it is a chain of choices, I cannot bear that for you.  That you must continuously and always bear yourself.

---

 

Why they came

I am here sitting by the window of my room looking at the afternoon sun pouring over the parking lot.  The University is in the corner of my view.  It has been there since I was eighteen in some capacity.  It is, to this point, the greatest defining moment in my life.  Not just the town, but the whole experience of the town.  As a matter of fact, over twenty-two thousand people come here every year just for that University.  They are attracted to that place.  I realize that people come for different reasons and the reasons why they come can tell you the kind of person they are.  It also tells you the kind of place you live in.  Where I live, people come because they have some sort of intellectual prowess.  They come on probation.  If you can’t make the grade, then you will soon find yourself back where you came from.  It is a portal of which, if you can make it through it, you are granted access to a new and wonderful life.  There are those who come because they can be of service to those who come.  They take the jobs working at the University and are often offered a chance to come through the portal as well.  Some take it and some remain on the peripheral edges of attainment completely content with where they are.  They come understanding that there is a waiting list for those positions.  Those who are foolish leave.  So when I look back at the type of people who are here, I see a trend.  We are educated, hard working, cultured, and a bit uppity.  We have no ghettos and no slums.  We are generous, but we don’t give a lot of second chances.  It is a hard city to come to unless you came with an agenda and a plan.  Now, that leads me as to why people come to me.  Do they come because they see value in me?  Do they come because they see dollar signs?  Do they come because  they need my endorsement?  Do they come because they want my praise?  I ask myself, “Why are they coming to me”?  The answer is always so interesting.

---

 

Hope Deffered

From Clarke's Commentary

Hope deferred maketh the heart sick - When once a good is discovered, want of it felt, strong desire for the possession excited, and the promise of attainment made on grounds unsuspected, so that the reality of the thing and the certainity of the promise are manifest, hope posts forward to realize the blessing. Delay in the gratification pains the mind; the increase of the delay prostrates and sickens the heart; and if delay sickens the heart, ultimate disappointment kills it. But when the thing desired, hoped for, and expected comes, it is a tree of life, עץ חיים ets chaiyim, "the tree of lives;" it comforts and invigorates both body and soul. To the tree of lives, in the midst of the gardens of paradise, how frequent are the allusions in the writings of Solomon, and in other parts of the Holy Scriptures! What deep, and perhaps yet unknown, mysteries were in this tree!

---

New Great Expectations

Today, I had a student for which it was her birthday.  She was old enough to really start enjoying some freedom, yet on the eve of such a great event, she lost her freedom.  When I asked her why she chose to do what she did, she said that she wanted to spend her birthday with someone special who has not been in her life for years.  I don’t think she can even pick this person out of a lineup if her life depended on it.  While she chases the life she wanted, she was ruining the life she has.  I began to think of all the dreams and visions I had as a young woman.  I don’t regret that because I needed those dreams.  They kept me living until some cruel reality and some truth settled in.  I am not a baby and I can handle it.  I realize, that to a certain extent a great number of my dreams were specific to a place in my life that I am no longer at.  I simply outgrew them.  At one point, I dreamed of being like my peers, but then one day, I could care less about my peers.  Now, I have to let go of the life I thought I wanted to live and simply live the life I have.  I ripped open the hope chest and gave myself a bit of hope.  My goal is not to save something wonderful for a place in my life, but to enjoy something wonderful every day of my life.  And I expect to live a long, long, long time.

---

 

Get your foot off my neck

I am thinking of freedom, which is such a loose word nowadays.  I hear it talked about like all you  have to do is be free.  I liken it to a dog chained to a fence, just inches away from his food bowl.  The person says be free and eat until you are full, but they never unhook the chain.  Someone with some sense, goes to the dog and unhooks the chain.  Now the dog can be free.  Talk is cheap. It is easier to say to someone, "be free", but you still have them in situations that enslave them to your benefit.  Freeing a person, sometimes means that you are allowing them to walk away to your detriment.  I remember being in a situation where someone in my life greatly benefitted from my poverty.  She wanted me to be free within the boundary that kept me a bit inferior to her.  She wanted me free, but not completely free, well, Jesus came and set me free.  He cut through all the red tape and set me free.  He set me free indeed.

Now

This morning, I was assessing my life and I realized that I had a lot of it in bottles.  I had tons of bottles.  I had shoes that I had not worn, purses I had not carried, and wigs still in the bag.  I had clothes with the tags on them and cd’s yet sealed.  I was acquiring life, but not utilizing life.  I was buying stuff and storing stuff.  I made the decision that I was going to die empty.  I am going to leave it all on this earth.  I can’t take none of it with me.  When I die it will be packed up and shipped off to the Goodwill.  No one will be concerned if it ends up  on the back of a queen or tramp.  It only exist for now.  I have prepared for the future, I have reconciled the past, but Lord help me live in my now moments. 

---

Sharecroppers

Once upon a time, in the United States, we employed people to be sharecroppers.  The land owners who owned the land in slavery, still owned the land after slavery.  They employed the ex-slave to work the land and the profits were split between the owner and the ex-slave.  It sounded nice, but at the end of the day, the slave was so much in debt with the owner, that they never rose above it.  They just exchanged one set of chains for another set of chains.  When I became a Christian, I was snatched out of darkness and into the marvelous light.  The day after I became a Christian, some well meaning church mother gave me a list of things that I could not do in order to remain saved.  I went from one prison to another prison.  I was bound in sin and then I was bound in legalism.  The rough thing about legalism is the mind control that it has over you.  I forfeited some of my God given rights because I was working for my salvation.  I remember saints who never took a vacation, did not know how to attend a wedding, had never worn a pair of pants.  They were misfits and grinning idiots.  One day, I realized that Christ had set me free, but I was not free indeed.  Now, I am free indeed.

---

 

In the company of good friends.

Nothing says fashion like fashion.  When I pick up that great deal, I feel like a million dollars.  Last night, I was with a group of friends and we had a ball trying on clothes and talking about hair.  I was surprised how I was lulled into a place of happiness that I had not known for years.  We were compatible friends.  We had been through some heinous times together, yet we sat like school girls while I twirled in the middle.  I felt good.  I felt comfortable.  I felt like I belonged.  I felt loved.  I liked feeling that way.  Good company always makes you feel that way.  When you leave, you feel like you have not been in a battle trying to maintain your standard amongst those who don’t have one.  When you leave, you don’t feel like you have had to explain yourself.  You leave feeling free, like someone has just cut the chains lose.  Everyone should have the someone in your life that is just good company.

---