Bearing Witness

.I read an article in Wired magazine in titled: “Why Is It So Hard to Believe in Other People’s Pain?” that has stuck with me.  The article discusses an idea put forth in a 1985 book The Body in Pain:  The Making and Unmaking of the World by Elaine Scarry – “To have great pain is to have certainty, to hear about pain is to have doubt.”  I cannot stop thinking about how this sentence sums up so much of our human experience.

The article discusses how quickly we can dismiss someone’s physical pain as easily as dismissing their emotional pain.  It also discusses how we get caught in the pain validation cycle whereby everyone’s comparing their suffering to others suffering to determine whose suffering is “valid” or whose suffering is “worse.”  I have told my kids to stop complaining because they “are not Syrian refuges” and therefore have nothing to complain about.

We know that losing a child is more devastating than losing a distant relative, but who are we to determine if someone else’s pain is “real” or “worthy?”  How do you compare losing a beloved dog to losing a co-worker?  Or someone who has chronic headaches to someone with arthritis?  Or someone whose brother is battling addiction to someone who’s upset their family member refuses vaccination?

The article says people who feel like their pain has been dismissed typically react by becoming MORE emphatic about their pain.  However, this approach decreases the likelihood they will be believed because the listener will feel they are being manipulated by someone who is “just being dramatic.”  Then, the person in pain will lash out to cause the other person pain by shouting, isolating themselves or resorting to physical violence.  So instead of sharing the load, the total amount of pain grows.

The expression of pain is, “a plea for witness, a request to be paid the simple courtesy of belief.”  Witness is an interesting word choice.  The United Church of Christ’s Justice and Witness Ministries mission is “to speak and act prophetically through community mobilization, leadership training, issues education, public witness and public policy advocacy.”  I am encouraged that our church has a foundational goal to bear witness to the injustices happening in our world.

Our recent workshop “Practicing Compassion” was critical to my rethinking the best way to approach someone else’s pain.  If someone is drowning in pain, the best way to help them is not to jump in so you can drown together, but instead to offer a lifeline, while you are standing safely on the shore.  I know it’s hard.  So many of us want to jump in and do something.  If we can’t do something, then there wasn’t anything worthy of our time and should be dismissed.

As our facilitator so elegantly discussed, there is a middle ground, where we are witnesses.  Witnesses aren’t called to action (necessarily), but instead to be people who “see.”  And that is what’s so important.  We all want to be seen.  So, I’m going to work more on being a witness to the others’ pain and less on passing judgement on the pain’s worth.

Creator,Help us to bear witness to other’s pain.  Help us to articulate our own pain.  Help us to know that you are good and with us always.  We don’t have to say the perfect words or do the perfect thing.  We just need to be with our people, wrapped in your love.Amen

Michelle is a wife, mother, sister, and friend, a chocolate and coffee lover, reader of books, listener of podcasts, and a travel enthusiast.

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