As originally published in the Food, Drink, Clothing, & A Visit newsletter, Spring 2021
For months I have planned to write a feature article for this newsletter on the topic of Empathy. I believe it is such an important attribute a person can have. Empathy can be learned and developed through thoughtfulness and practice.
The need for empathy is particularly acute when those we love experience times of loss. This was never designed to be a “coronavirus pandemic” issue; however, as the timing would have it, the subject of COVID-19 provides a perfect current-events example of the need and opportunity for practicing empathy. Additionally, before we “went to press” with this edition, we see the turmoil around the country surrounding race relations. This also calls on us as human beings to demonstrate empathy toward one another.
What exactly is empathy? and why is it so important? It is easy to confuse the term empathy with the idea of sympathy. They are not the same.
Sympathy indicates feeling sorry for someone; experiencing “sorrow” for them and conveying that emotion, for example, with a sympathy card. Empathy, on the other hand, enters into the other person’s pain and feels it with them.
As of the time of this writing, almost three and a half million Americans have tested positive for the coronavirus named “COVID-19” in what has become a worldwide pandemic with catastrophic health and economic consequences here and around the world. Worse still, nearly 140,000 Americans have died of the virus, according to news reports confirmed through the database of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
Fifty million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits after they were furloughed from jobs due to the economic shut-down created by stay-at-home orders, shelter-in-place rules, and “social-distancing” requirements.
(Without intending to be flip, casual, or cavalier about it all, it occurs to many of us who have been released from prison that “social distancing” is what those inside the walls call “respect for one’s ‘personal space.’” One thing everyone talks about after being released from prison is how unaware people are of how close they get to one another in grocery stores, malls, parking lots, and public spaces. It can be very disconcerting, and more than once I remember thinking to myself, “If you were in prison, you’d get knocked on your ass right now for that!” Well, I guess that won’t be a problem anymore. “Six feet” apart is far — even by prison standards!)
I think of all that has been lost. And I think of how many opportunities there are to show empathy with people who have suffered loss!
People have lost jobs. Seniors in high school have lost their “senior year” experiences (senior trips, graduations, senior proms, senior photos, etc.). The lists seem endless.
Couples have seen lifelong plans for their dream wedding plans destroyed by being postponed indefinitely or cancelled until further notice. Some have gone ahead with “bare-bones” justice-of-the-peace-style ceremonies to be “legal,” hoping for a time in the not-too-distant future when their families and friends can come together to celebrate their union with them.
Guys who were successful at building relationships in prison were those who learned and consistently practiced empathy with their fellow inmates. I have thought a lot about those guys during this pandemic crisis. I am cognizant of how much guys inside have lost.
Visitation privileges have been canceled for more than four months now — with no end in sight. The prospect of COVID-19 running rampant through a prison yard is unimaginably horrible. Yet, this is a tremendous loss for those who have already lost so much.
Schedules and routines — one of the few things you could actually “count on” in prison — have been upended and suspended indefinitely. One inmate told me, “We haven’t been to the chow hall in months. All of our meals are delivered to us on Styrofoam, in our pods, and we eat at our bunks. We get one hour of rec a day. Other than that, we are pretty much stuck in our dorm, hoping the disease doesn’t get to us.”
We recognize and commiserate with such loss. We observe and do not ignore the hurt and pain caused by these tragic, unavoidable realities.
In my experience with and observation of “religious” people, there is precious little empathy with others. We are fairly good at sympathy. Cards, casseroles, and counseling pretty much sum up the average religious response to loss and hurt. These are fine, but I feel we miss many opportunities to share the love of Christ in true empathy.
Recently, when an inmate’s sister died suddenly, our hearts were immediately knit with his heart in empathy. I recalled so clearly what it was like when my Dad died while I was locked up. Words of sympathy were needed for sure. More than that, however, this dear brother needed someone who could enter into his pain and feel it with him. At one point, he wrote me and said, “Thank you for understanding what it is like, and where my heart and mind are concerning my sister and with God. You didn’t criticize me. You understood me.”
I wept. I wish no one ever criticized anyone, ever, for hurting, and for expressing their feelings honestly and openly, but I know it happens. It has happened to me. I have likely done it myself. I want to be a person of empathy, because I believe that’s what Jesus would want.
I know this because that is what Jesus Himself did. As our High Priest, Jesus Himself took on all the same hurt and pain as we ourselves suffer.
Hebrews 4:15 tells us, “[Jesus] understands humanity, for as a Man, our magnificent King-Priest was tempted in every way as we are.”
It is one of the predominant messages in The Shack which I have recently reread. Papa, Jesus, and Sarayu enter into the pain of the main character, Mack. They walk with him through it. They allow him to process it out loud — sometimes angrily and irreverently — and they never criticize him. They understand him. They empathize.
There is often nothing more hurtful than for an empathetic person to not sense empathy from those he loves — especially one for whom he has demonstrated empathy in the past. It can be very confusing for an emotional expression to be met with an unemotional response.
I want to become better at empathy, and I would love to encourage you to work on empathy skills. I once heard that it is more important for a person to have a high E.Q. (“emotional quotient”) than a high I.Q. (intelligence quotient).
We can all become better friends as we learn empathy and practice it with those in our lives.
We can be better accountability partners when we approach those in our support networks with empathy rather than with principles or platitudes.
I would like to invite you to look around. See those in your sphere who are hurting. Contemplate their situations and work to enter into their pain. Then, please consider these thoughts on empathy:
1. Resist the urge to make it “all about me.”
A quick acknowledgement of how we understand because “we’ve been there” is often very helpful. But, when we turn the conversation to ourselves and make it all about us, it can quickly become inappropriate and annoying rather than helpful.
2. Avoid the temptation to compare situations.
I found this rampant while I was in prison. All of us share a common experience having been adjudicated guilty of a crime and sentenced to time behind bars. It is very tempting to compare the severity of our situation with the seriousness of someone else’s. There will always be others who have it better or worse than we have it. That is not the point.
Let me illustrate. I received what proved to be a comparatively minor sentence of five years in prison. When people asked me, “How much time did you get?” and I answered them, “Five years,” the common response was: “Oh, that’s not bad.” Not bad? It felt pretty bad to a Dad facing the reality of missing all of his children’s high school graduations. Needless to say, it was not an empathetic response. It was true but did not reflect care and concern for my reality at the time.
Over the years I learned to empathize with those who had it much better and those who had it much worse than I. I learned that so many of those I came to love had gotten far more severe sentences, and I learned to empathize with them and their reality. It was out of that sense of empathy that justLOT Ministries was born.
It is only when we cultivate a spirit of empathy that we can love and encourage and bless others’ lives with true understanding. The point is, when our friend suffers a loss — no matter how significant or seemingly insignificant it seems to us by comparison — we do well to recognize it is very real to them! In fact, it may be the most painful thing they’ve ever dealt with — even if it would be “minor” compared to our hurt. This is irrelevant. Let us resist the urge to compare situations.
3. Empathy is especially helpful with unhealthy behavior.
The best accountability partners and support network people are those who can empathize when you are unhealthy. When you do not feel judged or criticized, you can hear from another person. When they identify with your momentary (or habitual) unhealthiness and empathize because they’ve been there, too, it humanizes them and gives hope that there is a way “out” of the unhealthy behavior, attitude, or habit.
This is one of the weaknesses of certain styles of preaching. Whenever the preacher is too lofty, too perfect, too “put-together,” it is hard to hear from him. When leaders do not show their humanity, their weaknesses, their fears, their insecurities, their problems, they risk getting too far out in front of the people they purport to serve. It’s high time we acknowledge that we are all human. We all face temptations “common to man.” None of us is above or beyond problems, troubles, hurts, or sin. Empathy acknowledges this without pride or judgment. What a blessing it can be!
4. Empathy does not require a shared experience of loss. Empathy simply makes the effort to understand what it would feel like to experience the same loss.
This is “graduate level” stuff! This shows a great deal of love. This type of empathy puts ourselves into the other person’s shoes, caring deeply, and expresses that care — even if we have not experienced the exact same thing.
Let me illustrate. I met guys in prison who had never had a visit. For some, this was by their own choice. For others, it was because no one on the outside chose to come see them. And, there were those who literally have no one in the world.
In the current environment, it would be very easy to be judgmental or calloused toward those grieving because they have lost their regular visits, special occasion visits, or food visits.
I recently heard from a grieving inmate who shared how devastating this period has been for his children. Not only has he not been able to see them in over four months, his parents (on the outside) are also unable to see the kids because of concerns of spreading the virus. This adds to his anxiety about his children while he is locked up inside. Compounding all of this is a legitimate fear that he will not be able to see the kids before he is released from prison (where under normal circumstances he would be able to see them), knowing that upon his release to probation, he likely will not be allowed to be with his own children for some time.
I hope and pray that those around him are empathetic with his situation and surround him with love and encouragement. I also pray that he is empathetic with those who haven’t seen their children in years and for whom the loss of visitation seems a relatively minor challenge.
Criticism is such an immature response, and it is the exact opposite of empathy. I can imagine someone growling, “I don’t know why he’s complaining about not being able to get a visit. I haven’t had a visit in eight years! What does he want to do? Get us all sick?” (I hope you are not picturing any one particular person as you read that. I hope that does not sound like something you’ve thought or, worse, said out loud!)
I feel this is particularly appropriate with respect to the current racial tensions and protests against injustice. It is foolish to blame all police officers for the heinous acts of one. It is folly to defund the police who truly do “protect and serve.” At the same time, it is ignorant and foolish to say that racial injustice and disparities do not exist. The most effective voices in the arena of this debate are those who seek to understand the other perspective and interact with empathy.
No — violence and destruction cannot be tolerated; murder and oppression are never okay. But no one ever comes to the worst moment in their lives without all of the ingredients that went into making that worst moment possible. Empathy for that person’s upbringing, abuse, absence of love, core beliefs, etc., can go a long way toward healing broken hearts and broken lives.
Toward the end of The Shack, Papa called on Mack to consider the horrible upbringing that led the man who kidnapped and murdered his daughter to commit such a terrible act. He was not asked to excuse it — or even forgive it. Papa simply pointed out that the criminal behavior did not come out of a “bubble,” so-to-speak. He got there through a long series of horrible events in his life, and he perpetuated the terror he personally experienced onto others.
This was maybe one of the most valuable lessons from my experience in prison. It truly serves as the basis of this ministry. As I have said before:
Ministries serve people. Good ministries serve hurting people. Great ministries serve those who have hurt other people.
This comes from a heart of humility and empathy, recognizing that we are all capable of doing what anyone has done.
5. True empathy will do far more listening and far less talking.
Often we feel as if we must talk and share a lot in order to adequately express our empathy with another. This is not necessarily true. Empathy is more about the other person feeling heard, loved, validated, and understood. These come through simply listening intently, hearing attentively, and understanding intuitively.
We do well to remember that our hurting friend is living with the depth of their feelings: grief, fear, disappointment, anger, hurt, etc. When we sit with them we share their feelings by default. We risk “stepping on” our mission of empathizing with them when we open our mouths and start talking, because our feelings may not relate to them.
We should avoid the temptation of trying to “one-up” the other person with our own stories. Our mission, our goal, our privilege, is to share the love of Jesus with the people in our lives. I believe empathy does this in a uniquely effective way.
As we look around the world today, we see so many hurting, disaffected people crying out to be heard, appreciated, and understood. Sincere members of minority racial groups beg for others to try and enter their world to gain understanding and empathy. At the same time, people in law enforcement are perplexed when others do not understand the complexities of their jobs and the challenges they face.
Some choose to exploit the hurt and pain of others by enhancing their political power bases. Our role in all of it is to humbly see and feel with the people involved, and with whatever degree of influence we may have, seek to find areas of common ground that may be used to bridge divides that hurt. This is healing. This is the role of empathy.
Recently, I had a couple issues arise in the lives of my children. The toughest part, as a Dad, was seeking to be quiet long enough to hear and understand so that I could communicate my love and my heart, my position and my advice, with empathy and love.
As a Dad, I was highly motivated to do this for my children. May we all be highly motivated to love the people in our lives in this way. May we learn and practice empathy!