One of my first volunteer experiences as a retiree was to support the work of the International Rescue Committee (IRC). Founded at the behest of Albert Einstein, a rather famous refugee, the IRC is one of 10 resettlement agencies in the United States that serves alongside the federal government in helping people who are displaced from their countries by war, violence, or persecution.
My husband and I showed up at the IRC office to deliver items arriving refugees needed that had been donated by neighbors, friends, and my church, the Tallahassee Fellowship. While unloading the donations, we learned a refugee family needed assistance delivering items to their apartment on the other side of town. I still remember that drive as being when I fell in love with these dear people.
They have since moved to Seattle, Washington, where we visited with them a year ago. We stay in touch and their family will be adding another daughter soon, to be born in October. This sweet family from Afghanistan heard on national news in Seattle about Hurricane Helene that was scheduled to impact Tallahassee and was so kind as to send their loving thoughts and prayers.
The youngest adult family member, our friend Bashir, asked how we were doing in “our new small village,” referencing our move from Tallahassee to the Mysterious Waters community in Crawfordville.
Historic storm destruction
“Small village” seemed like an apt description. Mysterious Waters is a lovely “small village” whose residents do their best to take care of each other during times both good and bad. While most of us followed the mandatory evacuation for Wakulla County as Hurricane Helene approached, everyone was eager to return home to help neighbors who might have suffered from the storm.
Much to the shock of everyone I have spoken with, the hurricane was not nearly as devastating in the capital region as it was in its onslaught at the thrice-hit in 13 months Steinhatchee and Cedar Key areas. And equally destructive as it went on to defy odds, gaining momentum and devastating rainfall overland, inundating areas with unprecedented destruction that reached far and wide throughout the southeast.
Hurricane Helene storm has created historic death and damage, with more than 200 dead and 600 unaccounted for across six states as of Thursday morning. And it falls at a time when the suffering in the world seems to be at an all-time high.
Challenges amid Rosh Hashana
The ongoing war in Ukraine presents a unique challenge to Jews who desire to celebrate the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashana, on Oct. 2-4, at the grave of 19th-century mystic Rabbi Nachman of Breslov in Uman. 14,000 pilgrims arrived for the celebration despite warnings against coming.
Rosh Hashana itself comes at a time when Israel is facing missile attacks from Iran in retaliation for strategic attacks from Israel on Iranian military officials, and many of our Jewish brothers and sisters around the world, still mourning Oct. 7, 2023, feel challenged to express the joy, hope, and celebration that the Jewish New Year encourages.
The political rhetoric in our country could seemingly not be more divisive and disheartening, creating great suffering. Families and friends have been torn apart by the harsh rhetoric and the binary thinking that pits one against the other with little room for discourse or compromise.
Those who have studied the data of our divide and who are trying to evaluate the prospects of our coming election with open hearts and minds, warn that it could result in unrest and violence. Such uncertainty creates both anxiety and suffering as those of us who wish to be a part of the solution struggle with what we might do to make things better.
The meaning of compassion
Greater Good Science Center suggests that we humans are a profoundly caretaking species.
Dacher Keltner, a professor of psychology at UC Berkeley, the founding director of the Greater Good Science Center, and the scientific director for Pixar’s movie about human emotion, “Inside Out,” shared in an interesting brief video on the Greater Good website.
In 1871, Charles Darwin, who sadly lost a beloved 10-year-old daughter, wrote a book about the place of suffering in human experience. In sharing from his deep experiences with this profound loss, Darwin wrote that “sympathy or compassion is our strongest human instinct.”
“DailyGood: News that Inspires” at dailygood.org is a portal that shares inspiring quotes and news stories that focus on the "good" we can find in our world daily along with a simple action to continue that goodness. In a DailyGood email post, Keltner writes that the word “compassion” literally means to suffer together.
Compassion is defined as the feeling that you get when you are exposed to the suffering of another and feel motivated to relieve that suffering.
How we respond to suffering
It is where I believe many of us find ourselves in this week that has known more than its share of human suffering. In an interview between Krista Tippett of “On Being” and Episcopalian priest and professor, Barbara Brown Taylor, Tippett reminds Taylor of words she had written years ago about human suffering.
Taylor said, “Deep suffering makes theologians of us all.” And Tippett continued the interview saying, you also said, “The questions people ask about God in Sunday school rarely compare with the questions we ask while we are in the hospital, or some other crisis.”
As we contemplate the ongoing wars in our world and the displacement of people who like us are simply trying to live their lives well, the coming of holy days, “days of awe” as they are known, during a time of such suffering and killing, the brutality of a storm whose devastation is unmatched leaving people feeling hopeless, the political unrest that threatens to undo us, we are asking tough questions about life and its meaning. Tough questions about suffering and how to find meaning in it.
I am not talking about who or what is responsible for the suffering and why, as much as how we can respond to the suffering that visits us at various times in our lives, and in the moment seems to be prevalent in many places and people. How can we acknowledge the harm done, experience the real feelings associated with the harm, and find a way to make peace with our suffering?
My wise counselor says he knows that as humans we all suffer and that there can be meaning in suffering if we are able to sit with it and discern its meaning. It is senseless suffering that he finds difficult. And too many of us have had to endure senseless suffering this very week.
My mentor, Frederick Buecher, through his many helpful books, wrote about being a steward of pain and suffering. Rather than burying the pain in an effort to hide it or making a spectacle of the pain to center attention on ourselves, we steward the pain by facing it, owning it and trying to do something redemptive with it.
Darwin said sympathy or compassion is our strongest human instinct. In our suffering there is a profound capacity for resilience and hope. And I pray from small villages to large ones, we will find ways to do something redemptive with our suffering and pain in our common humanity.
The Rev. Candace McKibben is an ordained minister and pastor of Tallahassee Fellowship .
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: We can address suffering with compassion, action | Candace McKibben
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