Lauren Casper - Loving Well in a Broken World: Discover the Hidden Power of Empathy

For John

If we are to love our neighbors, before doing anything else we must see our neighbors. With our imagination as well as our eyes, that is to say like artists, we must see not just their faces but the life behind and within their faces. Here it is love that is the frame we see them in.

Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark

Sometimes people are just so mean! The words tumble out of my seven-year-olds mouth, punctuated by a sob that catches in his throat.

I stare back into large brown eyes framed by thick, wet lashes and feel my heart lurch. I wish I could snap my fingers and fix the world for him.

Yes, thats true, I agree. Sometimes people are really mean.

His tears come with more force. Perhaps he hoped I would tell him he is wrongthat people arent mean, and maybe he misunderstood the kids on the playgroundbut I dont. Instead, I think about all the times Ive been shut down or shut out, all the times Ive been teased or harassed... or worse. I cant tell him people arent mean and the world is lovely, because sometimes people are awful and the world isnt a pleasant place to be.

I rub his back and begin to tell him a few stories from my own childhood, a time that wasnt terrible overall but had its hard momentsbraces, glasses, anxiety, epilepsy, a truly awful haircut, and insecurity. I tell him about being afraid when I saw scary stories on the news about bad people whod committed crimes in our city. His tears slow, and he stares back at me. I reiterate, Sometimes the world is mean, and it feels awful.

His face crumples again and he cries against my chest, What are we going to do?

The question is thousands of years old, but the answer, given by a wise teacher, still holds true...

Love your neighbor as yourself.

I say it softly.

But how?! he wails, and I feel every bit of his confusion and fear deep in my bones.

His question is one I regularly ask myself. How do we love our neighbors in a cruel world? How do we respond when anger breathes fire in our face? How, oh how, do we turn our second cheek when the first is still burning from being slapped?

The temptation is always to circle the wagons, gather our friends close, and lock the doors. Maybe if we close our eyes and ears to the outside world, we can cocoon ourselves within a community that believes and looks and acts just like we do, and well call the people in it our neighbors. Then it wont cost us a thing to love our neighbors as ourselves, because well barely be able to distinguish between our neighbors and ourselves.

But how best to circle the wagons is not the question my son is asking. He isnt seeking an easy way out; he wants to know the practical how-to. He wants to know how to love others in a world that sometimes greets a hug with a punch and a greeting with a curse.

My son wants to know what it looks like to love on the playground when bullies taunt him and tell him he doesnt belong because of the color of his skin. And I wonder what it looks like to love in the coffee shop, in the pews, and on Main Street when confederate flags line the sidewalks downtown. He wonders how to love when another kid breaks his toy, and I want to know how to love when another person breaks my heart. We both want to stop all the pain and the brutality, but we cant. So how do we live and love in the midst of it?

I think it starts with resisting that knee-jerk temptation to circle the wagons. Instead of closing ourselves off, we can dive heart-first into the mess, wrap our arms around each other, and climb out together. In a world gone mad, we can choose to stay in the thick of it and love our way to the other side. We can seek understanding. We can be with instead of against. We can identify our blind spots and ask questions when we dont understand someone elses point of view. We can approach life with humility and courage, leaning into our discomfort and big feelings instead of denying them. We can live and love in a broken world by running toward this thing called empathy.

Empathyto see anothers pain, understand the cause of it, and then feel with them.

The myth of empathy is that it requires shared experience. I dont believe thats true. While it certainly requires more work to empathize with those whose journeys differ from our own, it isnt impossible. It simply requires our effort and a real desire to learn. We may have to look more carefully, expand our worldview, open our ears and homes and hearts, but we can empathize with others, regardless of our differences. We can choose to set aside our fears, judgments, and stereotypes. We can do this. And once we do, we will have taken our first steps on the path to loving our neighbors as ourselves.

Jesus, our wise teacher, said it this way: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 22:3740).

Sometimes the simplest answers are the hardest answers. When everything is falling apart and the world around us is in chaos and we want to know what our part in the solution should be, we instinctively know the answer. The secular world calls it the Golden Rule, and the worlds major faith groups agree on their own version of it.

In 1993, a declaration drafted by Dr. Hans Kng was presented to the Parliament of the Worlds Religions in Chicago, Illinois. He called it Towards a Global Ethic: An Initial Declaration, and over two hundred faith leaders from over forty world religions signed their endorsement.

A quarter of a century has passed since the declaration was first presented and agreed upon by people from every faith and walk of life. Weve seen global terrorism rise, human trafficking continue, and economies rise and fall and totally collapse. Weve seen genocide, civil wars and foreign wars, refugees board overcrowded boats that capsize at sea, and children wash up on the shores of Greece and even our own borders. Weve seen gun violence overtake our schools and homes and streets and malls and movie theaters and churches. Racism continues to infect minds and hearts, and hate still kills. The world is in crisis today, just as it was twenty-five years ago, and still we look to our left and right and ask ourselves, Howdo I live in this mess? What is my role?

We need to go back to Jesus words: love God and love your neighbor.

Just love. Its the answer to everythingall our hurts, problems, divides. So why is it so hard to do? Why is the command to love so easily overlooked? How do we justify our tendency to respond instead with judgment, hate, discrimination, or even apathy? How do we get it so wrong? The clue lies right there in the verse, as were called to love your neighbor as yourself.

Loving our neighbor as ourselves is so much more than just asking, in any given situation, Whatwould I want in this scenario? We know precisely what wed want, because we have walked around in our own skin our entire lives. We know our own hopes, dreams, fears, disappointments, and hurts intimately. We know what touches our hearts, and we also know how to erect walls to keep out the pain. Weve walked a lifetime in our own shoes. But loving our neighbor as ourselves requires a barefoot moment, a vulnerable stepping out of the known into the unknown so we can walk around for a while in someone elses sneakers. To truly understand what it is they want, need, hope for, feel and, therefore, how to love them in that.

Empathy. Thats the often-overlooked key to it all. As we get to know each other, see one another, and hear one another, one person at a time, we will one day find our way back to love.