Chaplain's Corner

A few months ago a nurse contacted me with a very important question, “What do we do with the sadness we carry? And especially what do we do when it gets to be too heavy?”  Many of us work with people, support people and care for people who suffer with chronic conditions that just don’t get better. Week after week, month after month, sometimes even year after year we come and go, we care, we have compassion, we support with services but nothing ever gets better – there is only the steady and predictable decline.

This reality is not unique to nurses and other health care professionals. It is a reality experienced by husbands and fathers, wives and mothers, brothers and sisters, pastors and neighbors – by anyone who is connected with a person who is suffering with a chronic and degenerative disorder of the body or the mind. The same reality can be experienced by those who are in relationships with people who bear deep emotional scars left by some kind of abuse or neglect.

One of the realities that we must confront as we find ourselves in this kind of caring relationship, regardless of our role, is the fact that such situations challenge one of our core beliefs:  Everybody deserves a comfortable life. I come from the United States where in it’s Declaration of Independence we find these oft quoted words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  Although this is an American document, this belief that all people are created equal and that we are endowed with the inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness provides the ideological foundation for this belief that everybody deserves a comfortable life.

So when we find ourselves in relation with people who don’t have a comfortable life, who will never have a comfortable life, who live everyday with physical, mental, emotional, realities that do not resolves themselves, regardless of the efforts expended by the individual and those who come alongside to help – what happens within us? We become anxious, angry, discouraged and these burdens can weigh very, very heavy on our minds and hearts. This reality challenges a core belief and we have no answer for it, or the answers we do have sound hollow and do not even come close to satisfying the screams of our hearts. For myself, I have dealt with many times both personally and professionally. This reality that some burdens can not be lifted from the back of those who bear them is a reality that I come to live very intimately. So what do I do with it?

First, I have had to deal with my belief that we all deserve a comfortable life. Frankly, I don’t understand the reality of suffering in its particulars:  why one person suffers so much and the next person seems to suffer so little. From my observation there is no correlation between living a good life and being free of suffering. Some of the best people I know suffer the deepest and some of the worst people I know suffer very little.

Let’s be honest suffering is quite random. From a human perspective, you will drive yourself insane if you attempt to come up with a formula to explain human suffering. Even Christian folks are hard pressed to explain suffering in the particular. O, I can give you the theological explanations for suffering but the moment I try to apply the broad theological principles that  explain suffering to the particular suffering I confront, everything gets crazy and it leads to judgment, condemnation and excuses for withhold compassion, none of which do I see in the response of Jesus to suffering. So, in all honesty, I have abandoned the belief that we deserve a comfortable life. This change in belief provides me with a foundation to live and care in the reality of constant, chronic, degenerative suffering.

Secondly, I have had to deal with the reality of the limitations that exists in any context of care. If chronic, degenerative suffering is a reality that we should expect to find all around us and that we shouldn’t be surprised when it touches us personally; then we also have to be prepared to realize that in every context limited resources are available to address the suffering. The resources in most cases can not end the suffering, they can only mitigate the impact of the suffering to some extent – that mitigation will always be less than we think is needed.

A person suffering with Multiple Sclerosis, or who has progressive rheumatoid arthritis, or that was born with a birth defect, or that was injured in an accident and left a paraplegic, or any of the other hundreds of causes of physical, emotional or mental chronic suffering may be fortunate to live in a place like Canada where there are services, or may have been born in the back country of China where there are no services. The person may have a family that is compassionate and dedicated or the person may have a family that has abandoned them completely. But even where there are optimal services, they are never enough, they always fall short of doing what we want – relieving the suffering completely. Why – because no amount of services can elevate the suffering. I must accept this fact.

Finally, I must reckon with the boundaries of my ability to care. We all have boundaries, necessary and important boundaries that limit the extent to which we can care. We often cross those boundaries and surprisingly, crossing the boundaries does not alleviate the suffering significantly and in many cases repeated crossing of the boundaries often leads to burnout and end up exacerbating the suffering because they result in the withdrawal of care.

These boundaries are necessary because we are all responsible to many relationships and if we don’t respect the boundaries of those relationships, then we end up doing harm in one relationship because we are doing too much in another. It is when we understand and respect the boundaries of care in our many relationships that we can maintain the long term caring relationships that we desire.

So how does all this help me stay engaged in caring in the many caring relationships of my life without burning out? Well, by dealing with the belief that we all deserve to be comfortable, I put to death the false expectation that suffering should not be part of life. Suffering has been, is and always will be a part of life as long as we live in this world. When I realize that the care I give is not insignificant, but at the same time it will never be all that the person needs, I learn to live within the limits of my capacity to help and understand that the capacity of all those who would help will never be enough to end the suffering. Finally, by recognizing the boundaries that are inherent in the relationship and the importance of respecting them for the sake of all the people I am in relationship with and responsible to, I am able to accept that what I do is important, but that there is much I can not do. It is then that I can care and yet relax and not be consumed and overwhelmed by the needs that surround me.