Dear Friends
Many years ago, when I was fresh out of seminary and serving a small church outside of Syracuse, New York, I received a call that I will never forget. An accident had just taken place a hundred yards from the church I served. I was new to the area and didn't know the family, but from everything I had learned from my brief telephone phone conversation the accident was horrific involving the accidental death of a child.
I had been informed that a dad was outside mowing his lawn when the blade of the lawn mower struck a rock, became disengaged, and like a missile went hurtling through the air, tragically embedding itself in the skull of his four-month-old son who was outside in a stroller. Seminary had not prepared me for this kind of visit and words often have a way of escaping you when facing a tragedy like this.
As I quickly walked up the street to the home, I wondered what could I ever say to help this family? You see in seminary we had always been trained to know and say the right thing in situations like this. However, at this moment, nothing I had ever learned inside the walls of those counseling classes made any sense to me. I felt powerless to speak and inadequate to minister.
As I arrived on the scene, they were loading the tiny child into the back of the ambulance, and I was informed that all attempts at resuscitation had failed, and the child had been pronounced dead right as he lay there on the front lawn.
Amid the crowd of people who had now gathered, I saw the boy’s dad sobbing uncontrollably as he watched his tiny child being placed into the ambulance. Never having met him I walked up to him and without knowing or having anything to say, I just threw my arms around him and hugged him as tightly as I could. For what seemed like minutes and without a word being spoken, we just stood there tightly holding on to one another as we tasted the salt in one another’s tears. To this day just writing about the experience brings tears to my eyes. I don't remember saying a thing, but I later learned that my embrace and my tears communicated a message far more powerful than any sermon I could ever preach.
A few days after the funeral, he called me and told me how much he appreciated all I had done for him. As I heard his words, I wondered what I had done that was so deserving of such appreciation. I hadn't spoken a word, and in my mind I felt embarrassed that I had been speechless at a time like this. "I didn't do much of anything” I said to my friend. "Oh, yes you did,” he said. “You held me and cried with me, and that meant more than anything you could have ever done or said.”
That day I discovered the power of empathy as communicated through a simple touch. I thought how true the lyrics of the song were made famous by Allison Krause who sings, “You say it best when you say nothing at all.” That tragic episode was one of the greatest learning experiences of my early ministry. It was so reassuring to discover that one doesn’t have to possess all the answers to help someone who is hurting, nor does one need to dispense some empty theological platitudes to help heal a hurting heart. All one needs are a couple of arms, and a heart that is large enough to feel the pain of another’s loss.
Henri Nouwen sums up the power of empathy when he writes “We tend to look at caring as an attitude of the strong toward the weak, of the powerful toward the powerless, of the haves toward the have nots….Still when we honesty ask ourselves which persons in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions or cures have chosen together to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not-knowing, not curing, not-healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is the friend who cares. Quoted from Quotations for The Christian World, Edythe Draper, Tyndale House Publishers Inc.
The world doesn’t need answer men to heal the wounds of broken hearts, just a couple of arms and a heart big enough to feel the pain of another’s loss will do just fine.
Yours in faith and friendship,
Pastor Tom
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