Curious Compassion #11
How Challenging Stories Strengthen Compassion
In the past couple of years, I’ve developed a love for memoir as a genre. I’ll admit that as a writer, I'm a little ashamed to admit it took me so long to fall in love with it. But if I’m keeping it as painfully real as I try to keep it here, I haven’t always been interested in other people’s stories. And when it comes to my precious reading time – I’ve been most interested in either fiction that scratched an itch (like romance) or self-improvement. It’s taken the slow, deliberate, invisible work of God to get me to a place where I recognize that the stories of others are essential to the very things I’ve chased: a deeper understanding of self, and others, and the deeper connection that naturally follows.
Over the years, God has used my desire for self-improvement to build an awareness of my own sin and my own deep need for grace. An ever-maturing cycle of awareness, repentance, and mercy from God has helped splinter the log in my eye that impeded a right view of compassion.
My personality has always lent itself to categorizing. I “right” and “wrong” most things, so my primary compassion blocker has been judgment. And, at 17 when I accepted Jesus as my savior and also accepted what I thought was the only way to be a follower of Jesus, the pridefulness in my “good girl” heart increased. I yearned for a God who was wild. A romancer of my soul. But most of the voices I was listening to back then seemed bent on straight lines and developing the self-righteousness in me. So I wrestled what I thought were meager sins to the ground and wondered why everyone else couldn’t just do the same. I knew very little about grace and understood even less about what other people were experiencing.
So what does any of this have to do with reading more memoirs?
“Shoulding” all over the place
A few weeks ago I was lamenting to a friend about how little I’d read this year. Most years I’ve tried to get somewhere close to 20 books completed during the course of 12 months. But this year, I’ll be lucky if I get to 10. Partly, this is because I’ve had less time. But also, the books I’ve chosen, I’ve felt compelled to let settle; as they’ve felt somehow more connected and more influential to my writing work than ever before. Of those books, those that have lingered most in the corners of my consciousness have been memoirs.
Life narratives that differed starkly from my own and at times (to my horror, but not my surprise) brought all of my “shoulds” to the surface. I questioned why someone made the choice they did when they could have easily just have…fill in the blank – and saved themselves and their loved ones a lot of trouble. It was in those moments of questioning that I was tenderly reminded that God is faithful to use our choices – yes, even the poor ones – to bring about His purposes. And furthermore, He’s shaped each human differently through culture, era, time, love, and lack thereof. I’m grateful for God’s gentle rebuke as I’ve read or listened to these books.
All of this reflection on reading and my reactions to stories have gotten me thinking about how powerful the medium can be when it comes to growing our compassion. Just like muscle strength, compassion requires being challenged in order to develop. Perhaps we quite readily feel compassionate towards a certain person who’s lived through experiences just like ours, but not one who made that particular decision. As with muscles, if we lift the same weight over and over again our body composition will stay exactly as it is. It’s only when we increase the weight, that we begin to feel challenged again and our bodies respond and change. Hearing and reading stories that are unlike ours, challenge us where we’re ignorant and illicit changes to our hearts. For me, memoir has been a tool that God has used to bring heart change this year. But there are of course lots of tools God uses to develop greater compassion within us.
Compassion requires intentional closeness
If you’ve ever had anyone speak ill of a close family member or friend something probably rose up in you that doesn’t always happen. Your defenses went up and you were immediately in the fight, even when your loved one may not have known what was being said against them. It’s something that only happens when we know people and understand something about them that others don’t. We want what’s best for them and what’s more? We want to believe the best about them. Mostly we don’t have this defensive reaction when it comes to strangers. We aren’t close enough to build a connection with them, so we’re fine with people making negative assumptions about their character or using stereotypes to define them. It takes intentionality to change this. It’s what Dr. Terence Lester refers to as becoming “proximate” to others. When we do this, our tendency to “otherize” people begins to fade.
Maybe you’re someone who makes plans for the new year regarding what you’ll read, what ministries you’ll get involved in, and projects you’ll begin or finish. As our year nears a close, I’ve listed a few questions to help us create plans for compassion building in 2024.
How have I been ministered to the most profoundly? Is there an opportunity for me to share that same blessing with someone(s) else?
How am I currently suffering or struggling? Do I know someone else who might be experiencing something similar? (note that this does not need to be the same exact circumstance, but perhaps the same emotional experience)
What type of volunteering would push me out of my comfort zone and into the lives of someone(s) whose life looks very different than mine – but is still deeply loved by the Father?
How might I put myself in a position to frequently encounter stories unlike my own?
Recently, there was a devastating fire here in Los Angeles that destroyed a section of a major freeway. It’s caused an infrastructure that was already busting at the seems to break down even further with frustrating delays and chaotic commutes. The comment section of this November 12 post caught my attention as an anthem of accusation played against the unhoused.
We may find out, weeks from now, that the fire was started by someone unhoused. Or maybe we’ll find out that it was lit by a serial arsonist. However, the assumptions shared in the comments section felt like an example of how quickly we can make assumptions about those we have not formed a connection with.
I recently had the opportunity to chat with my friend Anna Rachel Bolch, on her podcast, For Your Formation. We talked about how our early faith walks shaped our thoughts on Compassion, how those thoughts have evolved, and how we might engage in ways that maybe aren’t as “iconic” as Mother Theresa’s, but are meaningful nonetheless.
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I've felt that same pull towards compassion and empathy when reading memoir (and even some fiction, too!) And I love the reflection questions you shared, I think I need to journal through them!