Every day we encounter people who are hurting, living with grief and pain, a trauma that stems from suffering. As both a minister and one of those people who has suffered, one of the more frequent questions I get asked is about what we can do to help those who are hurting. Although there’s so much to say that space will not allow for, I do want to discuss one response concerning listening.
What I want to discuss stems from my experience as a minister of the gospel and my personal experience. Most people who know me also know that my wife and I lost our first child, Kenny, who unexpectedly passed away three days after his birth on August 2, 2002. Like anyone who suffers such a loss, the road of grief we have walked was very difficult but has eased in ways over the years.
More recently, I have started reading more about trauma and the way that trauma impacts the lives of people. The more I read about trauma and its impact on people, the more I realize that I’m also reading about my wife and me. The awareness of trauma wasn’t even on our horizon when our son passed away, but I can look back and see how traumatized we were (and sometimes still are). We’ve obviously survived, but I wonder if the journey of learning to live with grief would have been less difficult if we could have seen the trauma we were living with.
I say that because I also wonder how many others suffer in some way, whose suffering is even more difficult because they are unaware of how trauma affects their lives. I also wonder how much more difficult the suffering of others is because we don’t recognize and attend to the trauma affecting the lives of those who suffer.
When I speak of suffering, I do so broadly to include the death of children and the loss of others. People can also suffer from divorce, health problems, domestic abuse, poverty, racism, etc. Regardless of the source, the commonality of the suffering I have in mind is the kind that seemingly paralyzes a person’s life. The suffering is so profound that it consumes life in ways that words cannot adequately describe. As Billman and Migliore write, “Acute suffering creates an abyss of speechlessness for the person in pain.”1
Such suffering is the kind that can slowly destroy life. And yet, as I mentioned at the beginning, most of us probably encounter at least one person a day who is enduring this suffering. So what can we do? How can we attend to the trauma of suffering that others live with?
We don’t need a degree of any sort to listen…We just need the compassion that flows from the grace of God.
The answer begins with our ability to listen, which leads to empathy for those suffering and living with trauma. This listening posture is what Jennifer Baldwin describes as a “hermeneutic of empathy” that allows for understanding. Such empathy does not require us to share similar experiences of suffering. As Baldwin writes, “If we allow ourselves, we can feel into the affective experiences of people whose lives are very different than our own but with whom we share the common struggles of life, love, hope, faith, oppression, and survival.”2
Listening to understand and gain empathy is not always easy. Some people don’t listen well, period. Others may listen but want to solve the problem, compare one traumatic event with another, or even worse, theologize about God and the problem of evil. None of that is helpful. One thing we can learn from the book of Job is that his friends did well when they wept with Job and sat with him in his suffering. Everything went terrible the moment Job’s friends opened their mouths and began to theologize about his suffering.
Once we can learn to listen to understand and gain empathy, a new space opens. Baldwin writes:
When we can abide in and remain present to the realities of traumatic experience and response, we open a space of authentic compassion and care for the parts, individuals, and communities among us who viscerally know the pain of traumatic violation3
Being present in this manner means listening without judgment, even if we might disagree. Listening to understand and gain empathy does not require agreement on theology, politics, cultural issues, etc. What listening does is love. That is, when we listen and learn, we are loving and can learn ways we might love in other tangible ways.
I can’t speak for those who have endured terrific illness and injury or those who have experienced divorce, racism, etc. But I’m confident I can speak for everyone who has lost a child and say we never get over such a loss. We learn how to live with the loss of a child, which takes years because we don’t have any other choice if we’re to keep living. Along the way, I have had much help, and that help came from those who were willing to listen.
We don’t need a degree of any sort to listen in the manner I have described above. We just need the compassion that flows from the grace of God. And by the way, if we want people who suffer to really believe that God loves them and is with them in their suffering, then the onus is on us to be the listening presence of God.
Kathleen D. Billman and Daniel L. Migliore, Rachel’s Cry: Prayer of Lamen and Rebirth of Hope, Cleveland: United Church Press, 1999, 105.
Jennifer Baldwin, Trauma-Sensitive Theology: Thinking Theologically in the Era of Trauma, Eugene: Cascade Books, 2018, 87.
Ibid, 121.