Pity

In an article in The Atlantic, Derek Thompson explores “How Anxiety Became Content.” He reveals that this new “genre” on social media is surging. The TikTok hashtag #Trauma has more than six billion views and over 5,500 podcasts have the word “trauma” in their title. Thompson suggests that our consumption of such material may be backfiring. He writes:

Darby Saxbe, a clinical psychologist at the University of Southern California, said that for many young people, claiming an anxiety crisis or post-traumatic stress disorder has become like a status symbol. Saxbe said, “I worry that for some people, it’s become an identity marker that makes people feel special and unique. That’s a big problem because this modern idea that anxiety is an identity gives people a fixed mindset, telling them this is who they are and will be in the future.”

On the contrary, she said, therapy works best when patients come into sessions believing that they can get better. That means believing that anxiety is treatable, modifiable, and malleable—all the things a fixed identity is not.

She went on to say, “I’m very pro-therapy. ... But we may have overcorrected from an era when mental health was shameful to talk about to an era when some vulnerable people surround themselves with conversations and media about anxiety and depression. This makes them more vigilant about symptoms and problems, which makes them more likely to problematize normal daily stress. In turn this makes them move toward a (mindset) where they think there is always something wrong with them that needs their attention, which causes them to pull back from social engagement, which causes even more distress and anxiety.”

David Brooks writes in The New York Times:

Rabbi Elliot Kukla once described a woman with a brain injury who would sometimes fall to the floor. People around her would rush to immediately get her back on her feet, before she was quite ready.

She told Kukla, “I think people rush to help me up because they are so uncomfortable with seeing an adult lying on the floor. But what I really need is for someone to get down on the ground with me.”

We all need someone to get down on the ground with us. This is what God has done for us in Jesus Christ.

In 2001, Diane Granito founded the Heart Gallery, a unique program that uses photography to help find homes for older foster children, sibling groups, and other children who are traditionally difficult to place with families. A prominent art gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, donated space where more than a thousand people came opening night. The photos on exhibit were the end result of the photographers' attempts to coax out the unique personalities in hundreds of children—a great contrast to the typical photos attached to a child's file. "They look like mug shots," said one of the photographers of the typical case photos. "This is an opportunity to just portray them as kids in their environments," said another involved. "We're treating this as a living, breathing project."

Since its inception, the Santa Fe project has inspired 120 more Heart Galleries across the United States. In some places, the adoption rate after an exhibit is more than double the nationwide rate of adoption from foster care. Such photography earns a description worthy of its roots: photography in Greek means "to write in light."

Those who work to find foster children adoptive families are used to rubbing up against the public perception that most foster children have serious emotional and behavioral problems. Sometimes, though not always, it is an accurate perception. And a picture offered in a different light does not change the child it portrays. But an image of a troubled child at play does offer the accurate light of hope.

Possible Preaching Angles: God the Father adopted us as his children when we stood in the worst of all possible lights. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. That is to say, as Christ died for the sins of the world, he held dear even the pictures of us at our worst. But now God the Father views us in the light of Christ himself.

Ernie Johnson Jr. is at the top of his game as a sportscaster for Turner Sports and CBS Sports—the lead TV voice for Major League Baseball (TBS), the host of Inside the NBA (TNT), and a contributor to the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament (Turner and CBS). He is also a faithful Christian and a father who has adopted children, one of whom has special needs, a boy named Michael.

When Cheryl, Ernie's wife, was introduced to then three-year-old Michael, he had a club foot and was unable to speak. When she called home to share her experience, and said she would wonder what had happened to the boy for the rest of her life, Ernie told his wife to "bring him home."

Later, Michael was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy, and now at 26 he is attached to a ventilator and uses a wheelchair. Yet though his care has been both extensive and expensive, Ernie and Cheryl Johnson have not shrunk from the challenges or resisted new ones. Ernie says:

Some people can be driven by going on mission trips, digging wells for kids who don't have water. Everybody's wired differently. This is one of the ways we're wired. We have this heart for adoption. It's rooted in our faith, our Christian faith. We're instructed to care for orphans and widows. We don't want credit. We don't want pats on the back. We're getting a heck of a lot more out of it than they are.

Jean Vanier, a Christian leader who founded L'Arche communities around the world for persons with severe disabilities, tells a story about a 76-year-old woman named Francoise, also known as "mamie." Francoise had serious mental and physical disabilities. She was blind, bedridden, and incontinent. She could not feed or dress herself. She was unable to communicate through words. And yet the entire staff of this L'Arche community followed the words of Scripture and showed Christlike love for "mamie."

But showing unconditional love wasn't always easy. One of the staff assistants, a young man called "Louis," was assigned to take care of mamie. Louis was disappointed because he did not feel drawn to her. Faithfully, as he was asked, he fed mamie, but he found it tiresome. Then one day, she placed her hand on his hand and smiled. It was, he said, a special meeting, a moment of transformation, a moment of grace. From that moment on, he loved being with her. What he had found tiresome and difficult became a blessing. Love had made all the difference.

Then one day a woman came to visit the director of that same L'Arche community. As the visitor watched mamie struggle through life—weak, blind, voiceless, powerless to feed or dress herself—she offhandedly asked the director, "What's the point of keeping Francoise alive?" The director looked at the visitor and said, "Well, madam, because I love her."

In 1901 a seven-year-old Indian girl named Preena escaped from a Hindu temple and sought refuge with a Christian named Amy Carmichael, a young woman who had come from Ireland to share the gospel in India. According to Preena's story, her widowed mother had dedicated her as a child to be "married to the gods," which ultimately meant a life of prostitution. The traumatized child, whose hands had been branded with hot irons as punishment for a previous escape, had heard Carmichael talking about a God who loves everyone. After checking into the details behind Preena's story of alleged abused, Amy Carmichael concluded, "Investigations not only confirmed [the child's story], but unveiled an evil greater in its extent and more grievously unholy in its character than ever imagined."

On the spot, Amy Carmichael made up her mind. "Since these things are so," she said, "I must do something about it!" Later she wrote, "I mean it with an intensity I know not how to express, that … such unutterable wrongs … in the name of all that is just and all that is merciful should be swept out of the land without a day's delay."

For Carmichael, Preena's escape launched a 50-year career in intercepting and retrieving girls and babies from a "life" worse than death and giving them a home. It eventually led Amy and her associates to discover little boys being trafficked too and to expand their rescue efforts to include them. Today, over one hundred years after Amy Carmichael launched her ministry, the Dohnavur Fellowship is still rescuing children who are at risk and would otherwise be trafficked or on the streets.

A sad soul will kill you quicker, far quicker, than a germ.

—Author John Steinbeck

Triple-platinum rapper and producer Eminem is known for his violent, controversial lyrics. He vents on everything from his unhappy childhood in a single-parent home to his contempt for various celebrities and the mainstream media. His songs frequently defame others, including his family members.

Eminem raps about his mother being welfare dependent, a drug addict, and sleeping around with many different boyfriends. He calls her a horrible mother, and says that he hopes she burns in hell. His mother, Debbie Nelson, doesn't take it to heart, though.

"That's just artistic expression," she says. "He's very sad on the inside. He is hurting a lot. And I can see it. I can see through my son. I know him like the back of my hand."

Victoria Ruvolo, 45, of Lake Ronkonkoma, New York, was selected as the "Most Inspiring Person of 2005" by Beliefnet, and for good reason. Victoria was driving to her niece's voice recital when she passed another car driven by 19-year-old Ryan Cushing. Cushing was riding with five other teens, and had just used a stolen credit card to go on a spending spree. One of their purchases was a frozen turkey, which Cushing decided to toss into oncoming traffic. The 20-pound projectile smashed through Ruvolo's windshield, crushing her face.

Amazingly, Ruvolo survived, although she spent 10 hours in an operating room while doctors repaired her face. When she finally went home, she brought a tracheotomy tube and endured months of painful rehabilitation.

On October 17, 2005, Ruvolo attended Cushing's sentencing and asked his judge for leniency. Part of her statement read:

"Despite all the fear and the pain, I have learned from this horrific experience, and I have much to be thankful for…. Each day when I wake up, I thank God simply because I'm alive. I sincerely hope you have also learned from this awful experience, Ryan. There is no room for vengeance in my life, and I do not believe a long, hard prison term would do you, me, or society any good."

Cushing, who wept and expressed remorse for his action, was sentenced to six months in jail. He could have gotten a 25-year prison sentence if Ruvolo, his victim, had not intervened.

Ruvolo added:

"I truly hope that by demonstrating compassion and leniency I have encouraged you to seek an honorable life. If my generosity will help you mature into a responsible, honest man whose graciousness is a source of pride to your loved ones and your community, then I will be truly gratified, and my suffering will not have been in vain…. Ryan, prove me right."

While picking up provisions for a weekend trip, author Donald Miller describes what happened as he stood in line at the grocery store.

At the checkout counter, the lady in front of me pulled out food stamps to pay for her groceries. I had never seen food stamps before. They were more colorful than I imagined and looked more like money than stamps. It was obvious as she unfolded the currency that she, I, and the checkout girl were quite uncomfortable with the interaction. I wished there was something I could do. I wished I could pay for her groceries myself, but to do so would have been to cause a greater scene. The checkout girl quickly performed her job, signing and verifying a few documents, then filed the lady through the line. The woman never lifted her head as she organized her bags of groceries and set them into her cart. She walked away from the checkout stand in the sort of stiff movements a person uses when they know they are being watched.

On the drive over the mountain that afternoon, I realized that it was not the woman who should be pitied; it was me. Somehow I had come to believe that because a person is in need, they are candidates for sympathy, not just charity. It was not that I wanted to buy her groceries; the government was already doing that. I wanted to buy her dignity. And yet, by judging her, I was the one taking her dignity away.

Patricia L. Miller, a former hospital staff person, writes:

While at work in the emergency room, I learned to stop crying at the pain around me. Each day it seemed I was becoming insensitive to people and their real needs. Five years of emergency room exposure had taken its toll.

Then God intervened.

I was taking information for registering a young woman who had overdosed on drugs and had attempted suicide. Her mother sat before me as I typed the information into the computer. The mother was unkempt and bleary eyed. She had been awakened in the middle of the night by the police to come to the hospital. She could only speak to me in a whisper.

Hurry up, I said to myself, as she slowly gave me the information. My impatience was raw as I finished the report and jumped to the machine to copy the medical cards. That's when God stopped me—at the copy machine. He spoke to my heart so clearly: You didn't even look at her. He repeated it, gently: You didn't even look at her.

I felt his grief for her and for her daughter, and I bowed my head. I'm sorry, Lord. I am so sorry.

I sat down in front of the distraught woman and covered her hands with mine. I looked into her eyes with all the love that God could flood through me and said, "I care. Don't give up."

She wept and wept. She poured her heart out to me about the years of dealing with a rebellious daughter as a single mom. Finally, she looked up and thanked me. Me …the coldhearted one with no feelings.

My attitude changed that night. My Jesus came right into the workplace in spite of rules that tried to keep him out. He came in to set me free to care again. He gave himself to that woman through me. My God, who so loved the world, broke that self-imposed barrier around my heart. Now he could reach out, not only to me in my pain, but to a lost and hurting woman.

The attractiveness of pity and the ugliness of self-pity are unarguable. Yet we live in a society in which self-pity far exceeds pity. The excessively popular genre of literature, the celebrity autobiography, that smotheres us in self-pitying subjectivism is the unpleasant evidence that we may be the most self-pitying populace in all of human history. Feeling sorry for yourself has been developed into an art form. The whining and sniveling that wiser generations ridiculed with satire is given best-seller status among us.

A young boy, on an errand for his mother, had just bought a dozen eggs. Walking out of the store, he tripped and dropped the sack. All the eggs broke, and the sidewalk was a mess. The boy tried not to cry. A few people gathered to see if he was OK and to tell him how sorry they were. In the midst of the words of pity, one man handed the boy a quarter. Then he turned to the group and said, "I care 25 cents worth. How much do the rest of you care?" (James 2:16) points out that words don't mean much if we have the ability to do more.

Pity is one of the noblest emotions available to human beings; self-pity is possibly the most ignoble. Pity is the capacity to enter into the pain of another in order to do something about it; self-pity is an incapacity, a crippling emotional disease that severely distorts our perception of reality. Pity discovers the need in others for love and healing and then fashions speech and action that bring strength; self-pity reduces the universe to a personal wound that is displayed as proof of significance. Pity is adrenaline for acts of mercy; self-pity is a narcotic that leaves its addicts wasted and derelict.