Sensitivity

A pastor and his family on an early morning flight had been delayed for hours and were feeling sleep-deprived and anxious. As the plane landed, another family behind them attempted to exit quickly, with the teenager rushing ahead. The pastor shares:

I stuck my arm into the aisle to block the rest of the family from passing, like I was Gandalf in Lord of the Rings. “None shall pass.” “We’re all trying to get off this plane,” I said to the family, “Let’s wait our turn!”

They had words with me that I cannot share here and pushed past my arm. I was fuming.

As the passenger disembarked, a flight attendant approached, explaining that the teenage girl had been experiencing a panic attack and needed assistance. The family had been trying to help her. The family was not rude; they were desperate.

How did I, a former chaplain trained to notice physiological signs of stress, miss that this young lady needed help? How did I let my core value of courtesy block my capacity to see what was really going on?

I was operating out of assumption and unable to see reality. Rather than see that this young lady needed help getting off the plane, all I could see was a family rudely skipping the line, and I must intervene.

Whether we move toward self-righteousness or self-protection, the common denominator is self. This is what every follower of God has in common: We get caught up in ourselves, we get triggered, we forget others, and we forget the Lord.

Silinia Pha Aphay was sprinting in the preliminary Olympic rounds of the 100-meter dash event, when something unexpected happened.

Aphay, who ran for her native Laos, must have felt a sense of solidarity with the other runners in the preliminary rounds. Alongside sprinters from Turkmenistan, Niger, Paraguay, South Sudan, Palau, and Congo, Aphay was not expected to contend for a medal, but simply to enjoy the prestige of competition and serve as an inspiration to others in her nation.

So, when she crossed the finish line, and heard the crowd reacting in dismay, she immediately turned around and saw one of her competitors, Lucia Moris of South Sudan, laying on the ground in agony. Without pausing, Aphay ran back to console her fellow racer, who was shrieking in pain and holding her right leg.

“We are athletes,” Aphay said. “All 100 meters athletes have to know how being hurt feels. And this is a big competition. It’s a big dream to come here. But you get hurt here. So, everybody knows the feeling.”

Ultimately, Aphay couldn’t do much to physically assist Moris. “Just cry out,” she told Maris. But she stayed with her fallen friend until medics came and placed her on a gurney.

“I can only share her pain.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

When we are present with those who are suffering, we model the love of Jesus, who reached out to the afflicted and downcast.

Sometimes, all it takes is a minor inconvenience to ruin your whole day. It has been revealed that the most stressful time of the day is 7:23am. On average people will experience three dramas each day, with the first drama of the day typically happening by around 8:18am. These stressful situations could be anything from being stuck in traffic or waking up late, to spilling things on clothing, and tripping in public which are also likely to make people feel foul.

The research found that tiredness, an interrupted night's sleep, and a busy day at work were among the top causes of such dramas. Zuzana Bustikova, a spokesperson for a wellbeing brand, said: "Often when we think 'drama' we think big, but the research shows how much of an impact seemingly small niggles can have on our daily moods.”

According to the survey, the following are some of the top everyday “dramas” adults experience:

• Getting stuck in traffic
• Spilling something down clothing (food, drink, make-up, toothpaste)
• Waking up late and being late for work
• Struggling to find a parking space
• Forgetting bags at the supermarket
• Public transport being cancelled
• Sending a text message to the wrong person
• Checking your bank balance and having less money than you expected
• Clothes you want to wear being in the wash
• Realizing an email you thought you’d sent is in your “drafts”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Taking small steps to build our emotional resilience, even on those difficult days, can make a huge difference in helping us live life to the fullest. For a Christian these small steps can include having a regular quiet time with God every morning. This will center our thoughts on him and give us resources to meet life’s frustrations and stresses that are inevitable each day.

Puerto Rican rapper Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, also known as Bad Bunny, recently opened the telecast of 2023 Grammy Awards. It was the first time a musical act that does not primarily speak or sing in English was featured in such a prestigious timeslot. As a result, many Latin American people beamed in pride at seeing someone from their culture (or one adjacent to theirs) be represented on such a big stage.

But one particular detail caused a stir in the immediate wake of the telecast. Viewers responded in real time on social media platforms to the way that Bad Bunny’s performance was captured by the live closed-captioning text at the bottom of the screen. His words and music were not transcribed, but rather described simply as “non-English.”

This was a disappointment for viewers hoping to see a live transcription of Bad Bunny’s Spanish lyrics, considering that he’d been nominated for Album of the Year. That oversight was particularly galling, according Melissa Harris-Perry of WNYC, because it was so avoidable.

Harris-Perry said, “Bad Bunny does not generally or ever perform in English, right? I mean, this should not have been a surprise.”

Dr. Bonilla is director of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies (at CUNY), and a guest of Harris-Perry’s podcast . Bonilla says that Bad Bunny is so important to Puerto Rican audiences in part because of his refusal to cater to English-speaking audiences, which is causing the industry to change.

Bonilla said, “Okay, you're making history here. For the first time, you have a Spanish language act nominated for Album of the Year. This is the largest streaming artist in the world. You know that he sings and speaks only in Spanish. Do better, Grammys.”

The good news is that this is less a function of malice than of lack of planning or intentionality. Hopefully, the Grammys will be ready the next time they feature a Spanish-speaking act so prominently in their telecast.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Language is one of the ways that we define and reinforce culture. The church can also be sensitive to this and welcome other language speakers into God's family. We can assist in that mission by accommodating the languages of vulnerable people with less power or influence.

Viola Davis has been hailed as one of the greatest actresses of her generation. According to one film critic, watching her act is to watch someone draw on “private hardship” and then “witness a deep-sea plunge into a feeling.” Davis claims that there is one memory that defines her “private hardship.”

When she was in third grade, a group of boys made a game out of chasing her home at the end of the school day. They would taunt her, yelling insults and slurs, throwing stones and bricks at her, while she ducked and dodged and wept.

One day, the boys caught her. Her shoes were worn through to the bottom, which slowed her down. The boys pinned her arms back and took her to their ringleader, who would decide what to do with her next. They were all white, except for the ringleader. He identified as Portuguese to differentiate himself from African Americans, despite being nearly the same shade as Davis. Unlike her, he could use his foreign birth to distance himself from the town’s racism: He wasn’t like those Black people.

“She’s ugly!” he said.

“I don’t know why you’re saying that to me,” she said. “You’re Black, too!”

The ringleader screamed that he wasn’t Black at all. He punched her, and the rest of the boys threw her onto the ground and kicked snow on her.

Davis went on to be nominated for two Oscars. But she realized that not only had she remained that terrified little girl, tormented for the color of her skin, but that she also defined herself by that fear. All these years later, she was still running. … Davis’ early life is dark and unnerving, full of bruises, loss, grief, death, trauma. But that day after school was perhaps her most wounding memory: It was the first time her spirit and heart were broken.

Lacking the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, modern society is looking for new, innovative ways to help make people more empathetic. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, whose company sells the Oculus VR headset, said of virtual reality (VR): “One of the most powerful features of VR is empathy. By cultivating empathy, VR can raise awareness and help us see what’s happening in different parts of the world.”

The hope and promise of VR is that one day everyone will call it an “empathy machine”:

By creating an immersive and interactive virtual environment, a VR headset can quite literally put you in someone else’s shoes. Text, image, or video offers only partial views of a person’s life. With VR, you can get inside their head. And this high-fidelity simulation, the argument goes, will make us better people by heightening our sensitivity to the suffering of others. It will make us “more compassionate,” “more connected,” and ultimately “more human,” in the words of the VR artist Chris Milk. ... By lending you the eyes and ears of someone suffering, tech helps you to develop a greater sense of responsibility for them. You feel compelled to act. This is connectivity not merely as a technical concept, but a moral one.

This expectation is partially explored in the movie Ready Player Two, released in November, 2020. More advanced VR--actually placed inside the brains of most of the world’s population--has rid the world of crime, disease, addiction, and all forms of prejudice. As one of the film’s characters says: “For the first time in human history, we have technology that gives us the ability to live in someone else’s skin for a little while.”

Ian Marcus Corbin from Harvard Medical School has interviewed numerous stroke patients. He observes that far too many stroke patients "consign themselves to a more private, solitary life in the wake of a stroke, not out of practical inability, but out of shame. This shame is an old American disease, whose current-day symptoms, including an ‘epidemic of loneliness’ and rising ‘deaths of despair,’ are becoming impossible to ignore."

He also said,

Post-stroke isolation is one more symptom, badly compounding the damage done by stroke itself ... Studies show that stroke patients’ networks tend to contract in the wake of a stroke. Why? The causes are not perfectly clear, but we can say this: Too often in America, we are ashamed of being weak, vulnerable, dependent. We tend to hide our shame. We stay away. We isolate ourselves, rather than show our weakness.

Sometimes medication can help stroke victims overcome their shame. But Corbin concludes, "The better healing would be to teach stroke patients, to teach ourselves, that interdependence is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s our birthright, and the source of some of our deepest strength."

In a wide-ranging interview with GQ, artist and style icon Pharrell admitted some regrets surrounding his extensive catalog of hit songs. This is especially regarding the massively popular and extensively criticized “Blurred Lines,” featuring Robin Thicke and rapper T.I. The 2013 hit song was criticized as being misogynist and catering to rape culture, despite the fact that a woman directed its accompanying music video.

Williams says the controversy left a big impact on him:

Then I realized that there are men who use that same language when taking advantage of a woman. And it doesn’t matter that that’s not my behavior or the way I think about things. It just matters how it affects women.

My mind opened up to what was actually being said in the song and how it could make someone feel. Even though it wasn't the majority, it didn't matter. I cared what they were feeling too. I realized that we live in a chauvinist culture in our country. Hadn't realized that. Didn't realize that some of my songs catered to that. So that blew my mind.

Potential Preaching Angles: When we’re willing to admit when we’re wrong or when we’re ignorant about a topic, it allows us to consider the needs and perspectives of others. This helps us to become more like Jesus.

Their hearts may be on their sleeves, but their tattoos are under them. While participating in the 2019 Rugby World Cup, the manager of Samoa’s men’s national rugby team required his players to don special sleeves to cover their tattoos. The edict complied with an advisory statement by World Rugby, issued as part of the sport’s cultural awareness program. Manager Va'elua Aloi Alesana said, “We have to respect the culture of the land we are in wherever we go. We have our own culture as well, but we are not in Samoa now.”

When asked to elaborate, Alesana clarified his stance further:

There are some training venues that have allowed us to show our tattoos and some places where we can't, and for those places, we've been given “skins” to wear to cover our tattoos. The extra skins are only for when we go to the pools though. At the training we can wear our normal clothes.

It might not have been an easy choice for the players to follow, because tattoos are a revered aspect of Pacific Islander culture. But in Japan, they are often associated with the Japanese organized crime syndicates known as yakuza.

In the run up to the tournament, coach Steve Jackson consulted Japanese cultural experts to ensure players respect and appreciate the local culture. As a result, team captain Jack Lam was on board. Lam said, “It's quite normal in our culture. But we are respectful and mindful to what the Japanese way is. We will be making sure that what we are showing will be OK.”

Potential Preaching Angles: Respect for others means understanding your own culture and being willing to adjust when you visit other places. The call of Christian discipleship involves the practice of laying down our own preferences for the sake of others.

In the wake of the destruction from Hurricane Harvey (2017), Americans rallied to provide aid and relief. But not all of the "help" actually helped. Some of it led to more complications and burdens. In an Acton Institute Powerblog disaster relief expert Juanita Rilling said, "Generally after a disaster, people with loving intentions donate things that cannot be used in a disaster response, and in fact may actually be harmful." For instance, she continued, "People have donated prom gowns and wigs and tiger costumes and pumpkins, and frostbite cream to Rwanda, and used teabags, 'cause you can always get another cup of tea."

Following 1998's Hurricane Mitch, Rilling recalls finding loads of boxes on an air strip that were filled with winter coats (it was summertime in Honduras). Likewise, after the disastrous tsunami of 2004, beaches in Indonesia were so filled with donated clothes that the donations were eventually set on fire due to oncoming rot. After the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, American mothers donated breast milk, not thinking of the challenges of keeping it fresh.

Possible Preaching Angles: Poverty; Poor People; Social Justice; Injustice; Missions—This story serves as a perfect example of "when helping hurts." The intentions may be good, but the strategy is not effective because the donors have not listened to what the recipients really need.

R. C. Sproul shares the story of a college student he once taught who had cerebral palsy. You know what that looks like—spastic movements and garbled speech. But as is often the case, this student was very bright and capable. Sproul writes:

One day he came to me vexed with a problem and asked me to pray for him. In the course of the prayer, I said something routine, with words like, "Oh, God, please help this man as he wrestles with this problem." When I opened my eyes, the student was quietly weeping.

I asked him what was wrong and he stammered his reply, "You called me a man. No one has ever called me a man before."

There are 21,800 patients per year who receive chemotherapy treatments in Louisville, Kentucky, and most lose their hair. When Lynette LeGette discovered this, it brought her to tears. She also learned that patients complain about being cold during the night and wrap pajamas or towels around their heads to keep warm. This gave Lynette an idea, but a challenging one. She said, "I thought I couldn’t possibly meet that need. It seemed an overwhelming project."

Lynette’s project was to create turbans for cancer patients who lost their hair. Some of her first creations were sent to a mother in Kansas. Lynette made the woman many caps for both winter and spring. Later, when Lynette met the woman’s 7-year-old daughter, the girl ran up to her, wrapped her arms around her legs, and said, "You made my mom so happy, —she has a hat to go with every outfit."

Lynette is known as the Hat Lady. Lynette is a modern day Dorcas. She says, "When you ask the Lord what you should do, you need to be willing to listen for the direction and recognize the opportunities he gives you."

Lying takes serious thought! That’s the conclusion of neuroscientists at Temple University. According to the Chicago Tribune, “With brain imaging technology, they can see how a lie sparks activity deep in the limbic system, the center of emotion and self-preservation. The lie gathers support from the memory banks in the left and right temporal lobes and then makes a dash to the frontal cortex, where a decision is made to suppress what the brain knows to be true.”

Researchers see this technology eventually replacing the polygraph— lie detector— test, which is only about 90 percent accurate. It is based on accelerated heart and breathing rates which some liars can control. Brain activity would be much harder to mask.

Dr. Scott H. Faro says, “Lying is a complex behavior…. There’s more activity and more interactions that occur during a lie than in truth telling.”

God made telling the truth natural to us, but ever since Adam and Eve our minds have been working overtime in our attempts to lie.

The December 2004 tsunami disaster in Southeast Asia has brought former presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton together for a common purpose.

The presidents toured the disaster area in a government plane. The plane had only one bedroom and another room with tables and chairs. Clinton offered the bedroom to the 80-year-old Bush.

The next morning, Bush came out of the bedroom to find Clinton asleep on the floor of the plane.

"We could have switched places,” Bush commented, “each getting half a night on the bed. But he deferred to me. That was a very courteous thing, very thoughtful, and that meant a great deal to me."

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.

A Christian man suffering with a complex and painful condition called Fibromyalgia, sent a letter to colleagues and friends offering ideas on what a suffer needs and doesn't need from those around him.

Living with chronic pain is like being in a room where a radio is playing at too high a volume, and it can't be turned down or off. It can very distracting and prevent me from focusing on conversations or tasks.

I can look fine, even when pain has me close to tears. Because my symptoms aren't (usually) visible, I'm nervous about what others believe about my health. When you say, "But you look fine to me," I wonder if that means you don't believe I don't feel fine.

Chronic pain is variable. I can't predict how I am going to feel when I wake up—I can't even be sure from minute to minute. As you can imagine, this is one of the most frustrating aspects of chronic pain.

Disability-related depression is common, and I proactively manage it. Sometimes it feels as if my life was hit by a tornado when I wasn't looking. Sometimes I feel grief and sadness for what I can no longer do. Sometimes I forget how strong I am and how much I still have to offer you, my family, friends, and the world. I'm not giving up on me, and I hope you won't either.

I know you want to help by telling me other people's success. Aunt Gertrude's bracelet or your boss's chiropractor are probably terrific. But in all likelihood if you've heard of or tried it, so have I. I have an excellent team of doctors.

When I mention my pain or chronic illness, please don't "skip" over it or look away. We don't have to discuss my health constantly, but I can't ignore it all the time either. Bear with me, accept me as I am, and try to understand my situation. Please grant me the same respect and faith as I make my way down this road I didn't choose but must travel.

In 1994, South African photojournalist Kevin Carter won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography. The photograph that brought him fame depicted an emaciated Sudanese child crawling toward a feeding center—under the hard stare of a nearby vulture.

The image, which so powerfully captured the horror of famine-stricken Sudan in the early 1990s, drew international attention to both Sudan's suffering and to Kevin Carter's career. But with Carter's acclaim came the questions. People wanted to know—what had happened to the child? After snapping his camera, what had Carter done to help the dying child?

Painfully, Cater admitted that after spending about 20 minutes framing the shot, he had simply walked away. Within two months of receiving journalism's most coveted award, the 33-year-old photojournalist took his own life.

Kevin Carter had been raised in a devoutly religious home, but he had long since left his upbringing behind. Now he'd seen too much of the world's suffering, and he could no long cope. He parked his pickup truck near where he had played as a child, attached a garden hose to the exhaust pipe, and breathed in the fumes. "I'm really, really sorry," he said in a note left on the seat beside him. "The pain of life overrides the joy to the point that joy does not exist...."

Dr. Warren Cooper, a Christian, works as a surgeon with Samaritan's Purse in southern Sudan. The suffering Warren has seen among his patients is indescribable. And yet, after five years in a hospital that has been called "a living history museum of pathology," he has no plans to leave.

How does Dr. Cooper cope?... For Warren, the field of medicine allows him to live out his Christian faith—not just in word, but in deed. "I think it'd be very hard to continue doing this if your didn't have a sense of ultimate meaning to what you were doing," he says.