Cultivating Compassion in the Center of Chaos

 I recently heard a story of an Amsterdam obstetrician who trained nurses in the field. He was asked how he teaches prospective nurses to deal with mothers whose babies were still-born or died shortly after birth. He responded, "I tell them that when you go into the room, you need two eyes. With one you have to check the I.V.; with the other, you must cry. I tell them one eye is not enough. You need two eyes."

It's difficult to imagine the struggle it must be to maintain a professional demeanor at the same time one is overcome with compassion for the pain of someone's loss. Yet, nurses (and doctors) must learn to balance their professional duties with feeling their human connection to another's pain. 

I have found it profoundly difficult at times to maintain "two eyes" in prison. Prison is a hotbed of selfishness, and empathy can be dangerous in prison. As a Christian, I've also found it extremely difficult at times to live out my faith while protecting myself from the dangers of prison at the same time. It takes two eyes. 

Compassion, and empathy, are often seen in prison as signs of weakness. It can also signal that you are either in someone else's business or siding with someone who is experiencing or about to experience violence. Standing up for the weak or vulnerable in prison is very, very difficult. It could put one in grave danger.  

But God calls Christians to stand up for the vulnerable. He calls us to be lights in a dark world, and prison is one of the darkest places I've seen. God doesn't just call us to have compassion from afar, to cry in silence because of the pain we feel for someone. He calls us to step into someone's pain to bring the healing grace of God into another's life. That is not always appreciated in prison, and it could make you the target of violence. 

And so, many people who may come to prison with two eyes, after a while, shut one eye. They learn to walk past stabbings and fights in progress as if they see nothing. They learn to see nothing and to say nothing. They learn to hear painful stories of loss, of death, of abandonment and to stuff down their feral cry against the pain. 

Some who close their eye of compassion are able to open it again, able to see clearly again. Others become blind in that eye, learning to shut out the pain of others. 

Prisoners who are involved in restorative justice, on the other hand, practice seeing with the eye of compassion. They learn to see their own crimes from their victims' perspectives, to feel the pain they caused their victims. They learn to develop an eye of compassion for injustice and to become vocal advocates for justice in every form. 

Yes, living in prison still requires an eye of vigilance, an eye practiced at reading the signs of pending violence and danger. But it also requires an eye of compassion, for those whom we have harmed with our crimes, and for those in prison who suffer. One cannot go a single day without seeing suffering in prison, if one trains his eyes to see rightly. 

Seeing with two eyes is painful, yes, but it is also necessary. In a place where suffering among prisoners is ignored at best, someone must bring God's grace and mercy. Someone must offer hope when all feels hopeless. Someone must "weep with those who weep."

It takes someone with two eyes.

[story adapted from Nicholas Wolterstorff's "You Need Two Eyes" commencement address at Calvin College, 5/20/2006]