Why compassion is hardest when it's most needed

Letter #34

Photo by Zac Durant on Unsplash

Hello Tom and reading family,

When I first read the title of your last letter, I have to admit I was a little offended. But then I read the letter in its entirety, and I understood where you were coming from.

It’s funny because a friend of mine posted an excellent story as to how some conservative Christians can be. The writer of the story gives all these different scenarios and how the pastor responded. All the scenarios were powerful, but I’ll share one in particular.

“And then there’s the whore sitting among the faithful. And everyone knows her. She sits with a painted-up face, cheap perfume, and a broken heart. And those who sit close, well, they all treat her for what they think she is. And at the last staff meeting, her name came up. Something must be done about her. But the pastor tells me he doesn’t know what to say.”

This is repeated again and again. The pastor doesn’t know what to say.

Then the writer of the story said they know what to say.

“Welcome to the church. This is a place of love and hope and safety and forgiveness. There will be food for the hungry, living water for the thirsty. We are so glad you are here. You are invited. You are loved. COME ON IN- we’ve been waiting on you. Welcome here, we are the church.”

The first thing I want to convey is that many people in the church know there are problems like this. That’s why stories like this are being shared and posted on social media platforms. That’s a good sign. I think many are beginning to wake up. But I also want to say this, let’s be honest, how many of us would really show a prostitute love and compassion? Do we think this is only a problem in the church? The truth is, many of us whether we’re in church or not may fail this test. Me included. This is a human being issue. Now I admit we are supposed to be different, and many in the church are, but sadly, many of us fail.

Behind the scenes you and I have spoken about the sanctimonious attitudes that many people have today. You asked me where it came from, and I told you that the “moral majority” led by Jerry Fallwell in the 1980s probably were the worst when it came to being sanctimonious. We don’t ever stop and consider what that attitude is doing to people that don’t share the same convictions. All it does is alienate. Now it’s being done just as forcefully on both sides of the aisle, and it needs to stop.

Which leads me to address some of your points.

I think one of your greatest assets is the ability to see the duality of people and not judge them for it. You have this trait because you have humility. You also have it because as a young man that’s been all over the world you’ve seen the best and worst in people. You have the maturity to try to understand what got them there. Having said that I am sorry that your coaches failed so miserably in those areas. That’s not a small failure either, it was a very bad one.

To our reading family, let me tell you how these coaches succeeded in doing excellent things for Tom. When Tom started in this program as an 11-year-old he was hurting from the mental bullying from boys in his class. The wrestling program had absolutely no affiliation with the school. The coaches he had really stepped up to instill in him a sense of belonging and really caused his confidence to soar. Not only them but the other boys in the program as well. It really was a family. One day we’ll have to write about the culture of a wrestling program and what it breeds. In all my years of being around sports nothing compares to the kind of parents and young people that it produces. It’s a tough sport and it makes everyone involved tough, too. But in a good way. More on that another time.

But in spite of all that, there were bad failures. I wasn’t aware of these displays you saw Tom. I am really sorry. I think your description of hidden messages was powerful. We as adults in positions of authority always need to be so mindful of the example we are to young people. It’s a huge responsibility that requires a lot of wisdom and sensitivity.

But back to the point of having compassion for conservatives. It came across as somewhat patronizing when I first read the title. There are people that go off the deep end in any group. There are always going to be fringe groups that come up with all kinds of crazy theories. We both know a family member that held to this wild theory. Are you ready reading family? This person believed that the walls around the beltway were put there to stop people from seeing Christians being loaded up on military transport vehicles to go to concentration camps. There was no amount of logic to convince them otherwise.

These types of people do need our compassion. You talk about being controlled by fear! That’s another discussion but for a different day. The point is that most all of this is being controlled by fear. On both sides. That’s why we need to knock down the barriers that stop us from communicating.

I did have to laugh at your comment about conservatives jumping in the pool of paranoia. Because it’s so true.

But onto your points about shaming people and how it does little good. One of the best books I’ve ever read is “How to win friends and influence people.” There is a whole chapter in there about the fact that people naturally do not want to admit their wrong. It’s probably one of the best chapters I’ve ever read in any book. Human beings will fight with every ounce of their being admitting they are wrong. It’s just part of our nature for the most part. So, if this is true and we’re mindful about this, it would do much good in how we approach each other. Most of us don’t have the emotional maturity to consider that we’re wrong or even take constructive criticism. We need to be mindful of that in today’s culture if we’re trying to bring people together. The good news is the book has a whole chapter devoted to how to attempt to change a person’s mind. Needless to say, it won’t get done by brow beating people.

I remember a particular sermon years ago where our pastor was doing a sermon on Father’s Day. For some reason he would save all his vitriol for us fathers on a day that we were supposed to be honored. This went on for years. During this sermon I began to think. “You know something, he had one kid to raise, and we had three. I work OT every chance I get to help our family, we have all three kids in sports, we run all over the place all week for our kids because we love them and want their lives to be rewarding and active. He wouldn’t know the first thing about our struggles and our family challenges and about how hard we work as a family. I don’t need to prove anything to him.”

And I walked out mid-sermon, and it wasn’t long after that we left for good.

The truth is, a lot of us men were getting it right. But it ties into my point and to yours Tom, shaming people more often than not is not the way to go.

I loved your domino analogy. Once these things begin to go and these types of practices stop, bad strategies and practices will begin to topple like dominoes and maybe we will begin to figure out what it takes to make real progress.

Thanks for listening and as always thank you for your thought-provoking letter. Iron sharpens iron!

Love you son.