A Wrestle With Suffering
Africa, grief, and the bravery to look cruelty in the eye
Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work but neither are you free to abandon it.
~ The Talmud
Photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash
Sunday afternoon, the gritty hands of a child pressed against my taxi window, begging for money. This happens often. Too often. Normally, the taxi driver will roll up his window, curse them out, or drive away, and I’ve grown far too comfortable in diverting my eyes. Ignoring them makes them go away faster, I tell myself. It makes them give up.
Really, it makes them less human. Kept out of my world by simply looking away.
But, Sunday, I looked a child in the eyes, and I saw him. Near tears. Frail. Absolutely devastated, filled with a gnawing emptiness that I soon felt in my chest. I saw him for his fullness. The fabric of his story, whatever it may be, interwoven like the textile of his dusted jeans. And it broke me. I wanted to take him inside the restaurant we’d just come out of, buy him a meal, and let him know he wasn’t alone. Let him know I saw him. Let him know he was human.
But the taxi we’d ordered was pulling up, I justified myself, I don’t want to pay the cancellation fee.
What a silly argument against compassion. As I sat there in the taxi, the child fading from view and the orthodox church passing like a blurred mosaic, I tried to seek another justification. If I had bought this one child a meal, the one in whose eyes I saw his humanity, what about the child at the window? The one sipping mango juice on the corner? What about the others that would inevitably come?
Not enough cash or time in the world would ever be enough.
As I mulled over this fact, one of my favorite quotes sprung into my head. Do not be daunted… it whispers…by the enormity of the world’s grief.
It’s pinned on my iphone home screen. An ever-present reminder as I pursue a humanitarian career. For the longest time, it’s offered me a place of solace. A reminder that some things are out of my control. That I cannot help everyone, though I should wish to. A gentle embrace that reminds me I am not Atlas; lay down the world. You are not obligated to complete the work.
Tetelestai. Tetelestai.
But that day, that wasn’t the part of the quote that stuck with me. Rather, it was the latter half.
Neither are you free to abandon it.
What does that look like, I ruminated as we passed, in contexts such as these? I am not obligated to complete the work, this I know. But neither am I free to abandon it.
The lines often blur. The threshold is so thin. Where does surrendering my Atlas complex end and my wholehearted compassion begin? I cannot use one as the excuse for the lack of the other. I cannot be so calculated, so logical, that I overlook the desperation of humanity simply because it will never make enough difference.
Who gets to decide the difference made? Me? You? Who says we’ve done enough, loved enough, sacrificed enough, wept enough?
I don’t know what I would have done had I bought that child a meal and fifteen other children followed. I am one person. My funds are limited. I am not obligated to complete the work.
But I wish I’d had the courage, regardless. To look him in the eyes, see his humanity, and thereafter offer mine. I wish I wouldn’t have been so calculating that I turned down his call for help simply because more children would come.
Let the little children come to me.
And now I think of home. The homeless men on the corner near our house. Those who curse us out when we walk downtown. The hungry, the sick, the absolutely lost. Those we shield from our lives by diverting our eyes.
Neither are you free to abandon it.
What does Jesus look like to them? Certainly He’s not found in the face of a girl who is so consumed by her comfort that she never truly sees them.
When you were under the fig tree, I saw you.
I wish I’d done better. To be Jesus to them. To love with abandon. With grace. With justice and mercy. Now. I wish we’d all do better. At being kinder. More sacrificial. Less logical. Less consumed with the math and statistics of, what does it matter what I do, it will never be difference enough. For we are not shackled to results, to numbers, to victory, to a reduced rate of suffering, to a bettered world.
Do you not know that?
But we are not liberated from such a task, either.
Do you hear me?
You are not free to abandon the starving child.
You are not free to look away from the war.
You are not free to abandon the broken.
The injured.
The outcast.
The starving.
The thirsty.
The sick.
The dying.
The homeless man around your corner.
The orphan around mine.
Whatever you did for the least of these.
It’s a juxtaposition we cannot control. A reality we cannot change. Can wisdom and compassion go hand in hand? Where does our logicality end and the Lord’s wisdom begin? What does it look like to do justly and love mercy… now?
In whatever context we’re in. To whatever human stands before us.
I don’t think I’ll ever know. I’ll walk that tightrope for the rest of my life. And I will let it break me.
Because I would rather be broken than callused.
Bothered than unfeeling.
Hurt than whole.
I would rather look them in the eye, every single time, and witness their humanity.
Than lose my own.
So, today, friends, let me challenge you to do the same.
Look them in the eye.
Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief.
There’s so much work to be done, and we haven’t the time to waste on calculations. On questions. On teasing out the plausibility of impact and success.
You are not obligated to complete the work.
It belongs to all of us. Until the day tetelestai becomes an ever-present, painless, walk-with-the-father-in-the-cool-of-the-evening, John 16:22 reality, the work is ours.
The task before us.
And you are not free to abandon it.
<3
(All opinions expressed are my own.)