Empathy and humanity

We meant to go to Vietnam to get out of the Northern Thailand pollution. My mom was very sick in January and we wanted better air and a place to be together where she could be healthy.

But things changed swiftly and we canceled our plans and packed up The Millennium Falcon, our old silver station wagon—named so because it is beat up and parts are always falling off, but it just keep on being there when we need it the most.

We tied our suitcases and a cast iron pan to the roof of our car, loaded up with instruments and a rice cooker, and drove two days to get to clean air in the south. Kai will arrive today after a night on the bus, and then we will all be together in this three bedroom house, all nine of us. And a guitar, two violins, a mandolin, a keyboard, a trumpet, a ukulele, and a clarinet. Leggy teenagers, a preteen, one seven year old, a grandma and a grandpa, and a mom and dad.

I keep thinking about how it is so rare for the whole world to go through something like this together. War and refugees of war often feel far away, they are hard to understand or imagine. But viruses don’t discriminate. And here we are, quarantined across the world, more vulnerable than we could have imagined or allowed ourselves to believe.

The other day Chinua said that this experience will form us. I think he’s right. Last year we didn’t conceive of a thing like this, but it will form this generation. 

I think our power is in choosing how it will form us. I have written before about the trees at the coast that lean away from the water because of the constant wind. Water shapes rock. These things surrender to the forces around them, and they are more beautiful because of it. God makes them more beautiful in their surrender.

As human beings, we have a lot of choice about how we will be formed. We can submit to the temptation to blame so that we keep the truth of our frailty at bay (this is what blame does, attempts to get the discomfort of common vulnerability away from us) or we can let this insane situation bend us to a common humanity and empathy.

I want to do this, though I find it very hard. Covid-19 may give us a sliver of a door opening into empathy.

Empathy says “it could be me.” 

There are a million ways to veer sharply away from empathy. It feels scary to think, “It could be me.” So we think comfortably of reasons why it couldn’t be us. Our civilization is better or more practiced at being democratic. We are “less likely” to be violent people. We have been doing things so well. Good parenting, sanctity, health, lifestyle, our good choices.

This keeps our fragility at a distance and means that we’re in control of the world. But truly, it could be me. It could always be me. I could get sick, lose a limb, lose a child, or go to jail for murder if the circumstances suddenly shifted. 

Viruses with their lack of discrimination, strip us down to our commonality: our very human bodies and immune systems, our frailty, the way we walk around in mere skin. We would like to barricade this skin behind steel and fiberglass, but actually this stuff is us. All of us.

This sucks so much. This is terrible and hard. But I am thinking and hoping that the way Covid-19 will form us is in a return to our humanity and all the other things that keep us deeply human. We are not countries, or roles, or income brackets, or clothes. We are bones and cells, minds and chemistry and souls. We are created ones.

We can increase the humaneness of our current suffering by remembering that we are sharing it.

And then we can do thought experiments for empathy by imagining how this connects to someone else’s experience, taking a journey down the road to someone who has it harder. 

If I was a little less able. 

If I was a little more vulnerable to a virus.

(Maybe you are, and I love you, love you, love you.)

My Korean friend suddenly found himself unable to travel anywhere, with many countries denying him entrance despite the fact that he hadn’t even been to Korea in over a year. (This was before suddenly everyone couldn’t travel.)

He said, “It makes me think about the privilege my passport usually gives me. I am not used to being denied. Many people with different passports always find it hard to travel.” 

Oof. This is what I mean by traveling along the path. We find a bridge of compassion for someone else’s situation. 

Blame dehumanizes and isolates us. Empathy humanizes and connects us. In the incarnation, Jesus chose to connect by empathizing, becoming more human rather than less. I am thankful that this choice is in front of me as well. 

Here lately, many Thai people have grown wary of foreign strangers because of the fear of the virus, not knowing whether they have just arrived from Europe or elsewhere that might be dangerous. Since I am not at home in Pai, where everyone knows me, I have found that people don’t greet me happily when I approach them anymore. 

Yesterday Chinua and I went to get groceries, and I realized I am completely unused to so many suspicious looks, to people edging away from me. And then I looked at my Black husband and remembered that all his life he has dealt with wary glances, people edging away, grabbing their purses, or crossing to other side of the street. It gave me the tiniest opening to understand a hard thing. It was one more tiny step on the journey.

We can let empathy and love be the things that form us now. I don’t write this lightly. I haven’t been sleeping well. I feel the weight of keeping my entire family safe sitting on my shoulders. We are vulnerable financially and physically. Sometimes being human means not doing any empathy experiments, just being, allowing every feeling, offering them to God. Maybe you feel like a tiny crushed flower, and that is okay.

And also I know what I need. I need walks and curiosity. I need to write and draw. I need to play with my kids. And I need to surrender to my place in the world. I am not God. I live in my own humanity and lack of control, and I need to surrender to it. And most of all, to surrender to love. I hope you find ways to have this too.

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One of my practices right now will be to write a daily poem. Imperfect, present, curious, observing. Recording. All patrons will be getting these, so if you’d like to join in, become a Patron here. We are all struggling right now, and I hope these little patronage amounts are small enough and will go a long way toward helping my family be supported during this time. If you want to have a daily poem from me and find a dollar a month out of reach, email me to let me know (journeymama{at}gmail{dot}com) and I will put you on the list.

I love you. Be well. Hold your head up. The sky is still wide. God is always, always, always with us.