By Anthony Selvanathan
Special to the Herald
There are moments when words fail us. Someone we love receives devastating news, a friend loses someone close to them, or a family finds itself overwhelmed by circumstances beyond its control. We want desperately to say something that will make things better, only to discover that sometimes there is simply nothing we can say.
Perhaps, in those moments, we are not called to have the right words. Sometimes we are simply called to be there.
Over the past several months, I have found myself thinking more deeply about what it means to be present to another person. I have experienced moments of tremendous joy alongside moments of grief and loss, and through both I have begun to understand that presence can itself become a form of ministry.
The impact of Hurricane Lala earlier this month brought that lesson into even sharper focus. As communities across Hawaii began the difficult work of recovery, they were confronted with people whose needs could not be answered by words alone. Some experienced damage to their homes and churches. Others lost access to basic necessities. Many were exhausted, frightened or uncertain about what comes next.
In moments like these, our faith calls us to more than sympathy from a distance. It calls us to accompany one another.
We often encounter another person’s suffering with the instinct to fix it. We search for the perfect words of consolation or some solution that might make the pain disappear.
Our intentions are good, but grief is not a problem to be solved, and suffering rarely disappears because someone found exactly the right thing to say. Sometimes the greatest gift we can offer is our willingness to remain beside another person in the midst of it.
That kind of presence requires vulnerability. As C.S. Lewis wrote in “The Four Loves,” “To love at all is to be vulnerable.”
Love opens us to another person’s joys, fears, hopes and suffering. It means allowing another person’s experience to touch our own hearts rather than protecting ourselves by remaining at a comfortable distance.
Christianity, after all, is a faith deeply rooted in presence. God did not remain distant from the human experience; he entered into it. As St. John tells us, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (Jn 1:14).
Throughout the Gospels, Jesus encounters people personally. Thus, there is something profoundly Christlike about doing the same for one another. When we sit beside someone who is grieving, listen without immediately trying to fix things, help a community recover after a hurricane, feed someone who is hungry or simply make sure another person does not suffer alone, we choose to enter into another person’s experience rather than observe it from a distance.
This kind of ministry is not reserved for priests, religious, counselors or people with special training. Hurricane Lala reminded us that each of us can respond according to the gifts and circumstances God has given us.
Some may be able to physically serve in affected communities. Others may give, organize resources, work quietly behind the scenes, accompany those who are hurting or sustain the work through prayer. Prayer is not a substitute for action, but the foundation that sustains our action and keeps it rooted in Christ.
Our roles may be different, but each can become an expression of the same Christian love.
We will not always have the right words, nor will we always be able to take away another person’s pain. Often, we cannot. Perhaps Christ does not ask us to solve every problem we encounter, but he does ask us to love the person before us.
Sometimes that love begins with something as simple as showing up, listening and staying beside someone when it would be easier to walk away.