originally published 9/8/19
“Rejoice with those who rejoice, mourn with those who mourn.” Romans 12:15
This verse is such a beautiful call. Some of the most satisfying experiences we have as humans come when we have these shared emotional connections with other people. These kinds of emotional connections can be some of the best ways to express our love for other people; and when we are on the receiving end of this kind of empathy, it can make us feel loved and accepted like little else does.
But this is not simply a call to rejoice and mourn over the same things I would naturally care about. This call to empathy requires us to feel what we may not naturally feel for someone else by allowing ourselves to see their experience from their perspective.
This isn’t a popular idea these days. These days, while I may be quick to be offended by what you feel, I may be much less inclined to understand what and why you feel that. I may find that I am ready to tell you why your feeling is wrong, but I may be much less inclined to simply allow myself to feel your pain.
Some people’s stories will illicit our sympathy because their story is like ours. In that case, our feeling for them may come quite naturally. That’s sympathy. But we must be willing to do the hard work of putting ourselves in the shoes of people who are not like us so that we can obey this biblical mandate to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. This hard work requires time and attention. It requires that we lay down our own agenda and listen to another person’s story and pain or joy.
In these days where everyone’s pain is likely to be perceived through a political lense, what I am saying in this article can be quite unpopular. Some of us may be very resistant to the idea of feeling what someone feels when we think they are wrong to feel that. Do you think it may be possible to disagree with someone’s opinion about a situation but still be able to mourn with them for the pain they feel in that situation? I think it is. However, it takes a bit of humility to lay down my agenda long enough to allow myself to simply understand another person’s pain. It would seem to be a missing ingredient in much of our dialogue in this nation now-a-days.
I find that music helps me do this. I heard a song this week that was about a man whose perspective I despise and think is destructive, but the song allowed me to begin to feel the pain that his own perspective had caused him. I found I was able to truly hurt with him while understanding that his perspective was broken and depraved. The song helped me feel this, but now I am prayerfully looking forward to experiencing more and more of this kind of empathy in real life. Perhaps we could all go on this journey together.