Empathy

Responding to a crisis is not as easy as it seems.  What is the “best” action?  Is there anything which transcends every difficulty?  Does your response or mine really make a difference?  Does it, should it?  What if you don’t know?
 
With gray hairs I find myself just beginning to learn.  There are things that can be included in my response as well as things that are never in any.  The “thing” never included, as natural as it seems, is giving an all-knowing, insightful beyond question, detailed analysis and instruction of what to do next.  The rationale lies in the following threads.  First, one doesn’t really know all the facts.  Relationships, community events, and problems always have an emotional experience factor in the equation.  Each person sees, feels, and knows in unique ways.  Second, responding to life is God’s gift of freedom.  Usurping this freedom is simply wrong.  Third, we have a role to play, and there is something required from each which transcends every situation. 
 
In a disaster, a crisis of national proportions, a response which is a model for us came in the following words; “All those lush Heshbon fields dried up, the rich Sibmah vineyards withered!  Foreign thugs have crushed and torn out the famous grapevines that once reached all the way to Jazer, right to the edge of the desert, ripped out the crops in every direction as far as the eye can see.  I'll join the weeping. I'll weep right along with Jazer, weep for the Sibmah vineyards.  And yes, Heshbon and Elealeh, I'll mingle my tears with your tears!  The joyful shouting at harvest is gone.  Instead of song and celebration, dead silence.”  (Isaiah 16.8, 9)
 
What did they do?  He engaged.  He expressed solidarity as a member of a community; your loss is my loss, your ache is my ache, your unanswered questions are shared in silence.  He walked as one with another.  Guidance will come, in time.  Sharing the load has already started.  In short the answer is this; respond to a crisis by walking together. 
 
It works.