“I’m not going to tell you I care, I’m just going to show you…”
Entry 8
Alright… lets get this caring thing straight. Caring for a friend in tragic crisis, suffering, or affliction does not mean fixing or making the crisis, suffering, or affliction go away. Caring is caring – not fixing. Caring is an important part to providing hope, and hope starts a process towards healing. Let’s be honest here… caring is the kind of commitment that can make cowards of us all. Yet caring is what we can do – caring is what we should do.
If I care I pray
If I care I show up
If I care I listen
If I care I stay
If I care I lay down beside you
If I care I clean your wounds and change your bandages
If I care I bring a good book, make a pot of coffee, or a bowl of soup
If I care I open the windows and wait
If I care I will love
Love lasts forever
I think, mostly we don’t dare care because we believe it’s just too much. But we only believe that because we can’t think of how to fix, change, or make the pain go away. If we just stop trying to fix, change, and make everything painful go away we can find out how to care, how to love, and how to re-humanize and restore dignity to the suffering and afflicted.
How do I get there?
Maybe I have to find out how I could care for someone in tragedy, suffering, and affliction if I could not talk to them. But how could I care if I couldn’t give my opinion, my story, my diagnosis, my interpretation, my judgment and conclusion? If I could not speak or talk – just be, and then do. Can you really care for someone by just being, and then doing? I really think so. I think we need to find out for sure while it still matters. I’m not going to tell you I care, I’m just going to show you…
