2012

I have remained true. In here lies also an excerpt of a paper i wrote about God, empathy and the care of those who suffer as well as a project I did & a video i had found and couldn't stop watching.

can you find the heart in the above image?

This is a project I did for a class in 2012 as I studied for my MDiv. It still stands.

Found video (2012) of a seed becoming an oak tree.

Excerpt from a paper I wrote in 2012 on God, Empathy and the Care of the Suffering:

While there are endless biblical references to God’s empathic activity in the world, God revealed empathy as God’s modus operandi most definitively in the person, suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus. As Denis Edwards says, Christianity can not offer a definitive answer to why pain, suffering and death occur, yet in our witness to the death and resurrection of Christ, we can say that “…divine love is revealed as unthinkable compassion. The cross reveals a God who enters into the pain of the world, who suffers with suffering creation (Edwards, 106),” In other words, in the perfect union of God and humanity in Christ in which the two natures retain their distinctness, God enters into and unites God’s self with human life, pain, and suffering, understanding and feeling it from our point of view, while still remaining God (See Carl Roger’s definition of empathy on p.2). In doing so, God does not take away Christ’s pain and agony on the Cross, nor does God blot out human kind for its capacity to violate the dignity of humanity, what has happened remains unalterably real, but God enters into it and in this action, the suffering and death of Jesus is transformed into new life. This is important because in our culture (and particularly in the medical world), we tend to deny the full breadth of human suffering. We try to run away from it as a reality, or to make it go away, and in our attempt not to look upon it, or our desire to tame it, we deny those who are suffering the dignity of their authentic experience of it, and impede their need to tell about it in their attempts to integrate it into the story of their lives (or worse, we blame them for it) and this causes them even greater harm (Frank, ). This is not to say that medicine does not play a vital and important role in the healing of injury and illness. When we can relieve pain and help the physical body regain integrity and wholeness, this should be done, as the good Samaritan cared for the physical needs of the man on the road side (). But, we must not reduce a person into body parts and chemical reactions by denying or ignoring their experience of suffering and healing, its shifting meanings for them, and the full dignity and freedom of their personhood (Frank, ). Humans are made in the image of God and we are hardwired with a capacity for empathy ( ). A chaplain stands fully present at the foot of the cross of Christ and does not look away, but receives Christ fully as God and human by hearing, understanding, and ratifying his cry from the viewpoint of the person lying in the sick bed. This is empathy.

Likewise, when we take the time to be fully present to our own experiencing of life and our care of others, we become aware of an “observer self” (that is our most whole self) who stands before the reality of our own suffering or joy as an inner felt-sense of the whole way we are experiencing ourselves and God in our caring for others without over identifying with any one part. In this way of being present to ourselves, welcoming, and accepting what really exists within us without trying to change it, we begin to experience a transformation and integration of the parts of us in an ongoing process towards wholeness (shalom) [class notes]. I attribute that transformation to the work of the Holy Spirit…. It never forces change, and yet it is the stuff of grace because it comes as a pure gift, and its transformative capacity is the stuff of resurrection, the ongoing process of the creation of a new world within us out of the chaos and turbulence created by events that impact and interrupt our old ways of being. When we do not attend to our inner experiencing of life, and when we deny parts of ourselves that we do not like, we jeopardize our ability to be fully present to others as chaplains and pastoral care-givers because “we cannot give what we do not have to give” ( ). As Gene Gendlin states: “What is true is already so. Owning up to it doesn’t make it any worse. Not being open about it doesn’t make it go away. And because it’s true, it is what is there to be interacted with. Anything untrue isn’t there to be lived. People can stand what is true, for they are already enduring it (Gendlin, ).” When we can acknowledge what is true within our own experiencing and accept and welcome our broken parts we move towards the congruence that Carl Rogers says is necessary for a therapist to have in order to effectively be an empathetic presence to another person (Rogers, ).

The power of empathy to play a healing factor in the life of a person experiencing illness or injury

Illness and injury are unbidden visitors that inescapably and inevitably make appearances into each human life: sometimes suddenly and sometimes gradually, sometimes, as in the case of chronic illness and disability, to make a more permanent home with us and sometimes to stay only for a brief time. But regardless of how they come and how long they stay, these visitors interrupt our lives and have the capacity to transform the ways we experience and make meaning of the world, God, others, and ourselves (Frank, ;). The experiences of illness and injury remind us that we are, after all, “body-selves”, that through our bodies that we experience and interact with everything (Frank, ). These bodies we are consigned to can break, we cannot always control them, and they do not necessarily break at times when we have adequate resources to draw from or when we are experiencing our most “adult” self. Illness and injury interrupt the plans we had for ourselves and can even make us look differently at past events and the meanings we give to them. They thrust us into a disorienting medical world that has a language and a philosophy of life that may be very different from our own. Suddenly we are immersed in a noisy, busy, intrusive world that makes dizzying demands upon us: to sift through often conflicting advice about which we must make quick decisions when we feel exhausted and are wracked by pain, to be compliant with procedures and treatments that invade us and sometimes hurt more than the illness itself, and to change or give up aspects of our lifestyle that once gave us a great sense of mastery, comfort, or purpose and connectedness (Frank, ). How an illness or injury will affect and transform a person’s sense of self, world and others will depend upon the seriousness and/or permanence of the injury or illness and the way the person interprets and interacts with it from their own unique perspective governed by their self concept, unique history, and belief systems. For example, how have they previously viewed their relationship with their bodies?

As Arthur Frank asks, “do I have a body or am I a body?” Through illness and injury, we may become more aware of our vulnerability, our fragility, and our smallness (and so do others), aware that we are less capable or even incapable of performing daily tasks that once came so easily, and aware of our dependency upon the kindness, competence, and actions of those who care for us and walk with us in our journey. Friends and family may treat us differently and even abandon us out of fear or discomfort with the changes they see in us. Some people may even blame us for our troubles.

Suddenly we may find ourselves surrounded by self appointed and well meaning “experts” who have all sorts of advice we neither wished for nor asked for and question us about the most intimate details of our lives. (my words)

The world of a person who has become seriously ill or has sustained a serious injury and that of their families, friends, and caregivers is a kaleidoscopic world of transition. (my words)

It is not unlike the watery chaos described in the first words uttered in Scripture: “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters”(Genesis 1:1). I have chosen this passage because it is the story of new birth and every change in our lives, bidden or unbidden, involves the birth of something new. It is also a story that reminds us we are not alone in this inchoate, shifting mystery we call life. The Holy One accompanies us in the depths of our being and in the empathic care and witness of those around us.

Thank you for visiting here. With love, Writing With Water —- Kelly Verret ✨💛✨