The Way of Compassion
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort,
who comforts us in all our troubles, so that
we can comfort those in any trouble with
the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”
2 CORINTHIANS 1:3-4
Ah ... I see how this works now. The battle is over. The sounds of manmade death — jets diving, planes circling, the bombs and mortars and machine guns — they are all fading. I’m on my way home listening to a Spotify playlist I made called “Home.” The stress is over, the danger done. Now the images and emotions come. It’s just like when I worked in the emergency rooms, a long time ago in a faraway place.
But I remember ...
... the 14-year-old girl on her way to her first prom. She was excited, late, and in a hurry. Suddenly, the screeching of tires, metal breaking, screaming. She lay on our cold table in the emergency room and bled out through her face. We couldn’t stop it.
... a family fishing trip turned into a nightmare when the gas tank in the boat blew up. The dad was blown into the water. The 3-year-old son wasn’t. As Dad desperately tried to pull his little son out of the boat, from the shore the whole family watched the little boy burn. I still remember the smell.
... the JSMK student who drowned in a Burmese jungle stream. One of our own.
You step out of the pain and suffering to do your job, to try to help. Carry out the code. But then the night comes and you remember.
That body was a real person.
A person who had hopes and dreams and loves.
And now, bouncing over the mountainous jungle roads, the music about “home” mixes with the raw eucharist of the last two days. Fifty young men, their bodies bloodied and torn, meet us under the teak trees with hope and fear and pain and exhaustion in their eyes.
Oh, well the air is cold
And yonder lies my sleeping soul
By the branches broke like bones
Well, this weakened tree no longer holds
Well, the night is still
And I have not yet lost my will
Oh and I will keep on moving ’til
’Til I find my way home
When I need to get home
You're my guiding light
You're my guiding light
(Guiding Light, Foy Vance)
I think about the young man with glasses. He desperately wants to keep one of his fingers on his mangled left hand. He isn't asking for anything more. "Just one finger. Please?"
Another young man sits quiet, somber. Drowning in his own loss, wondering what life will look like through only one eye. A tiny piece of shrapnel had slid around his left eye and cut the optic nerve.
Another young man with an ashen face struggles to breathe. Fear competes with pain for his face. He has decreased breath sounds on one side. We ram a tube into his chest. Blood pours onto the dirt. We do the same to another. And another.
The summers die
One by one
How soon they fly
On and on
And I am old
And will be gone
Bring him peace
Bring him joy
He is young
He is only a boy
You can take
You can give
Let him be
Let him live
(Bring Him Home, Les Miserables)
I recognize one young man whom I treated previously in another battle. He’s 33 years old and commander of his unit. He worries less about his shattered arm and more for his men. Dozens of them are down and still in the field, victims of the planes and jets circling over us.
Release for the captives, an end to the wars,
Streams in the desert, new hope for the poor.
Little small children shall dance as they sing.
And play with the bears and the lions in springs.
Alleluia, the great storm is over.
Lift up your wings and fly.
(The Great Storm Is Over, John McCutcheon)
Four Karen men carry a stretcher quickly down the hill into our triage area, a tarp spread on the ground. The patient's face is marred with dirt and a thousand-yard stare. I move through the ABCs.
A: Airway — he can talk and is orientated.
B: Breath — sounds okay.
C: Circulation — Radial pulse, strong. Capillary refill, good.
He complains of neck pain, so we get a hard neck collar on him. I quickly cut his clothes off, looking for other injuries while I talk to him. In contrast to the muscular young men, he carries the fat of middle age around his belly.
If the ABCs were good, the D (Disability) is devastating. He cannot move or feel his arms or legs. At all. He lies silent on the tarp as the meaning of a cervical spine injury dawns on all of us. Does he have a wife to love and to hold? Kids to play with? Did he play music? Did he have a hobby? His loss is immeasurable. How will he bear it?
Their faces flash before me as the bamboo stands and jungle slide past to the blend of music and sacrifice. In the presence of such loss, I would be ashamed to call my own feelings “trauma,” as is the trend in psychology today.
"Compassion" comes closer. Literally, com ("with") joined to passion (from pati "to suffer") is an action-oriented "to suffer with.”
Jesus not only says "I am the way, the truth, and the life"; He lived it. He defined the way of compassion. Lately, when I picture Jesus, I see Him walking in no-man’s-land, among the barbed wire and smoke, the mud and rats, the smell of death all around. He turns in the chaos, looks at me with a kind smile, and with His head, motions for me to join Him. His eyes say to me:
"Join me in my way of compassion."
"I will give you the courage, the strength, the resources you need."
"Until one day it is your turn to go home ... with me."
"There is no need to fear."
"I am the way, truth and the LIFE."
I have a home, eternal home
But for now I walk this broken world
You walked it first, You know our pain
But You show hope can rise again up from the grave
Abide with me, abide with me
Don't let me fall, and don't let go
Walk with me and never leave
Ever close, God abides with me
There in the night, Gethsemane
Before the cross, before the nails
Overwhelmed, alone You prayed
You met us in our suffering and bore our shame
Abide with me, abide with me
Don't let me fall, and don't let go
Walk with me and never leave
Ever close, God abides with me
Oh, love that will not ever let me go
Love that will not ever let me go
You never let me go
Love that will not ever let me go
Oh, You never let us go
And up ahead, eternity
We'll weep no more, we'll sing for joy, abide with me.
(Abide With Me, Matt Maher)
