Empathy

I think I've said this before, that empathy and ability to relate ranks among my top tools when I'm playing the listener and giving advice. Tonight I got in a discussion where I had to reach into some of my older, more sensitive stories. Stories that involve other people and places I've been. Of the damage I've done and the choas I've rendered. From the reaction, I wonder if I've done the right things, placing trust in someone that I want to trust, but don't know all that well, in my attempt to help this person deal with her problems...

Am I too naive, to believe that it will always end well? Or am I just being paranoid, that I must stop this river once again...God, I can't tell if you're telling me to throw these seeds here...or me, in my pride, have chosen to throw them here...in hopes to gain a foothold in this place I call home.

These thoughts reminds me of the sermon I heard this morning, about this little part of Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5.21-32) ... of how past conflicts will need to be resolved one day, that we should "leave our gifts at the alter" and run to fix broken relationships. It could be something simple like a 10-year-old stealing a really cool chapstick...to a guy trying to find his place in life, slashing and burning his way through. Of all the damages I've left with these hands, with my words, with my lack of thought and my insensitivity...I wonder how much of them are fixed? How much of them are still fixable? And how much of them are forever out of my hands, just between them and the God who picked me off the side of the street at one gr4 morning...

It's such a funny feeling. Sometimes one sees situations so clear that he can no longer say "I don't know"...I'm at that place again. Would I rather to be able to blame ignorance? No, of course not. I will always hesitate with the insight I've been given...complain about the ones I'm not...and wonder where I'm standing now and how it relates to where I once was...to where I will soon one day be.