Finding Compassion

The words stabbed my heart. The wife of Arup, a new junior faculty member in our department, two days before delivered their first child prematurely. Now their daughter was dead.

“How can I help? How can I minister to them?” I asked myself and God. The answer came without my asking when Arup questioned me about funerary practices in the U.S. He knew I had recently buried a parent and was therefore experienced in such sad matters.

After a call to a local funeral home alerting them to the situation and to do some fact checking, I shared the information with the grieving father. By the weekend a small group, most of whom were members or our department, gathered at the tiny grave side for a memorial service. Since the young Hindu couple lacked any strong ties to the nearest temple 40 miles away, Arup’s faculty mentor gave a brief eulogy and I was asked to lead in prayer.

A prayer for a lost child

It was one of the most challenging prayers I was ever asked to lead: a prayer by a Christ-follower to comfort, in the loss of their sweet infant, Hindu parents marooned in an alien culture. I will never forget the experience. I hope that God the Father of all humanity used my words of thanks for the brief life of their daughter to comfort Purnima and Arup and to affirm God’s love for us and her.

Reflecting on our role in the lives of our co-workers I sense that we who walk the Jesus Road are called to be more than casual in our compassion, more than incidental in our ministry to those whom we encounter day by day. I am challenged to “let the mind of Christ” be also in me. Time and again He was moved with compassion by the human condition, and yet I often selfishly communicate callous indifference. As I have stood beside the open grave of family members of my colleagues, issues of eternal significance have been highlighted.

I asked a trusted Jewish colleague with whom I have serious theological and philosophical discussions, why, did he think, most academics were reluctant to discuss spiritual matters. He replied “One’s relationship with a minister, priest or rabbi is unique; the minister has credentials as a ‘spiritual advisor.’ Most people of my acquaintance do not have such credentials. . . . But that said, there are some who demonstrate their spiritual credentials by how they live and care for those around them.”

In An Alien Landscape

I have often thought of his remark, and I aspire to be a real “ambassador for Christ” in an alien landscape.

Sometimes for me it may begin by getting to know them over a cup of coffee or lunch. Those little intentional steps of kindness.

Time often allows us to walk with friends and associates of the academic community through the vicissitudes of life, comforting them with the assurance that God is a God of love, pointing to the redemptive grace of Christ’s cross. Showing them, in a very imperfect way, a bit of the compassion that God has shown me.

© 2010 Samuel Matteson