There's something about knowing -
Something about seeing
And understanding.
You look at a person and you know
The past, the effects, the reasons.
To study the man in all his result,
To view him as bare skin and bone.
The study of it sings to you
And as with Siren, you are drawn in.
Is it to manipulate factors,
To teach the studied impulses?
These things that come so naturally to some
Can be written and dissected,
Brought to sheer basics and fact.
Man is made man
As we teach him the dream of the masses.
The broke can be soldered
As with heat and with iron.
This is the path.
This is the way.
Your movements bespeak your history
And I understand you,
Better than even science can know.
I wrote this poem when I was working out of the Emergency Room as a Patient Advocate for mental health patients. I had been pondering on my job as a social worker, and what it was about my job that I loved so much.
I realized that what I loved was that social work is all about finding what makes people tick. What is it that makes people who they are. What is it that makes people do what they do, and how, as a social worker, you can assist in shaping incorrect assumptions or fears, and redirect people into living happier, more functional lives. But in order to do that, you ask questions. Question after question after question, challenging assertions and digging deeper and deeper until you figure out THE ISSUE. Oftentimes buried deeply beneath poor coping mechanisms and years of baggage, you figure it out.
It's fairly safe to say that it's usually pain. There's been pain somewhere. Pain in the way an authority talked to them, and how they viewed themselves. Pain in the way they were treated. Sometimes false negative assumptions are formed. Sometimes coping mechanisms shut them off from potential relationships, out of fear. It's fear of something. I argue it's usually fear or avoidance of pain, both physical, social, spiritual, mental, etc.
Everyone experiences pain. Everyone. There's the old adage, or meme, that you should be kind to mothers of toddlers because you don't know how many times they've been screamed at already today. I would argue it's safe to remind that we should be kind to EVERYONE, because everyone experiences pain, and you don't know what pain they've experienced already.
In looking at my own life, and at my own day-to-day, I've come to slowly recognize that truth. ANY human behavior has a reason. I'm not so much a cynic that I believe people only do good things to avoid punishment, or pain, in the eternities, but I would argue most negative behaviors are responses to pain. I yell at my children because of my own pain, be it feeling unappreciated, overwhelmed with tasks, or otherwise. My children similarly misbehave due to their own pains, be it feeling powerless, hungry and tired, or pure and simple afraid of something.
I realized that what I loved was that social work is all about finding what makes people tick. What is it that makes people who they are. What is it that makes people do what they do, and how, as a social worker, you can assist in shaping incorrect assumptions or fears, and redirect people into living happier, more functional lives. But in order to do that, you ask questions. Question after question after question, challenging assertions and digging deeper and deeper until you figure out THE ISSUE. Oftentimes buried deeply beneath poor coping mechanisms and years of baggage, you figure it out.
It's fairly safe to say that it's usually pain. There's been pain somewhere. Pain in the way an authority talked to them, and how they viewed themselves. Pain in the way they were treated. Sometimes false negative assumptions are formed. Sometimes coping mechanisms shut them off from potential relationships, out of fear. It's fear of something. I argue it's usually fear or avoidance of pain, both physical, social, spiritual, mental, etc.
Everyone experiences pain. Everyone. There's the old adage, or meme, that you should be kind to mothers of toddlers because you don't know how many times they've been screamed at already today. I would argue it's safe to remind that we should be kind to EVERYONE, because everyone experiences pain, and you don't know what pain they've experienced already.
In looking at my own life, and at my own day-to-day, I've come to slowly recognize that truth. ANY human behavior has a reason. I'm not so much a cynic that I believe people only do good things to avoid punishment, or pain, in the eternities, but I would argue most negative behaviors are responses to pain. I yell at my children because of my own pain, be it feeling unappreciated, overwhelmed with tasks, or otherwise. My children similarly misbehave due to their own pains, be it feeling powerless, hungry and tired, or pure and simple afraid of something.
You can expand this as far as you'd like. It's what social workers do. But most people, with the exception of the pure and simple sociopaths, have pure intentions, and any harms they commit are usually poor responses to their own deeper pains. (But frankly, even in the case of the fictional sociopath The Joker, we don't know where he got his scars.)
You could argue that if no one ever felt pain ever, humanity would be a different place - a place of kindness and understanding. But it wouldn't be one of growth, because it's through our struggling that we learn. It's through these painful, individual pasts that we are able to teach each other, learn empathy, and become more like God.
There's a reason that the first covenant we make with God is to mourn with those that mourn, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort. Because most of the ills of the world come from places of pain, people will always need comfort, and the empathetic mourning of one who is able to walk in the other's shoes, and experience sorrow as the other experiences it, even if they don't agree. This first, foundational covenant has the ability to remove so much of what is wrong in the world.
We mourn with those that mourn when we listen to their experiences without judgement. We comfort when we are present, accepting the individual themselves, without demanding immediate change in their broken hearts. We mourn when we can set aside our own beliefs and agendas to focus, instead, on another's concern, without daydreaming of correctional statements to respond to them with. We comfort when we are able to see another's suffering and accept that their suffering is real, and we do something to alleviate that real suffering, without judgement.
We covenant to mourn with those that mourn, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort. There is no covenant to mourn with those that follow God and live a lifestyle worthy of God's highest blessings. There is no covenant to comfort only those that have done nothing to bring pain upon themselves. This foundational charge is one that gives no room for individual, mortal judgments. In this covenant of mourning and comforting, the stipulation to "judge not" holds firm. You mourn empathetically. You comfort through pain and sadness. You reach outwards and prioritize the other's pain through THEIR experience.
Even if you think you know better. Even if you think they should do something differently. Even if you think they've done this to themselves. Even if you think they deserve it. Even if you think their pain isn't valid. Take a step back, and ask the questions. Be willing to take the time. Because no one is the antagonist in their own story. Because no one is a fool. Because no one deliberately chooses to hurt. Because people are inherently worth your effort and love.
