Compassion Fatigue

A few weeks ago I attended the Association of Presbyterian Christian Educators annual event in Little Rock, Arkansas. In the heart of an historical city that was at the center of the civil rights movement, hundreds of Christian Educators gathered to listen, learn, share, and grapple with not only how to be a better Christian educator, but also to wrestle with what it means to be the church.

The Rev. Theresa Cho, pastor of St. John’s Presbyterian Church in San Francisco since 2003, spoke prophetically and honestly to those gathered. She spoke about the challenges of being a pastor and an educator, the challenges of being the church, and about the joy and privilege of being an integral part of people’s faith development and lives.

On the final morning, Rev. Cho suggested that we are living in a world in which we are like a browser with 50 tabs open. As people in the modern/post-modern world, where millions of bits of information are available at the tip of our fingers, and as people of faith, it is easy to be consumed by all that is happening. FOMO—“fear of missing out”—is very real! There are certain things that capture our hearts and particularly consume our energy. We want to make the world a better place. We want to follow in the Way of Jesus and do good stuff. “It is easy to be so overwhelmed,” she said, “that we experience what many first responders suffer: compassion fatigue.”

As the assembly prepared to go home, Rev. Cho invited everyone to consider what we are going to let go of. She didn’t ask “if” there was anything of which we needed to let go. No, she asked what is it that we are “going” to let go of—”which tabs are you going to close, even if only temporary.”

Most of us live in communities filled with so many people with a huge diversity of amazing skills and incredible abilities, natural or honed (usually both). How do we focus on what we do “well”? Part of this tab-closing practice means trusting that others are attending to the other things that draw our attention. How do we do “our part” without feeling we need to do it all, and trusting that others are doing their part?

In the Church, it means taking stock of what we are doing as a community. It means looking at who is doing what, and asking ourselves what kind of leadership do we need to help us discern what we need  to be doing, and then comparing and contrasting that with what we are doing.

Rev. Cho said, “We are called to focus. And we do a disservice when we ‘try to do it all.’”

All we can do is what we can do. Sometimes that means letting go of some things we love to do. But, if there is an immediate need or there is something else that really need to focus on, it means we need focus our energy in order to avoid that compassion fatigue. Sometimes we need to just let go, close some or most of those tabs in our browser so we can focus and really do our best for God’s kin-dom.

John Caputo, who wrote What Would Jesus Deconstruct? (I mentioned his book in my last blog post), reminds us that the kingdom of God is counterintuitive. Letting go, when we are constantly being told through scripture to go and do more, is counterintuitive. This is part of what he calls “the madness of the kingdom.” But remember, Jesus had to let go sometimes too. We read about times when we withdrew from the crowds that followed him in order to regroup, focus, and re-engage with the Spirit of God that was within him and within others.

Being a community of faith and engaging with the world means recognizing and even tapping into the Spirit of God that is within both ourselves and those around us. That’s one way we might learn how to focus. I may be really excited about something or feeling really drawn to a situation to which I believe the Church can and should respond. But, even as the pastor of a congregation, I need to be able to read the energy and focus of others. There are times I might be more adamant because I truly believe we need to shift gears, to drop some things in order to take up this other thing, but that’s rare. More often, I’m trying to understand where the passions are and decide whether or not my passion fits into what is already happening.

I want to avoid my own compassion fatigue, trying to do too much or help too many people to the point that I am completely worn out. I also want to help others do the same. There are times I have had to have that very difficult conversation with folks about how thin they are spread. The congregation I serve is very active and going in a lot of different directions all at the same time. When we were interviewing each other, one of the people on the search committee said that being the pastor of this particular church is a lot like “herding cats.” He was not wrong!

Over the last several years, with the support and significant action of key leaders, we have been able to narrow our focus. We still do a lot. But we have been able to pour more energy into certain things while trying to at least temporarily let go of some other things. Some we have picked back up (re-opened the browser tab), and other things remain dropped.

Other congregations I’ve served, I’ve encouraged to open a few more browser tabs—to do some research, do some discernment, and take some risks! They had more capacity than they realized. And they realized that taking some risks with their faith was not going to close down the church. If anything, the congregations grew because more people wanted to be a part of a church that wasn’t afraid to try stuff.

I appreciate Rev. Cho’s words of encouragement and caution. But even more, I appreciate her call to balance, which requires serious and communal discernment. For the Civil Rights Movement to be successful, for the desegregation of schools to happen, people had to take some serious risks. For many, too many, it cost them their lives. And the kin-dom of God grew. And the love and justice-compassion of God became more widely known and understood.

Even though I was not yet alive during most of it, I still grieve those who had to sacrifice their lives for the cause. I grieve those who had to get hurt in order to make serious and meaningful change. But I’m even more sad and even angry about the suffering endured by those who lived in the systems of oppression prior to, during, and still after the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Today, the work is still not done. There are still many who are carrying on the vision of the Civil Rights Movement in hopes of making a more equitable society for everyone.

So, yes, be aware of the potential for compassion fatigue. Check on one another to make sure we’re taking care of ourselves, that we’re taking sabbaths so we can reconnect with the God who calls us into this work and recharge so we can be better and smarter about what we do and how we do it. Listen to one another and listen to your bodies. And for the sake of God’s kingdom…

Be of good courage, and know that you are loved.