Loving When It’s Costly

When we face human needs up close - what will we do to make a difference even when they don’t show us gratitude? Caroline Simon opens her heart to show us the way.  

Elisa

Loving When It’s Costly

By Caroline J. Simon

My brother, Bill, was prickly and stubborn. He had worked hard all his life and at one point had been a small business owner. But when his gas station business failed, he went to work for others as a mechanic. His last boss was stingy and went for years without giving Bill a raise. Eventually, his boss eliminated his paid vacation, then his paid sick leave, then employer-contributions to medical insurance. Bill decided to do without insurance, betting that his out-of-pocket costs would be less than his insurance payments. When he ended up in the hospital for six weeks, his boss refused to issue his last paycheck until he was well enough to pick it up in person. Bill became afflicted.

People often use the word affliction as a synonym for suffering. But affliction is more than suffering. Affliction uproots a life by damaging a person physically, psychologically, socially, and spiritually. Affliction, as one of my friends has said, is the spiritual equivalent of multisystem organ failure.

“Afflicted” is a word I associate with Christ. In high school I attended a church where the pastor read the messianic prophecy contained in Isaiah 53 as communion was distributed: “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth.” The chapter describes the suffering servant of God as despised, rejected, and deemed of no account. We know that Jesus experienced spiritual suffering as, on the cross, he asked why God had forsaken him.

Affliction overwhelms the afflicted and baffles those around them. It induces self-loathing, plunging people into social isolation. Afflicted people keep their suffering to themselves because they are certain others don’t want to know. They are, as Isaiah 53 says, ones from whom others hide their faces.

Matthew 25 connects Christ’s affliction with the afflictions of those whom the rich and powerful too often dismiss as human garbage. “I was hungry and you gave me food … I was in prison and you visited me,” says our risen Lord. Understanding affliction opens our eyes to deep truths about Christ, about humanity, and about how to follow Christ in God’s precious, broken creation.

To the extent that we remain blind or indifferent to affliction, we flatten and falsify the world. We become those who say, “Lord, when was it that I saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not care for you?” By turning our faces from the afflicted, we can avoid facing our complicity in the structural injustices and indifference that plunge others into affliction. Our complicity comes in many forms: cowardice, inertia, and culpable ignorance.

Dorothy Day took Matthew 25 seriously. She spent her life working with the destitute. She thought that followers of Christ have no right to discriminate between the deserving and undeserving poor. In theory, I agree with her. But when my working-class brother, who had never bothered to send me a birthday card, was plunged into poverty by health crisis, I had to find out whether I could live out my beliefs.

When Bill was in abject need, my path seemed simple. Pay his rent; do what is needed; spend whatever that cost.

Social Security is our society’s safety net intended to prevent poverty among the aged and keep disabled people from becoming homeless. Since Bill was too sick to apply for disability on his own, I spent hours filling out forms. As I advocated for him, I encountered rudeness, indifference, condescension, dismissal, contempt, and suspicion from the system’s gatekeepers. Our safety net is holey.  

Once Bill was receiving disability and back in his apartment, I became puzzled about what I owed him. How would I respond when Bill spent money I sent him on things I thought were frivolous? Would I give him one of my kidneys to restore his health, despite my disapproval of his unhealthy habits? In short, would true Christian love lead me to meet Bill’s needs as instinctively as I meet my own? Time would tell.

Caroline J. Simon, PhD, is a philosopher with a talent for making complex issues understandable to a broad audience. She is committed to reclaiming philosophy’s relevance to lived human experience. Her latest book is Muted Cry: A Witness to Affliction. Two of her books, Bringing Sex into Focus: The Quest for Sexual Integrity and The Disciplined Heart: Love, Destiny, and Imagination, grapple with aspects of human affection. Dr. Simon spent twenty-five years teaching philosophy before serving as Whitworth University’s chief academic officer for seven years.

Connect with Caroline at carolinejsimon.com