I‘d be a lot more loving if I didn’t have to care

A mammal’s heart is protected by a strong (yet flexible!) ribcage. Safe within its bony enclosure, it can beat unmolested by outside forces for as long as it’s owner lives. Humans, however, have two aspects to their hearts, one that is its  true physical nature, and one that belongs to popular folklore. Within western society the heart is understood to be the seat of human love, the place from which our care, concern and passion is fostered and nourished. This second aspect of the heart is as fragile and unprotected as its physical blood-pumping original is safe. This heart can be broken, even shattered. We talk about it being torn from our chest, pierced by Cupid’s arrows or being trodden upon. It skips a beat in the presence of our beloved and becomes stone cold when we are betrayed. The heart that is the home to our feelings is delicate thing.

Part of my calling as a minister is to care for others. The direct invitation from God that preceded my career as a Pastor was that I serve His people. Jesus taught his followers that the greatest commandment was to love God with all one’s heart and mind and soul and strength and one’s neighbour as oneself. As a caring person I try to help others. This help has many forms; it might be a late night conversation with a distraught parishioner; it can take the form of a food voucher at a local grocery store for a family whose food budget has fallen short; it might be time spent with a Youth group having fun. There are a wide variety of ways that I can care for people. Similarly, serving folks is not limited to handing out food at a church dinner. I serve when I teach the curious person something new about scripture; when I visit folks in the hospital; when I lead a worship service that leaves folks feeling a little bit better than when they started their day.

Caring and serving are acts that are vital to ministry, demonstrations of Christ’s living presence in people’s lives and in the world. But they are not necessarily fulfillments of Jesus’ command to love. They can be done clinically, professionally, not without emotion but without involvement. Perhaps I’m giving away too much of the reality of a Pastor’s inner workings, but much of our work involves keeping a certain distance from people. That’s not to say we don’t genuinely care for folks or like them; it’s just that love, the kind of deep involvement that calls on the full resources of the human heart, must be carefully and thoughtfully considered.

It’s like this: when I perform a caring action, I do so because it is both part of my mandate as a minister and a part of who I am beyond my vocation. When someone asks me to listen to them, it is not with a cold heart that simply hears their words and tries to figure out what response, if any, is appropriate. It is out of a desire to help that person feel better about themselves, out of a need, if you will, to protect or to help heal a fellow human’s heart. My attention is fully theirs; my concern for them and their situation is complete and heartfelt. In that moment they are the single most important person in the world to me. I will even go so far as to say I love them as a fellow human being, as a fellow member of the walking wounded on their journey along both the broad and narrow walkways of life. But in my care for that person, I am careful not to have them become the be all and end all of my existence; I love them with a Christ-like heart, but not with the passion that consumes me.

Again, perhaps I speak to freely, but this is the careful line that professional caregivers must toe. We must protect both our own hearts and those of the folks for whom we are providing care. For one thing, there is only so much one can bear; our hearts can only take so much sorrow and pain; if we became fully immersed in the lives of everyone we sought to help, we would soon become so wounded ourselves that we would be beyond help, and thus no longer helpful. We must also be careful not to play favourites or to be seen as having set some folks apart for special care. Perhaps the most frightening scenario is that of actually falling in love with a particular person to the point of becoming too emotionally attached or even having an affair. While Lois, my wife of almost thirty years is the one and only woman I could see ending my years with, there are many other fascinating women out there. On the advice of a beloved and wise mentor, I am cautious of the temptation; having received some training as a counsellor, I am conscious of the way that lines can be crossed between patient and caregiver. Being myself afraid of how things might look I am careful of how I meet and deal with members of the opposite sex. In short, in the words of the previously mentioned mentor, I am always trying not to do anything stupid. I cannot imagine a greater betrayal of my wife, my family, my congregation, my denomination, my God or my vocation than to have an affair with someone in my care. Similarly, if not as extreme, it would be unfair and unwise to give my heart away to everyone that I encounter, whether in my position as a Pastor, or as just a regular person.

In theory, I seek to protect my fragile heart, as we all must. In reality, love happens no matter how carefully a minister protects themselves. There are some folks that, because of common interests or twisted sense of humour draw you into their lives just as they are drawn into yours. They become your friends and allies, people that you trust beyond the walls of the church and confines of Pastoral ministry. These are cherished relationships, but they are risky ones as well; congregations tend to stay in one place; their ministers not so much. Thus, becoming friends opens us to the possible pain of moving away and leaving the friendship behind. There is, however, the blessedness of knowing that even though distance might make the relationship difficult, it does not lessen the love and affection that brought you together as friends. Providing care for a family or within an institution like a nursing home or in the mission field also draws the Pastor into deeper waters of care and concern. Here too we must tread carefully, but there will be the inevitable moment when the heart must give its all and love without reserve. The human heart, unprotected as it is, cannot help but become involved in the lives of those for whom their masters have been called to serve. Not to open ourselves up to a certain degree of caring would be just as unhealthy and unhelpful as taking on every care and concern of everyone that comes into our caring circle.

We pastors are, perhaps, uniquely exposed to such risks; because we are natural born caregivers we much be extra careful in the way we conduct ourselves. But we all have fragile, delicate hearts. No one is exempt from falling in love, or falling too deeply. We would be lesser persons if we did not have some passion in our lives or if we did not expose our hearts to both risks and rewards of love. The rewards of love are a sense of joy and fulfillment; but this joy and fulfillment is not always exchanged; sometimes the passion we feel for another person is not reciprocated; it is unbalanced and one-sided. This is, at times the nature of love. Certainly, as a Christian, it is something that we recognize in our God, whom we understand loves us beyond our human capacity to love. Humanity does not love God with the same passion; many have rejected Him and even denied Him; yet such is the nature of God’s love, and indeed of all love, that there are times when we care even if care is not returned in kind.

The risk here is that our love becomes more obsession than passion; love that is not returned can lead us to try and make the other person love us or even to harm them out of our pain from being rejected. True love, however, understands that it can be one-sided, but if it is so, then it must remain silent because love must never force itself. Love, in order for it to be genuine and meaningful, must originate from within each individual heart.

Perhaps the greatest risk love engenders is that of being so immersed in the pain of those we care for that we ourselves are torn apart. I am a great admirer of Mother Teresa; she allowed herself to get extremely close to the lost and lonely, to people otherwise rejected and dejected, and yet she never allowed herself to be swept away by the pain or desperation of those she served. Mother Teresa knew how to love in a way that was passionate yet protective of her loving heart.

I’d be a lot more loving if I did not have to care; if I did not have to get involved in the pain of others; if I did not have to risk being hurt by rejection; if it did not risk losing my heart in the heart of another. That’s the theory behind the excuse. The reality is that I try to be as loving as a I can, even if all the supposed risks hang over me. I would rather lose heart because I cared too much rather than letting it become stale and hard from not caring enough.