Something has been puzzling me for a while, and it has just turned the corner to being disturbing. A subject which keeps cropping up is a negative one: sickness and death, and attitudes to it.
What's disturbing is not the subject itself, nor the fact of it occurring, but that there is a difference in my feelings on the subject and others', and that has only just become apparent to me.
What I am beginning to realise is that the brethren are very unusual in being quite matter-of-fact about this whole area. For brethren, there is nothing extraordinary about illness, or hospital visits, or dying. That's not to say that they're callous about suffering - far from it - but just that the emotion is rarely anywhere near overwhelming, and it is more usually considered a sad but expected part of life. This seems so normal to me that it has come as a shock to realise that such things are viewed very differently here on the outside.
I like to think I'm fairly sensitive. That may be somewhat self-deluding, but still it was sad to discover that I wasn't showing the proper degree of sympathy to somebody about to have a hip replacement. To me, this was one of those things which calls for a kind of "I see, well, good luck - I hope it all goes well" reaction. I know dozens of people who've had hip replacements - know them personally, I mean. It's routine surgery these days, and in all those cases I've never heard of any complications. One old lady I know had her surgery under local anaesthetic and insisted on viewing the old joint before the medical people threw it away, just to see if it was anything like the illustration in a children's book on the body.
Apparently, though, this was serious surgery, the kind which warrants special visits and care and compassion for the family. Of course it does, you may say, but it's the attitude behind it which seems so different to me. In my old world, all that would follow, but more because somebody will be missing from their family for that brief time, and then because they'll need a hand doing some things afterwards ... not because it's something scary and unknown. Real worry levels are reserved for things like brain and cancer surgery.
Then it was also disturbing to confess in conversation that I've been to so many funerals in my life that sometimes my first reaction (quickly and ashamedly suppressed) has been annoyance at the time needed in a busy life to attend it, and find that this was an utterly shocking thing to feel, never mind admit to.
I've been trying to tease out where the difference lies.
Partly, I think, it's to do with sheer familiarity. The more I consider the matter, the more important that seems to be. The other aspect is the religious faith, which says that anyone dying has gone to a better place and a happier condition, and that bodily suffering is good for the soul and a sign of God's love. That has to be significant, and it is. Many people have been comforted by that belief as they are struggling to overcome sudden gaps in their lives.
But still, it is familiarity which brings contempt. The thing is, that if you know around five hundred people very well indeed, and spend a large part of your life around them, with a few thousand more as acquaintances and a grapevine covering a yet wider circle, you will inevitably rub up against sickness and death in many forms, and very regularly. It's hard to maintain emotional depth in such circumstances, and only sudden untimely death or particularly grisly illness or special closeness or cuteness can boost the impact to levels that the relatively protected outsider would consider normal. I've no doubt that the medical profession suffers the same dulling of sensitivity.
It's a confusing problem. I feel privileged in many ways to have experienced so much of life in that respect, and to have made my peace with death knowing exactly what it means and looks like, besides having seen human fortitude at close quarters and learned from it. I hadn't realised there was a cost, but evidently there is, and I now have a dulled capacity for sympathy, which is hard to accept.
Probably only time will allow me to strike the balance better.
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4 comments:
I share your feelings. There is a saying that "sh*t happens," but most don't seem to understand it.
I suspect that how these situations are reacted to may be an individual one, and not necessarily an outside one being vastly different to a Brethren one.
The differences in peoples character means some can find a particular situation more stressful and emotional than another.
We often attend a funeral for different reasons so the closeness of the deceased will dictate the emotion involved.
Would you agree that Brethren tend to operate on more of a "one size fits all" policy where it comes to these subjects? As Pebbles says: there seems to be much more scope for individual variance on these subjects, outside.
IMO, individual capacity, past history, emotional state, and things like 'circumstances', often just didn't seem to be taken much account of in the EB, and therefore anyone suffering sadness or whatever would be pretty careful to keep it buried as much as poss. Whereas in the world, I think there often is a bit better understanding/allowance of differences between human beings. E.g. one person can be devastated to the point of emotional collapse over the death of a pet... whilst another can deal with it in a businesslike fashion. Neither of these reactions would generally be considered the Only Right Way!
I think if you continue to open yourself by looking and listening carefully to how others may/may not be 'coping' with any given situation, the appropriate level of nonEB sympathy etc will start to come more naturally to you, over time.
It IS disturbing to encounter these differences (your 2nd para refers)... but in a way, it's a perfectly intrinsic part of your move from EB closed society to the world, isn't it? Differences are allowed, and fascinating, and inspiring, and a heck of a tool for learning... as I know you know.
Differences in social expectations particularly, are really new to you... so cut yourself some slack on this, and don't even THINK about crawling off and giving yourself a permanent hard time for not showing the "proper"(?!) degree of hip replacement sympathy.
Oh, and here's something that may give you a little more understanding of someone's fears on the subject of hip ops: they most definitely CAN go horribly wrong. A close relative was crippled when infection set in to the hip op site. Nasty. It was my mum, and I despair over the fact that EB separation doctrine says I can't help her out. Put that in your sympathy pipe and smoke it! (Sorry, I'm not angry at you; it's at Brethren and their policies.)
I have (an outsider's) impression that Exclusive Brethren life tends to be rather monochromatic, and perhaps that accounts for the apparent lack of differentiation between sickness and well-being. Life outside the EB, however, is iridescent; so the contrast of the inevitable pallor and dullness of sickness is probably registered more.
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