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Dear Dolly,
I am tired of all the clichés I use when somebody loses a husband or gets long haul Covid or loses a job. I have used up all my sympathy cards. I may have outlived my compassion capacity. I heard about compassion fatigue. What about compassion exhaust fumes? I know I irritate people when I say, “I am sorry for your loss” or, “How can I help? “or, “Surely God will bring a blessing from this tragedy.” I long ago gave up saying “this is part of God’s plan, I just know it.” I got slugged too many times by too many people for that one. Maybe that’s why I have compassion fatigue. I got bruised.
What should I do? I don’t want to be MIA around the suffering of my pals, but I also don’t want to get too close to it.
Sympathy Exhaustion Department
Dear Sympathy,
Never just say, “how can I help.” Who needs to be your advisor at a time of their trouble? Show up with a casserole. Offer to take the dog for a walk every Tuesday. Bring over a bottle of gin. Help. Don’t ask to help.
Call people up and offer to talk about something other than the tragedy. “Did you see the Audubon folk pulling out all the invasives on the path we took last summer? Really cool.” ” How do you want to celebrate your birthday, at Restaurant A or Restaurant B?” Don’t turn your friend into a non-stop victim of suffering. Give them an exit strategy, even if just for an hour.
Above all leave God out of it. God is much too busy to work on individual tragedy. God has wide swath tornadoes in Kentucky in mind. Instead, if you want to get all spiritual, you could use scripture, always as good as crystal or a Le Crueset or another good, large stew pot as a wedding gift. Handwrite a passage. Buy new cards that don’t say sympathy all over them.
These three scriptures are good.
Romans 8: 18 NRSV. “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed in us.”
Jeremiah 29: 11, 12. “For I know the plans I have for you. Plans for your welfare and not for harm, and to give you a future with hope.”
Psalm 52. “…Weeping may endure for the night but joy comes in the morning.”
Then say something like I am not sure I believe any of these things, but I would so like to. Be gentle with the spiritual advice. People often feel tested at their core when ordinary or extraordinary trouble strikes them. Don’t be preachy. Just try a touch of trust.
Above all, whatever you say make it clumsy enough to show that you mean it. If you don’t mean it, don’t say it.
Tragically,
Dolly
Dear Dolly,
I am working on my New Year’s resolutions again and ran into an Irish monk wearing a t-shirt that said “Whiskey and Yoga.” I asked him what he meant. He said, these are my spiritual practices. I practice one much more regularly than the other.
I asked him if he was deeply cynical or only slightly cynical. He said it depended on the day.
I was glad for his refreshing honesty about practices.
I want to practice interval training for my daily walks. I’ve heard it said that I can burn 594 calories in an hour if I walk slowly, then really fast, then slow and repeat. This exercise has my name all over it and will allow me a double in the evening.
One year I actually did practice my own version of yoga almost every day. My practice broke down when I told somebody I had my little version written down on a 3 x 5 card and that I was “doing it” almost every morning. She said, “Why not every morning?”
I knew she was a fundamentalist. I also knew I didn’t like her. But what a crappy response to my efforts at health.
Should I confront her and tell her she hurt my feelings or never see her again? I don’t have many friends or very many good habits either.
Dear Practice,
You should absolutely speak to her, look her straight in the eye, and suggest a revision. Speaking to her implies a new habit already. There is no need to confront. She already did that to you. Why return the unfavor?
Argue that it is better for you to do some of the yoga some of the time and that you don’t appreciate her being such a perfectionist. I would leave the word fundamentalist out of it. Soften your approach while challenging her on the merits of her non-argument.
Give her a script. “Wow, that is great that you are getting so far into your yoga practice. I wish I could be more disciplined about my own exercise regiment.”
Theologian Henri Nouwen shared in his writing, Out of Solitude, “The paradox of expectation indeed is that those who believe in tomorrow can better live today, that those who expect joy to come out of sadness can discover the beginnings of new life in the center of the old…”
You’ll likely never practice every day. The only good exercise is the exercise that you actually do. You might just practice a little. That will be wonderfully good for you.
You could also remind her of the man who swore he was going to stop drinking vodka in 2051, when it had all run out and he would be 95. He was making fun of environmentalists. We won’t go dry on gasoline tomorrow, but we could if we paced ourselves and our rehabilitations carefully.
Tell her that good habits are caught not taught and that you have every intention to be an imperfectionist for all of 2022.
Then tell her that you have been micro–aggressed, exactly when you would like to have been micro-blessed. Tell her that intent doesn’t matter. Impact does.
Happy New Year.
Dolly
Who is the Dolly Mama?
The Dolly Mama is a spiritual version of Dear Abby. Her intention is to combine the irreverence of Dolly Parton with the surrender and non-attachment beloved by Buddhists. She wants to let go of what can’t be fixed – in either self or others – and fix what can by applying the balm of humor.
She is a spiritual handyperson, a soul mechanic, a repairer of broken appliances. Every now and then the combination of letting go and hanging on achieves sufficient balance for an improvement in spiritual posture, stronger spine, and personal peace. The Dolly Mama is not her day job. By day, she works as an ordained United Church of Christ and American Baptist pastor of a regular, if edgy, congregation