Jesus wept !

I am not very good as a Pastor. I know I am new at this, though I have done much else in my life so far, but I am still stunned by the messy lives of the people around me. I still assume that my life is a reasonable starting point for everyone, and then the pain of another breaks in, and I realise that I have been both blessed and sheltered. I try to re-form the view, to see with another's eyes, and the pain of it wells up within me till I feel hopeless and vulnerable and unable to see around it, and I let it slip away and settle back, troubled, into my own safe world.

The other day I called on a couple in the aftermath of a row. They'd asked me to call. There was an air of quiet viciousness that both seemed unable to see or change. Years of practice and hurt had honed their words so that each could draw blood effortlessly. Both expressed a desire to stay together, but neither seemed to have the energy to countenance the change required, nor the courage to lay down their weapons. I felt like a medic on a battlefield, dispensing bandaids wholly inadeqate for the wounds around me. I muttered platitudes and left and prayed. Their privacy resealed itself around them, so that now I just get polite responses. The breach in the wall has been shored up .... until the next time.

But I am not as I was. Some of their pain has lodged in my mind. I feel infected in a strange way. The pain and the hurt pops into my mind at odd moments. I wonder if this is part of being a Pastor: slowly gathering slivers of others' pain into the mind and soul ?