Discouragement and the Human Touch

In my mid-twenties, I went through several years of trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. Finally, at age twenty-six, I sensed the call to become a pastor. At first skeptical about taking this path, my wife ultimately gave her approval to my desire to enroll in seminary. Four-and-a-half years later, we moved to the first parish I served as a pastor, a wonderful congregation in rural northwestern Ohio.

For me, this new life daily brought new challenges I found stimulating. And while my wife was enjoying our new setting, the transition was not always so wonderful for her. She'd gone from working professionally in the Arts and in special events planning in an urban area to being, at first, a stay-at-home mother amid the soybean and corn fields. It was a life of relative isolation, relieved by occasional encounters with people she barely knew. Most of the time, the only company she had were our three year old son and our brand new baby daughter.

Some days, anxious to prove myself to my parishioners and to get to know them, I was on the go from early in the morning until 11:00 at night. In retrospect, I realize that I didn't treat my wife very fairly. While she quickly made good friends and I made every effort to stay at home at least three nights a week, there still was no way to completely compensate for the droning demands imposed on her by day-after-day mommydom.

Then, little more than a year into my ministry, I got the chance to attend an out-of-town conference. After three days away, I was pumped and inspired for my work and ready to see my family. I got back in mid-afternoon. The house was quiet, a sure sign that nap time had arrived. I thought that my wife would be reading in our room and that perhaps we could steal a little time to talk about this energizing conference I'd just attended. When I walked into our bed room, I found her spread out on her stomach, face buried into the mattress, her hands cupping both temples.

"Hi, honey!" I enthused.

Slowly, she replied, each word sounding like a painful paragraph, "Why don't you just go away?"

What happened? It's really pretty simple. I had selfishly allowed my wife to fall prey to the effects of isolation. Yes, she'd made a few friends with whom she had occasional contact. Yes, I was there regularly and so too were our then little children.

But she needed more human contact. We all do. While most men don't realize how desperately they need to interact with other people or how important friendships are, most women seem to be attuned to these realities.

Often, wives, to the bafflement of their clueless husbands, communicate this need and the men are hurt. "What's wrong with me?" they may wonder. "Aren't I good enough company for my wife?" You probably are good company. But if husbands are the only good company their wives have, it can be crushing for the woman. Disconnectedness creates discouragement.

And that's true for everyone, male or female.

Take the businessperson or doctor, male or female, who sees himself or herself as a person whose life and identify revolve around living not as a human being, but a human doing. The human touch gets lost and discouragement sets in.

The same thing happens to pastors who see themselves not as persons, but as parsons.

It happens too, to elderly folks who fail to be proactive in maintaining friendships.

The late priest and spiritual leader Henri Nouwen wrote, "Boredom, resentment, and depression are all sentiments of disconnectedness."

God has made us to be in relationships, with God and with others. According to the Old Testament book of Genesis, for example, God concluded that it wasn't good for the first man, Adam, to be alone. That's when God made Eve.

And when Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, He said that first, we're to love God completely. But then, He noted that the second one was just like it, to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

So, here are a few suggested steps for defeating discouragement by fostering connectedness, in ourselves and in others:

• At work or at home, when you ask someone, "How are you doing?," look them in the eye and really listen to their answer.
• When interacting with your spouse or kids, take some time to put down the newspaper or turn off the TV to talk together.
• Pick up the phone and call a friend.
• Treat the harried clerk at the store with respect.
• Offer your help to someone, especially when you'd rather not do it.

Someone has said that if you want to know what the right thing to do might be, ask yourself what is the hard thing to do. It's hard to militate against things like workaholism, habit, or the temptation to measure our worth by productivity and instead, to focus on simply being with others. But it's also liberating...for us and for those whose lives we touch.

[This is part of an occasional series. Previous posts:
Discouragement and Some Antidotes
Discouragement and Mr. Nice Guy]