Amidst her usual quips, Rev. Debra Jarvis (who officiated my second wedding) has some good advice (for herself and others) about coexisting with people we don’t like.
We walked in silence for a while until I said, “I’ve always believed that Jesus meant it when he said, ‘Love one another,’ but he never said we had to like one another. So now I have to figure out a way to love her in spite of not liking her.”
I already knew how to do this because I had done it many times with patients. If you can’t be compassionate, at least be curious because many times curiosity opens the door to compassion which can open the door to love.
So I sat next to her at dinner that night and forced myself to talk with her. It turned out that her husband of two years was supposed to walk the Camino with her but he pulled out. Then he said he would walk the last sixty miles with her but changed his mind about that too. Her voice got low and thick as she talked. For the first time I felt she was being real.
I felt no satisfaction in being right about her cheerful veneer. I felt compassion for her. When her eyes filled with tears, mine did too.
…Curiosity almost always opens the door to compassion which leads to love.
I love the simplicity and practicality of this advice. No need to launch directly from a standing start into heroic levels of empathy; just try a little curiosity and see where that takes you.
