• Who We Are
    • Who We Are
    • Mission
    • History
    • General Synod
    • Leadership and Ministry
    • Staff
    • United Church of Christ Board
  • What We Believe
    • What We Believe
    • Worship Ways
    • Daily Devotional
  • What We Do
    • What We Do
    • Office of the General Minister & President
    • Justice & Local Church Ministries
    • Wider Church Ministries
  • News
  • Church Finder
  • Donate Now
  • Search
UCC Logo United Church of Christ
  • Church Finder
  • Events
  • Contact
  • Store
  • Frontline Faith Portal
  • Donate Now
  • Search
  • Who We Are
    • Column
      • About
        • Mission
        • Constitution and Bylaws
        • History
          • UCC Archives
        • UCC Brand Guidelines
        • General Synod
          • Synod 33 Worship Videos
          • Past General Synods
        • Abuse Prevention
    • Column
      • Structure
        • Conferences
        • Affiliated Ministries
    • Column
      • Team
        • Elected Officers
        • Staff
        • United Church of Christ Board
          • Board Minutes
        • Office of General Counsel
        • UCCOSSN
    • Column
      • Career Opportunities
      • Annual Reports
  • What We Believe
    • Column
      • Worship
        • Statement of Faith of the United Church of Christ – La Declaración de Fe de la Iglesia Unida de Cristo
        • Worship Ways
        • Daily Devotional
        • Sermon Seeds
  • How We Serve
    • Column
      • Office of the General Minister & President
        • Welcome to Human Resources
          • Employee Relations Resources
        • Center for Analytics, Research & Development and Data (CARDD)
          • General CARDD FAQs
          • About The Center for Analytics, Research & Development, and Data (CARDD)
          • Authorized Minister Opt Out
          • Access UCC
          • Archived Reports
          • Assessment Resources
          • Information Policies and Requests
          • Faith Communities Today (FACT) Survey
          • MissionInsite
          • Statistics and Reports
          • Vital Signs and Statistics Blog
          • Data Hub FAQs
          • Data Hub
          • Yearbook and Directory
    • Column
      • Justice & Local Church Ministries
        • Justice
          • Faithful Action Ministries
            • Environmental Justice Ministries
            • Economic Justice
            • Racial Justice
          • Office of Public Policy & Advocacy in Washington D.C.
            • Justice and Peace Action Network
            • Our Faith Our Vote 2020
            • Justice Training Resources
            • Action Center
          • Health and Wholeness Advocacy
            • Disabilities and Mental Health Justice
            • Encuentros Latinx
            • UCC HIV & AIDS Network-UCAN
            • LGBTQ Ministries
            • Our Whole Lives
            • Overdose and Drug Use Ministries
            • Scouting
            • Wellness Ministries
          • The Pilgrim Press & Stillspeaking Publications
    • Column
      • Justice & Local Church Ministries
        • Local Church
          • The Faith Education, Innovation and Formation (Faith INFO)Team
            • Weekly Seeds
            • Youth & Young Adults
          • Worship Resources
            • Worship Ways
            • Sermon Seeds
            • Synod 33 Worship Videos
            • Music and Liturgical Arts
          • Stewardship & Generosity Resources
          • Ministerial Excellence, Support & Authorization (MESA)
            • History, Polity, and Theology
            • Search & Call
            • Ministerial Profiles
            • Ministry Opportunities
            • Manual on Ministry
    • Column
      • Wider Church Ministries
        • Global Ministries
        • Global H.O.P.E.
          • Volunteer Ministries
          • Refugee and Migration Ministries
          • Disaster Ministries
          • Recovering Hope
        • Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations
  • Resources
  • News
    • Column
      • News
        • United Church of Christ News
    • Column
      • Columns
        • Witness for Justice
        • Into the Mystic
        • Getting to the Root of It
        • The Pollinator: UCC Environmental Justice Blog
        • UCC Roots
        • Encounters at the Well
        • Reflexiones
    • Column
      • Upcoming Events
        • Webinars
      • Changes & Deaths
  • Giving
    • Column
      • Donate Now
      • Ways to Give
        • Giving Tuesday
        • General Synod 2021 Thursday in Black Offering
        • General Synod 2021 Racial Justice Offering
        • Disaster Ministries: How to Give
        • Our Church’s Wider Mission
          • Our Church’s Wider Mission Basic Support
          • Strengthen the Church
          • One Great Hour of Sharing
          • Neighbors in Need
          • Christmas Fund
          • 5 for 5
    • Column
      • Ways We Give
        • Scholarships & Grants

  • Home
  • News
  • Column
  • Into the Mystic
  • Compassion

Compassion

by Jess Chancey | published on Jun 13, 2022

Listen to the podcast

Read the transcript

I’m Rev. Jess Chancey, back again to fill in for John.

And this is such a tough time to be asked to take the helm again. All these news stories that are really just the same story in a different place and with new victims. I’m tired of hearing about it, and I’m tired of talking about it. But really, I’m tired of living it, and it’s been all my adult life. My senior year of high school, just a couple of months before graduation, two high school students murdered twelve of their fellow students and a teacher in Columbine. I remember the realization of my classmates and myself that we were the last of the students who could just go to school, without metal detectors and bag searches. The next class of students became the start of the active shooter generation, when students were no longer potential professionals, craftspeople, tradespeople, laborers, farmers, etc., but potential criminals, potential murderers. That’s how our students are seen now. Right away, it wasn’t a matter of taking away the weapons, but a matter of policing the innocent.

I’m tired of it. For those listeners who may have hoped for a different voice to bring a different perspective, on this specific issue, I’m quite happy to disappoint you. Like John, I do not believe that it is enough to regulate guns. I want them gone. I’m thirsty for that day when we beat our swords into plowshares, when we take all the guns, turn them into scrap, and use the pieces to make medical equipment. I’m not naïve enough to think that this country will ever go that far. There are too many lobbyists and politicians whose pockets are lined with the perpetuation of violence, too many gun manufacturers whose mouthpieces use all manner of perfidy to convince folks of the lie that guns don’t kill people.

It feels like we’re stuck. The powers that be would rather demonize those with mental health conditions, you know, people like me, than stopping the creation and distribution of death machines. And we just keep hearing the news of another Parkland, another Sandy Hook, another Uvalde, and not just the schools but also grocery stores and movie theaters and medical clinics and houses of worship. We get riled up, we start fighting amongst ourselves, we demand action but don’t you dare ask me to change, laws are proposed, don’t pass, and then on to the next shooting.

How do we bear this? How do we not give in to hopelessness? How do we find God in a time when churches have blessings of guns instead of backpacks?

For me, I find God through nurturing relationship, watering the seeds of compassion, as Thich Nhat Hanh would say. We often learn about the Golden Rule, doing to others what we would have done to ourselves, but I don’t find that to be the most truly compassionate thing. Take hugs for example. When I’m feeling down, what I want most is to just be held while I cry. So am I supposed to automatically hug the next sad person I see? Some people wouldn’t appreciate that.  I appreciated learning a different version of truly compassionate love based in empathy. Do to others what they want done to them, and we strive to do this knowing full well that we cannot guess what someone else would want. It requires communication, a certain amount of trust and understanding, before we can truly know what someone else wants, and even more important, what they want from us!

On Star Trek: The Next Generation, the character of Deanna Troi serves as the ship’s counsellor, and she’s particularly good at her job because she is half-Betazoid. Betazoids are an alien race who are telepathic, and being half-Betazoid, she inherited enough of that talent to be empathetic. She can sense the emotions of others. I always loved her and still do because that’s a gift for chaplains to be able to do. To pick up on, maybe not in the quasi-telepathic way, but certainly in the keenly observant way, to pick up on the emotions of others. It’s not something you can teach, like this furrow of the brow means this emotion, this degree angle of lip twitch means this, etc. No, it’s a skill that develops with time, and, more importantly, with the willingness to be vulnerable, to say, “Your facial expression seems to say you’re upset. Am I reading that right?” Saying that, knowing that we might be wrong, but if the person does correct us, we’re still learning more about how they are really feeling, and we can go from there to learn what they need, and what they want from us specifically.

I hope we can all, not just chaplains, but all off us as human beings, can get to a place where we pay enough attention to one another that we can read those feelings, ask about them, invite each other to share our wants, needs, hopes, desires, and struggles, so that we can be a true human community. Burt Bacharach had it right, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love.” And to me, that shows up in compassionate caring. I hope and pray that one day there will be enough of it that we can finally set aside all our weapons. All of them. In the meantime, let’s water the seeds of compassion wherever we find them, so that those seeds can grow and blossom into flowers of empathy and interbeing on this our journey into the mystic.

Categories: Column Into the Mystic

Sign Up For Our Newsletter








Privacy Policy






Related News

Witness for Justice
Witness for Justice

A Legacy of Safe Spaces and Solidarity

Michael Schuenemeyer On June 25, the United Church of Christ (UCC) not only celebrated its 65th...

Read More
Witness for Justice
Witness for Justice

Channeling Rage

Jessica QuinnOnline Communications Specialist, Washington D.C. Office On June 11, staff...

Read More
Witness for Justice
Witness for Justice

Juneteenth: A Day to Remember

Traci Blackmon Associate General Minister This week, for only the second time in history,...

Read More
  • Column
    • Local Church and Conference Resource Directory
    • Mission
    • Justice & Local Church Ministries
    • General Synod 33 Resolutions
  • Column
    • Contact
    • News
    • Store
Content on ucc.org is copyrighted by the National Setting of the United Church of Christ and may be only shared according to the guidelines outlined here.
  • Follow us on Facebook
  • Follow us on Twitter
  • Follow us on Instagram
  • Subscribe on YouTube

Donate Now


UCC Crest
© United Church of Christ 2022. Privacy Policy.
Crafted by Cornershop Creative