No man’s profession can exempt him from the misfortunate incident to his nature. The idea of “World pain,” I believe, can be understood more accurately as “human pain.” Of course there is physical pain. Bodily injury and biochemical disturbance can produce excruciating suffering. Psychological pain, with its locus in our sense of self and worth; sociological pain, with its locus in our sense of affiliation and alienation; spiritual pain, with its locus in our sense of power and meaning. Human pain represents the personal and social and spiritual suffering people experience in the midst of living. On the levels of community and cosmos, that pain is, indeed, World pain.  When we are experiencing any kind of pain, we are driven to understand what is happening. It our attempt to understand, we find ourselves dealing with individual as well as Universal expression of the human pilgrimage. We look to ourselves and we look to others. Even more, we look to the Universe, what it is about, how it works, what rests at its heart. Immediate concerns inevitably mere with the official distress. What happens to others happens to us; what happens to us happens to others. Human pain intensifies human meaning with special poignancy. We have to have sense of that which seems senseless. 

Such understanding requires our person participation in pain. There is continuity between ourselves and others that specific stress cannot obscure. If we are to respond helpfully, we must ourselves know of (and not merely about) pain. In this realm we cannot be too removed from reality. The difference between reality and a semblance of reality is extreme. Those are, in truth, separate realities—one immediate, vivid, substantial; the other faint, insipid, spent. The residue of others’ experience is inadequate for one’s own sustenance. If we feed our lives on the leftovers from others’ presence, the diet could leave you alienated and alone.  We who heal also require healing. The ongoing requirement for the helper to be helped is real. Our bodies and brains function on our behalf and the crucial demands we personally face when we venture to respond to pain. These demands complete the circle of caring, for having begun with ourselves and having reached out to others, we discover we are brought back to ourselves. If we are to care for others genuinely, we are forced to face openly who we are and what we want. Dependency, aging, and dying have their own specific constellations of pain. We come into this World, we pass through it, and in many cases we depart. 

No matter what we do, we risk. We risk ideas and ideals, our lives and the lives of others, we risk concerns and security and satisfaction. In no way can we avoid risk—either in life or in responding to pain. One heart beats with other hearts in the presence of human pain. We are called from beyond our own little lives to enter into the lives of others. To respond—so simple, so meaningful, so significant, so natural, so inevitable…. Of course I want to respond, I want to help, I want to heal, I want to be all that I can be with others and for others and to others. However, what sounds so right and what seems so real, upon closer examination, turns into that which is unclear and uncertain. To respond to human pain—we can too easily jump into professional performance—or at least advanced competence without initially paying the price of person discipline.  Many people only want things that benefit them. They want to come in when the cost is less and the burden light. Most would bypass the step where the cost is greater and the burden heavier. In responding to human pain, that initial cost and that first step always mean including ourselves. To give ourselves to others in ways that matter requires that we have ourselves together as ourselves in ways that matter. If we really intend to respond to human pain, then, of necessity, we have to start with ourselves.   

Most people enter helping professions—ministry, medicine, social services, teaching, psychology—out of a personal need to be needed. Some do it because others require it of them. At its core that requirement is life and health; namely, my life takes on life to the degree it is engaged with others. There can be no life without meaningful life together. However, surrounding that core of human response, we find a layer of intent: I will be needed no matter what; I will be helpful regardless; I will respond at all times to all requests as requested. It is that willful drive to respond that becomes a terrible burden upon those to whom we seek to respond. At the beginning, we cannot avoid looking at the personal cost and individual struggles which we must undertake if we are to put ourselves at the disposal of others. That is the necessary foundation if we are to have a self to give away in ways that matter. There are, however, far more subtle loneliness traps in our society. Not every lovely person is trapped by interest in career, pursuit of independence, or a love-seeking belief system. Many lonely people are not particularly hung up about these issues. Many readily admit that they would give anything if only they could find the right person with whom they could share their lives. And yet they still find themselves enmeshed in isolation.