The Sparrow Still Falls
Resisting the Urge to Fix It All
Last year, I read The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell, and I keep thinking about it. The Sparrow tells the story of the first contact between humans and an alien species on another planet, Rakhat. The contact party consists of Jesuits and scientists. The story wrestles with loss and suffering, and with cross-cultural communication and how misunderstanding can lead to disaster.
This quote from the book is the one that keeps coming to my mind:
‘There’s an old Jewish story that says in the beginning God was everywhere and everything, a totality. But to make creation, God had to remove Himself from some part of the universe, so something besides Himself could exist. So He breathed in, and in the places where God withdrew, there creation exists.’
“‘So God just leaves?’ John asked, angry where Emilio had been desolate. ‘Abandons creation? You’re on your own, apes. Good luck!’
“‘No. He watches. He rejoices. He weeps. He observes the moral drama of human life and gives meaning to it by caring passionately about us, and remembering.’
“‘Matthew ten, verse twenty-nine,’ Vincenzo Giuliani said quietly. ‘ ‘Not one sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it.’ ’
“‘But the sparrow still falls,’ Felipe said.”
I think about this when I read about detention centers, children with measles, ICE raids, people dying here and around the world because of a misguided hunger for power. We see the sparrow falling all around us, every day, and what is our response? What should it be?
image by: Charles J. Sharp; CC-SA
Sitting with Discomfort
In The Sparrow, the response was to sit with discomfort and tension. Sit with the person who had experienced tragedy and bear witness, even when they didn’t want someone near them. It wasn’t platitudes or “look at this good thing that came out of your pain.” It was sitting with suffering, in solidarity, even when you don’t understand all of it.
I’ve heard this called “getting in the well” with someone instead of coming in, motivational quotes in hand, trying to fix it all. When we try to “just fix it,” we are actually focusing our own discomfort. We fix it so we can stop feeling bad about their pain. To learn to sit with discomfort is a radical act of rebellion against a world that demands quick fixes. It is how we keep our humanity intact.
But what does that look like, really? Does it look one way with your closest friend and another way with those at work or across the ocean? Sitting in the well will look different in every situation, but the heart posture is the same. Sometimes, you can share tears with a friend or listen to a colleague’s experience without interrupting. You can educate yourself on events around the world; you can see people where others see statistics.
However, you can’t sit in the well with someone else if you are scared of the dark yourself. If we haven’t learned to tolerate our own discomfort, grief, or anger, we will inevitably try to rush others through theirs. We will offer platitudes because we need the tension to end.
So, the work of empathy begins with emotional self-awareness. We have to learn our own internal landscape - the valleys and hills, the twists and turns. We need to learn to observe our own emotions with curiosity instead of judgment and name what is happening inside us.
“Inviting our thoughts and feelings into awareness allows us to learn from them rather than be driven by them.”
― Daniel J. Siegel, Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation
When we ignore our feelings, we let them take the wheel. When we name them, we take back control. In the coaching world, we often say, “You have to name it to tame it.” The better you get at identifying your own emotional nuance, the higher your capacity becomes to sit with the complexity of someone else’s experience. You are building the emotional muscle required to sit in the well with others.
Act on it
Next time you feel a “sparrow falling” moment (in the news or in your day-to-day life) don’t fix it immediately. Grab a pen. Write it down. Name the emotion. Then decide how to move forward.