When I was 16, I applied for a job picking pineapples for Dole on Molokai in Hawaii. I felt honored when I was selected. On our days off, we enjoyed taking in the local sites. One day, we visited the north side of the island where the highest sea cliffs in the world are located. From the observation area, we looked down on the windswept Kalaupapa peninsula and the small town on the shore. A nearby plaque told a touching story.
In 1830, foreign workers carried leprosy to the Hawaiian Islands. The government eventually passed a law that required those infected with the disease to be quarantined on Kalaupapa.
The bishop in Honolulu asked for volunteers to go live among the lepers and minister to their needs. Father Damien volunteered and was chosen. When he arrived on May 10, 1873, he assembled all the lepers and said, “I am…one who will be a father to you, and who loves you so much that he does not hesitate to become one of you; to live and die with you.” He spent the next 16 years working alongside the residents—building homes, churches, and schools. He treated the sick and comforted the dying at their bedsides. He taught the lepers that regardless of how the world viewed them they were precious in the eyes of God. Father Damien died of leprosy on April 15, 1889. He was 49.
Sympathy is feeling sorry for someone, while empathy is imagining yourself in someone else’s position and doing what you can to help them and alleviate their suffering. Father Damien’s work at Kalaupapa was a living definition of empathy.
While I was picking pineapples in Hawaii, my youngest sister’s body was being ravaged by JRA. An experimental medicine almost killed her. Over the years, I have seen many people filled with empathy minister to my sister.
One young lady knew my sister couldn’t go away to college, so she wrote her a weekly letter, anonymously, describing college life with all its challenges and joys, so my sister could attend college vicariously. It was only years later that this woman divulged her identity.
An older woman down the street regularly visited my bed-ridden sister bearing gifts—a warm loaf of bread or fresh vegetables from her garden.
Another friend created a two-person book club. She would purchase two books—one for her and one for my sister. For years, they would read the books and then get together for discussions.
To this day, another friend periodically stops by her home, unannounced, often carrying a bag of groceries because “I know it’s hard for you to get out.” She always stays and chats a bit. My sister once told me, “Today, she rubbed my cold feet while we talked.”
I could go on…
It’s been my observation, that sympathetic people tend to act like spectators—yelling encouragement from the stands—as they watch those in life’s arena struggle with their challenges. On the other hand, people whose hearts are filled with empathy quietly lace up their game shoes and enter the arena to help those who struggle.