Editorial June 1, 1992 Issue

Preserving our ability to care

Richard C. Bergenheim

Have you ever wondered how people dare to care and are able to continue caring? The problems surrounding us can seem more than we can cope with while we are working just to make it through our own day.

No one wants to be hardhearted. Yet at times it almost seems necessary in order to deal with life these days. A neighbor is out of work because a factory or military base has closed down. A colleague is struggling with illness. Someone's vandalizing mailboxes up and down the street. Someone else is struggling with alcoholism. ... It's just too much. After all, you still have to get breakfast ready and get everyone off to school. You have a project that's overdue at work. And then there's the car that needs to go to the shop.

Still, there are some who hear such reports day by day and, in a ceaseless upwelling of love, they bring friends and strangers face to face with divine Love. Instead of burnout, this caring brings refreshment and renewal. Their own experience of God deepens, and those who call upon them find answers and healing where many thought it was impossible. What a gift they share! How does one describe what it feels like to be washed clean of fear, regret, hopelessness, and anguish? How does one explain the sense of light, the sense of being dear to God, of being cared for, of being able to depend on good? It's such a discovery! Such a wonder! It brings a surge of health and progress. Christian Science enables all to live such lives of effective caring.

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