This is a bit of a risky and vulnerable piece for me to write.

This piece is about how meeting a homeless woman taught me that comparing suffering is a mindset that ultimately closes our hearts to the suffering of others. I hope that doesn’t sound patronizing. Meeting her changed me.

The actual event happened many years ago, but it has stayed with me ever since. I’ve taken some creative liberties with the piece setting it in the present, but the essence of our interaction and the change inspired in me remains. Some would call it a conversion. 

Like filling a glass of water, we can only take so much. When we add the pain of witnessing the suffering of others (and the planet), we can overflow and shut down. We draw the blinds and try to get through another day. 

We may even get angry at those whose misery we are witness to. But this turning away, this “deadening of the heart and mind” (to borrow from Joanna Macy and Molly Brown) is neither good for us, or for the world. 

Thanks to this random encounter in a grocery store parking lot, I was able to watch these forces at work in me. Drawing on (lots of therapy and) the work of Kristen Neff on Self-Compassion, I learned that the more we acknowledge and offer ourselves compassion for our own struggles, the more we foster our capacity to have compassion for others. 

And this is important if we are to begin living in accordance to our values for a more just world. 

At the end, I offer some journal prompts and intention setting to assist you in this work if you’re interested. 

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I’m pushing my cart full to the brim with groceries. I’m swearing under my breath at having to do this alone, at how much these groceries cost, at how low my wife is feeling this week and how scared I am that she’s sliding into a bipolar crash. I feel my back, my knees and can’t shake this headache. I’m feeling old and generally sorry for myself.  

A woman shuffles across the parking lot towards me. I’m annoyed. So many homeless people now – in parking lots, on curbs, rooting through garbage bins, and accosting me everywhere I look.  I rush the shopping cart toward my car, in a vain effort to evade her. I feel sad. And then guilty. And then angry at her for “making” me feel these things.

She calls out to me. But instead of asking for spare change as I expect, she asks if I can use some help with my groceries.

“No, thanks, I’m fine,” I say, as a stick of butter plops out of one of my overstuffed bags. Clearly, I am not fine. She picks it up and hands it to me.

“I’ll return your cart then,” she says, smiling.

Urg. Now I’m stuck with her.

 I load the trunk as fast as I can. I am so uncomfortable as she waits patiently, watching me, so I break the silence:

“How are you tonight?”

“Oh, I’m blessed,” she answers, “Truly blessed!”

This stuns me. I look up at her. Her face is lit up with a smile. She is missing her front teeth. 

Blessed? I think. 

How can you feel blessed without home or shelter, sleeping in doorways and park benches, not knowing what or when you will eat?

Blessed. 

Without soap or a place to wash or relieve yourself? Wearing clothes you found dumpster diving? Having to rely on the reluctant charity of strangers?

How can you feel blessed without an address or identity or stature in the community? Vulnerable to prostitution and violence? Shooed away from storefronts because your presence is bad for business? Without loved ones who know or care where you are, whether you’re okay, or how to get in touch with you? Vulnerable to disease or covid? No one to make you chicken soup when you have a fever?

But I don’t say any of this to her, of course. Here I am, filling my trunk full of groceries. I should feel blessed and yet I am angry and ungrateful and not just a little ashamed.

What is wrong with me? 

Instead of feeling blessed, I feel like a failure – a failure at being “spiritual”, at being grateful, at being a decent human being. 

As I put the last bag into my trunk, my therapist’s words come back to me:

“Just because people are struggling doesn’t mean you’re not struggling too. Both can be true. It’s not a zero-sum game where they win and you lose at some suffering comparison game.”

I feel my heart soften. When I feel compassion for my own situation, I want to reach across this chasm that separates her and I. Instead of wishing her away, I wish the best for her. I want to give her what she needs.  

But she doesn’t seem to be needing anything from me at this moment. She is smiling at me, her eyes shining through the grime on her cheeks. I’m the one that craves absolution. 

I push the cart into her open hands. 

“Thank you. That’s really kind of you.” is all I can think to say.

“Have a great night,” she says, turning to leave. 

“Wait,” I say, digging into my pocket and looking over its contents: a crumpled bill, some loose change. I hand it to her, embarrassed at how little I am giving.

“Sorry about the pennies,” I say, apologising for not being better at giving, for not doing more and being more.

She shrugs off the apology. Pressing her palms together, she says, “God bless you.” I watch her pushing the empty cart away when she turns back to me, “I’ll pray for you!”

I feel so very much in need of her prayers. She’s given me so much more than I gave her. 

“Thank you,” I say. And I really mean it. 

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Journal Prompts:

What areas of my life am I struggling with?

Do I feel ashamed of my struggles when I compare them to others?

Intention setting:

This week I will show myself compassion by ____________________________

I will show compassion to the suffering of others by _______________________

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