Being-with-others: Lessons for a Meaningful Living

“I feel so horrible, when I have to be carried by someone else, I can’t walk, I can’t go anywhere by myself,” said a hospitalized young postgraduate girl who suffers from a minor spinal cord injury.

Now when you are caring for the people you serve need only to affirm her and be-with-her in moments of doubts, fear, helplessness and the inevitable negativity that seems to come upon the sufferer. Hence the first lesson for a fruitful ministry is being-with. This will give him/her a sense of ‘togetherness,’ a feeling of being cared for. 

In a situation of helplessness experienced by a person, how can you be part of his/her life and share meanings in this shared existence? Affirmation is the key in positively affecting the person you care. Someone undergoing a physical struggle, which would eventually evade the inner strength of the person facing it, affirm the inner strength of the faith, courage and positivity. In fact, in our visit to her, we affirmed her saying, “You look happy, smiling and cheerful.” She was indeed smiling because I feel she understood her helplessness and was trying to understand the powerful yet the existential reality of being dependent. She definitely learned to do things by herself but in the situation that has come upon her, she has to accept and say “I have to smile and be dependent on the other because I realize that I cannot do anything by myself, until some power comes from above.” In our conversation with her, she was so happy to say that she received a SMS from a priest which contained the words – “I really admire your courage and faith to stand up against all odds of life and still be happy.”

She narrated her life story. “I was attacked by ulcer, malaria, and many other possible sicknesses, but I came through all of them safe… and I want to get out of bed as soon as possible.” In Viktor Frankl’s terminology, her ‘will to meaning’ remained strong. We affirmed her, “you say it so and it will happen.”

The hospital surrounding, especially the ward in which she was admitted provoked a thought in me. Suffering is not a lone affair; there are others with similar sufferings. In fact in suffering is solidarity. Jesus identified himself with us precisely to tell that I am part of you. Jesus showed through his life powerfully the meaning of the existent reality of ‘being-with.’

In one’s suffering, if you shift your focus of attention from yourself to others, there is a hidden treasury of meaning awaiting you there. Look at the nature, when all around you is darkness, you feel that the nature smiles at you; the sun shines before your very face and brighten you up.

In this shared human existence, sharing one’s experience of pain and suffering can boost the inner spirit of the other and lead to a meaningful bind of trust.

All these are not enough if you do not affirm the presence of God. Hence praying together is another aspect of the story of dependence and ‘being-with.’ These tell us that the ‘other’ is significantly ‘the other.’ The other is a trace of the infinite as Emmanuel Levinas puts it. In independence the ‘ego’ is baffled by the myth of ‘egoism.’ This raises the slogan, ‘I am because I can.’ This awareness should necessitate a movement towards the ‘significantly other’ and raise the existential realm to the living out of “alone I can’t, together-with-others I can.”