Let us expand our spiritual prisms to include empathy and allow ourselves to feel, care, and be willing to sit with another’s pain, says CHANA MEDDIN

Images of San Francisco waking up to unearthly, crimson-red skies this week looked straight out of a dystopian, sci-fi movie. And yet, they were real. Apocalyptic wildfires in California, Oregon, and now my home state of Washington are causing massive evacuations and massive loss of life, homes, and land. 

Before I woke up this morning the sun had already vanished behind an unearthly tone, and my usual habit of flinging open my windows, inhaling deeply, and shouting gratitude for, “Yet another beautiful day!” only ended in fits of uncontrollable coughing. The local news told us to stay in, shut the windows, and avoid breathing the smoke because of its health dangers. Seattle, where I live, currently has the worst air quality in the world.

Chana Meddin

Despite all this, the wildfires still didn’t feel real for me ― until I read one paragraph hidden deeply beneath the headlines: The remains of a three-year-old little boy and his dog had been discovered by themselves near the southern border of my home state. Something unnamable in that image caught in my throat, my heart, and even now tears well up in my eyes.

That nameless child and the loyal dog, who refused to leave him, dying alone, together, wrecks me. I can’t bear the thought of it, or the pain it caused the rescuers who found their remains in that charred, smoking hellscape. But I must bear it. And I share it with you because if we don’t bear witness, if we refuse to bear it, I fear we risk losing our humanity. 

Living amidst the chaos of America’s politics and upcoming election, a pandemic that has claimed nearly 200,000 lives with nearly 7 million infections in the U.S., continuing racism and out-of-control wildfires caused by humans and fuelled by climate change ― how exhausting! I felt myself floating in the dumb stupor of compassion fatigue. You can only feel so much before you become numb. I can’t imagine what first responders and health-care workers experience.

California Wildfires (Pic CBS News)

That nameless little boy and his dog are etched into me. They represent what we have done to the planet, to ourselves, to him. Their image…buried so deep in the bowels of that story, as if an afterthought, another statistic ― what is going on? Have we lost our humanity? The little boy and his faithful dog are our very own. That was the story which didn’t get written. The one we must hear. The one we must bear. 

Please don’t tell me something is wrong with me for feeling this way. Something is wrong with a world that doesn’t. Let us not hide from our common humanity behind spiritual bypassing that excuses us, saying people who suffer must lack faith in God or are karmically responsible. He was a child with a dog in a fire. Could we expand our spiritual prisms to include empathy even if, especially when, it is painful?  Let us allow ourselves to feel, care, and be willing to sit with another’s pain. 

Centuries ago, Rabbi Hillel wrote, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? And if not now, when?” 

Chana “Hana” Meddin is a lifelong meditator, nature photographer, artist, and wildlife advocate. She has written for the Times of India’s ‘Speaking Tree’ and has a story published in Oswald Pereira’s book, ‘How to Create Miracles in Our Daily Life.’ She lives in Seattle with her cat, Annabelle Fluff. They both enjoy yoga.