The Way of Christ

“Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded.  It’s a covenant between equals…Compassion is always, at its most authentic, about a shift from the cramped world of self-preoccupation into a more expansive place of fellowship, of true kinship.” 

Gregory Boyle, “Tattoos on the Heart”

 During her second and third year of college, Esther co-led a Women’s Small Group in the campus student fellowship we were both a part of.  She was known by members of her small group as being “bipolar”–intensely and outrageously goofy in the privacy of an intimate group of friends yet painfully shy in public and large settings.  She dressed plainly without makeup and spoke mousily most of the time, yet in the company of her friends she stood on the table in the deserted library and belted out “Figaro!” on the top of her lungs–which promptly got us all kicked out.  She was an enigma for many who did not know her and someone whom people easily disregarded as being socially awkward and hermit-like.  In her college years, she surrounded herself with female friends and had very little interest in pursuing attention from the opposite sex.  She seemed to draw people in with similar dispositions–outliers who either did not care for popularity, or cannot seem to break their way into the in-crowd.  After a while, we found out that we were nicknamed “the lesbians” by someone in leadership in the student fellowship, which made us feel even more isolated and disconnected from the group as a whole.

Esther was not always an outcast.  Our experience as immigrants and minority in a mostly white town hugely impacted her identity during the formative and impressionable adolescent years.  If I may be so bold to say, she was quite the flirt at one point in her life. She had a way of behaving around boys that drew them in like flies to fire or bears to honey.  She did always have her boundary clearly marked, however.  There was little intimacy save some hand-holding and stolen glances, oh yeah, and hours and hours talking on the phone much to my parents’ dismay.  Slowly, I witnessed a gradual change in my sister–she started not caring about her looks as much and her behavior around boys did a 180 as well.  I never did ask her what happened, but I know there was a “relationship” (if you could call it that) that broke her confidence.

Her suitors waned as her attention shifted, and her relationship with God exploded.  Esther was my college suitemate for two years.   In my defense, I did desperately tried to keep some distance between me and my overly protective and loving sister, but my efforts toward independence were short-lived.   Every morning when I groggily peeked into her room on my way to the bathroom, she was always there, sitting up on her bed, pouring over her NKJV Bible.  Her college-era Bible remains my favorite possession in this world.

Another trademark of Esther’s college life was that she surrounded herself with international students.  Rutgers has a large population of international students, many of them here without families.  She would meet them on campus–never in her classes but around in the student center, on the bus, at the library–and she would invite them over to our apartment for a meal.  Then she would invite them over to our house on the weekends where they would endure my dad’s corny jokes, eat home-cooked meals, go rollerblading in the park, watch five dollar movies, and seemingly loving every minute with us.

Frankly, I didn’t like it.  Up to that point, I had tried so hard to shed my “fresh off the boat” stench and there she was, associating with FOBs and instead of climbing the social ladder, she appeared to be descending it.  I would’ve been ok with just being friendly on campus, saying hi and maybe chitchat for a few minutes with my fellow international students before going on our separate ways.  What I didn’t realize about my sister was that they were not her charity cases, but kinsmen.

Growing up, there was a neighborhood boy who came by our apartment building a lot.  His name has long been gone from my memory, but what I remember about him was that he was always dirty.  His hair greasy and his fingernails black, and he always wore a beat up pair of flip flops.  Esther quickly befriended him and very soon, he would show up in the courtyard of our apartment, screaming her name “Lin Chia-Chen!  Lin Chia-Chen!”  He was skinny as a stick and would always have a pack of dried ramen as his lunch, which he ate straight from the bag while applying the seasoning packet generously.   Esther often snuck him fruits and snacks, and they would talk and play for hours in the courtyard before the daylight fades and night appears.

Suffering is the fertile soil in which compassion can flourish.  Our own experience of pain allows us a window into the pain of others.  When we see our reflection on the faces of those whom others are quick to reject, and we walk with them and call them our own, we walk in the way of Christ.