I’ve been posed this question uncomfortably often lately: What can I do when there is nothing that I can do?
The answer to the question is, in fact, nothing. When there is nothing you can do, there is nothing you can do. So… welcome to the priesthood! This is the life that I’ve been inhabiting for six years now.
I mean, I do a lot. I work at a resourced parish, so my work is creating and running programs, meeting newcomers, incorporating them into the community. I write sermons and celebrate the Eucharist, or I did, anyway, until recently. I officiate funerals and weddings. I teach courses about Scripture and run Bible studies. I go to meetings, sometimes days-long meetings about church polity (help me Jesus) and answer email.
But when I’m not doing those things, I do nothing.
When someone comes into my office with marital problems, I do nothing.
When someone comes into my office lost and confused about how their life turned out the way it did, I do nothing.
When someone comes into my office with news of a terminal diagnosis, I do nothing.
When a family comes in to plan a funeral for their loved one who has just committed suicide, I do nothing.
Because there’s nothing I can do. I can’t fix the thing, even if I wanted to. And I want to. Oh how I long to fix the thing for these people I love so dearly. But it’s not in my power to fix. All too often, there is literally nothing I can do.
As nothing is the only thing I can do, I do nothing. I listen. I hear them. I sit in the pain with them. I absorb the anxiety and the grief and the trauma, I let them fall apart. I watch the tears stream down their cheeks and I sit there, doing nothing.
And somehow, grace beyond grace, my doing nothing does something. They walk out, lighter, unburdened. Although their painful circumstances have not changed, they have been seen and loved. The nothing makes space for something new to grow.
By all means: if you can do something, please do something. But if you can only do nothing, do nothing. With all your heart.