Special but tiring...

It is 10:31 on Friday night. I have not long arrived home from another good night at Drop-in centre. (I won more games of pool than I lost.) This week has been interesting. At all of my chaplaincies I have had people share themselves with me. They have told me of friends and relatives with terminal cancer. They have told me about frustrations of their job. They have shared concerns about their own health. They have talked about decisions they are having to make and sounded out options with me. Just now when I arrived home there was a message on the phone from a long gone ex-firefighter with a problem he wants to talk over with me.

As well as these things I have continuing feelings of anguish over people I see around me. I encounter a whole group of men who wander around town and drop in to our drop-in centre or Space2B who are really wasted, and in some cases rotting human lives. They are in a mess with nothing much in life. I heard too from several sources of a young teenager who took his own life. I have seen people living sad lives with emptiness. I have found I have two reactions to all of this.

1) I feel extremely privileged that people feel OK about sharing openly with me. I have been really touched with the way guys have just slotted into talking about their stuff as if I was a close friend. I get to feel like I am trusted, loved and seen as useful. (In spite of being "religious") I sense that I am good at my job and representing Jesus well.

2) After a while of listening again and again to people's pain I feel emotionally drained. It is a funny sort of feeling. You suddenly feel somehow flat and you wonder why? You realise that it is because the build up of pain you have taken on board. I will re-energise, with a walk up the hill, reflection and some relaxation. I recall that Jesus was once in a crowd when an unknown and desperate woman touched him for healing. The Gospel said that Jesus felt that "power had gone out of him". It is that sort of feeling. The last thing I did at drop-in tonight was to get my jumper leads and help one of our guests to start his car by linking my car's battery to his battery. Power went out of my battery to his battery. I guess that is what has been happening to me. I have been intensely hearing and taking on people's pain and feel that somehow it has drained me. In a strange way though, when you step back and reflect on the needs you encounter, these things do energise you and inspire you to want to continue on - there's a job to be done, a purpose to live for.

It is a privilege, it is immensely fulfilling but also draining. I go to bed tired, but somehow with a good satisfied feel, as if life is deeply worth living.