The Cure for Helplessness

In my opinion, one of the worst feelings in the world is helplessness.

It’s that feeling you get when confronted with a situation or circumstance in which you want to do something, you feel compelled to do something, but you can’t. You’re helpless.

I hate that feeling.

I remember that feeling vividly from that horrific September day during my Senior year in college. I was in New Haven at the time. When the towers collapsed I recall sitting with dozens of the other residents in the Residence Hall wondering aloud: “What can we do?” We were only an hour or so away from New York City, so in a lot of ways it felt as though everything had just happened in our own backyard.

There were about six of us who wanted to actually go to New York and help. Help how? We didn’t know. But we wanted to do something—anything—to help right this unthinkable wrong. But when we tried, we were told we couldn’t. The highways and bridges were closed. Train and subway activity was suspended indefinitely. Although our efforts were appreciated, we were essentially told, “Thanks, but no thanks.” And with our heads left spinning confused, frustrated, and grief-stricken, there was only word that would adequately described how we felt: helpless.

I hate that feeling.

But it’s something that I’ve felt a lot lately. It seems like every time I turn on the TV these days there is some story or headline about the latest tragic disaster that has devastated another part of the world. Hurricanes, Tsunamis, Flooding, Wildfires. The list is practically endless.

Just a few weeks ago, I remember watching CNN as they showed live footage from the Midwest where flooding was wiping out entire neighborhoods. The most disturbing piece of footage featured a house whose foundation was perched on the upper banks of the Mississippi River. As the news anchor offered running commentary, we watched in shock as the house slowly gave way and finally plunged into the raging torrent below and was swept away.

I can hardly describe how I felt as I thought about the lifetime of memories and irreplaceable items like family photo albums and home videos that were senselessly swallowed by the rushing river. It was a heartbreaking thing to witness. And sitting there in my living room, I remember wishing there was something I could do but ultimately realizing that there wasn’t. And once again, that unfortunately familiar feeling swept over me. I felt helpless.

Maybe I’m going out on a limb here, but I have a hunch that you’ve felt this way before too. I know that Hurricane Katrina had this effect on a lot of people at our church, because not only did we help feed and shelter many of the New Orleans transplants that came to Atlanta for refuge, but we also took up an offering that amounted to more than $10,000 to go towards the relief efforts. For a church our size that’s a staggering number.

Why did we give so much? Let me answer that by saying, I don’t know. But if I had to guess it’s because most of us felt otherwise helpless. Most of us felt compelled to reach deep into our pockets out of a heartfelt conviction that says, “I may not be able to do much, but I can at least do this.” And so we gave. To alleviate the frustration of our helplessness, we gave. And it turned out to be the most generous outpouring of charity I’ve ever seen.

Have you ever felt helpless? I’m sure you have, in one way or another. But starting this Fall, Briarcliff UMC is going be a part of something that wants to help change that.

With the help of the United Methodist Committee on Relief, we are going to form a Disaster Response Care Ministry Team right here at our church.

What does a DRCM Team do? At its most basic level, it turns our helplessness into help. In other words, it provides spiritual and emotional care in the wake of disasters. Working with other local congregation DRCM Teams, we’ll mobilize a group of volunteers that will go and help connect survivors with the resources they need in the event of a crisis.

Of course, we won’t be expected to just show up at the scene of an emergency without knowing what to do. That’s why all of the members of the Briarcliff DRCM Team will go through a free training programming that helps explain the basics of spiritual and emotional care and theology following disasters. The training will help us understand the help and care we can provide as well as the care we can't provide.

In other words, it’s a training program that recognizes, “We may not be able to do much, but at least we can do this” and then shows us how to do it.

Interested? If so, I’m the guy you’ll want to contact. How do you contact me? Well, there are several ways. You can leave a comment right here on this blog. You can email me at Jeremy@Briarcliffumc.com. You can call the church office. Or if you prefer alternative methods, I will respond to any of the following:

Smoke Signals
Telegram
Telegraph
Morse Code
Skywriting
Vulcan Mind-meld
Message in a Bottle
And even Hieroglyphics inscribed on my office door.

But please, whatever you do, don’t send me a sheet cake or giant cookie with your information spelled out in frosting. You see, I’m trying to cut back. And my best hope for maintaining my resolve is to simply not be faced with temptation. So I don’t want to see any message-laden confections waiting for me in my office. If there are, I will be forced to throw them out. Because the truth is, my willpower is rather weak. I buckle under the weight of seduction that cupcakes and triple-fudge brownies represent. In fact, when it comes to desserts and my ability to resist temptation, some might say that I tend to feel a bit, well, helpless.

And I hate that feeling.