A Reading from the Gospel of Mark

And when Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered about him; and he was beside the sea. Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name; and seeing him, he fell at his feet, and begged him, saying, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.” And he went with him.

And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him. And there was a woman who had had a flow of blood for twelve years, and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. She had heard the reports about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I shall be made well.” And immediately the hemorrhage ceased; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone forth from him, immediately turned about in the crowd, and said, “Who touched my garments?” And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’” And he looked around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had been done to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

While he was still speaking, there came from the ruler’s house some who said, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?” But ignoring what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” And he allowed no one to follow him except Peter and James and John the brother of James. When they came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, he saw a tumult, and people weeping and wailing loudly. And when he had entered, he said to them, “Why do you make a tumult and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. But he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. Taking her by the hand he said to her, “Talitha cumi”; which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” And immediately the girl got up and walked; for she was twelve years old. And immediately they were overcome with amazement. And he strictly charged them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

Reflection

God created us for relationship with the goal to develop a communion of persons.
Relationships are essential, but relationships can also be hurtful or unhelpful, even when we are trying to help.
The poor woman in this Gospel passage was harmed by many doctors.
Doctors can be good and healing or they can cause more problems.
Or to say it another way, in the words of my high school soccer coach: “Practice does not make perfect.
Practice makes permanent.
Only good practice makes perfect.”
What is the good practice in accompaniment relationships and what are some pitfalls that we need to avoid?

Accompaniment should provide support in suffering, drawing close to failure, providing unconditional love in the midst of struggles and self-doubts and encouragement where there is weakness.
To the contrary, a problematic form of accompaniment may increase the problems by increasing shame.
Two pitfalls that can increase shame are surveillance accountability and fixing.
Surveillance accountability tries to use shame to produce better behavior.
Fixing is a form of shaming that exposes weakness and declares it bad and implicitly rejects the person who has it.

Surveillance accountability tries to leverage the fear of shame to produce better behavior.
For a person who is struggling with something (alcohol, porn, getting enough prayer, living Exodus goals), the fear of letting an accountability partner know about it is supposed to prevent the bad behavior.
The problem is that this leverage is very weak and especially for strong behaviors like porn or alcohol that act like firefighters, the pain they are trying to numb is much more significant than the fear of shame, and so a person will fall despite the accountability.
Then the shame is magnified because of the shaming accountability partner.
In contrast, consider a spiritual companion who is ready to meet you in your shame with empathy, support you in your weakness, and show and help you to have hope that you can begin again.

Another problem can be the tendency to fix people.
This problem is stereotypical for men (see the video “It’s Not About the Nail”).
When we approach a person as a problem to fix, we end up shaming their weakness.
We are giving the message: “There is something wrong with you,” or “You are messed up,” or “You are broken.”
These messages intensify shame and create a fear of rejection and abandonment.
The person may take in the message that love is conditional, pending your fixing of this problem.
This is particularly bad because most of these problems are not easily overcome.
Then the person is in a bind, feeling further shame, being more tempted to hide the problem, and tunneling deeper into despair.

Loving accompaniment focuses on receiving the person as he is, entering into the struggle with him, empathizing with the difficulty, giving a reason for hope, and offering as much help as possible.
This accompaniment does not rush the process or set deadlines or pressures on overcoming particular behaviors.
This is true friendship, the love of a brother who is committed to the end.