To the Mentor: Fragility

"Fragile—Handle with Care." I think this phrase, printed boldly on brown cardboard boxes or gifts might have been my first exposure to the word fragility. In later years, the icon became the image of one of those petite champagne glasses that my parents used to take out on New Years Eve. The kind with sparkling wine, I guess. We, their six kids, with fizzy punch, would toast the New Year. The thin glass was seldom used except for special days because too much use increased the possibility of breakage.

Fragility changes the pace of things. We make room. We adjust our grip. We become thoughtful, mindful...maybe even respectful. After all, that word, respect, literally means to "look again," to slow down and give a thing a second look.

"He was like a bull in a china shop" is the accusation that captures the feeling of "the oaf" who has failed to leave fragility's tranquil domain undisturbed. Things in china shops have been placed to be seen and handled carefully.

I have never seen a t-shirt with "Fragile, Handle with Care." Perhaps I should make one and give them away indiscriminately to whomever I meet, while supplies last? Although I have no confidence many would wear such a shirt, I think all who were offered it would wear it at some point (at least in private, on Saturday mornings, if it’s raining). Even the big guys, the burly ones with the bulging biceps and stubbly bearded faces and the loud motorcycles would appreciate the gesture of the shirt, even if it were inconvenient to don it in public.

When we are honest, I mean alone-with-ourselves-honest, we know ourselves to be fragile. Yes, we are thick-skinned, faces to the wind, square-jawed, and quite invulnerable at times, but we break too. We have irreplaceable parts.

We are hurtable.

And there is not a one of us who would not do better on many levels if we could be find ourselves being treated with the kind of care we want, need, and deserve. Most people are nagged by the thought that few people "get us." Worse, we are at times plagued by a more damaging thought that maybe no one wants us, or at least not all of us. This is a human feeling that comes and goes…but it does come. Sometimes, it overstays its welcome.

Compassion, sometimes mistaken for mere sentimentalism or pity is called for between us. Compassion is a response to the fragility found in our world, our families, and our friends. Compassion is the gloved hand that holds carefully the thin glass lives and situations we find ourselves privileged to witness.

We simply have no idea what people are carrying on any given day. Taking my cues from war-torn news headlines from afar and the struggling friend near, it’s easy to come under a kind of paralysis that leave us believing little can be done to change the world. But if we could see the world and the people within it as that china shop that invites us to adjust our pace, to take a second look, to handle gently, we might find the world changing, even if on a minute scale.

We simply have no idea what people are carrying on any given day.

Mentoring is one of compassion's hands extended into the life of another who welcomes the slow down, who doesn't mind wearing the "Handle with Care" t-shirt.

#mentor #fragility