The Caring Knob

What to do when you care too much...

Photo by Al Elmes on Unsplash

I’ve been in the caring business for fifty years. I started early in the art of caring. I suppose now, that my caring was birthed in a sterility of emotion; a search for love; a vacuum of concern. For me, it came by nature. It came from nurture. My ability to care was forged from a mixture of many dynamics, including a sense of “call” to care. My heart was broken early in my own formation and in this brokenness was birthed a heart that cared.

In my first pastorate, 54 people died in the first two years of my ministry. Some said, it was my preaching that killed them. But, it was in this place that I morphed into a sort of ambulance driver for the hurting. I showed up quickly. I showed up a lot. Caring meant to show up. Caring was what I did. Caring was who I was. Caring was how I got paid—it was how I made my living.

In all my ways of caring, I’ve discovered that my caring knob, inside my heart got stripped of the little clicks and ticks that give an indication of how high my heart was set to care. It’s just that I am wondering now who it was that “set” my heart to care so much.

I was on. I was rarely off. It is fair to say I did not know off or if there even was an off to my heart. The darkness of it all—of all this caring is that I soaked in the praise for being a caring person. That adulation fed a shadow in me—a shadow that was neither, pure or right.

I’ve sat with this questions now for quite a while: Where is my caring knob? How can this knob be turned down now? Is it even possible?

David Whyte, the author and poet extraordinaire writes, “Trying not to care is one of the great human defenses against the vulnerabilities that are creates in our lives, the difficulty being that it is such a central part of our nature that we have to go firmly against our nature not to care” (Consolations 2), pg. 70.

He continues, “It actually takes tremendous energy to suppress what is central to our identity; trying not to care is the abiding source of much of our exhaustion in a human life. Care waits in ambush, engaging the cynic in constant watchfulness, lest it overwhelm their powers to suppress its greatest powers… care never sleeps, care has been there all along, living at our center and because of the way we are made, care will emerge in the end.”

When I read Whyte’s words, I am helped a lot. But what is true is this one sentence: I feel the “ambush” of caring so much. It’s like he gets me; sees my caring knob; knows that I am stripped of power to dial “it” back; powerless to change the core of my essence one little iota.

Whyte elaborates:

“Care is our troubling friend, causing us heartache when we want to be solo operators free from any relationship but also our constant, abiding and loyal companion, who refuses to go away and then, in the end, our unfailing teacher” (page 71).

Ask any one who was devoted in their classroom, health clinic, church or NGO. Caring is dangerous work. It burns a soul out; exhaust even the young and strong; crumbles the skilled caregiver through the tidal waves of too much loss too soon.

The landscape in the caring profession is littered with cynical, professional care-givers—those who became dis-illusioned because caring so much actually, does hurt. It hurts a lot to care. One does not have to be a professional care-giver to flirt with cynicism. Perhaps, a heart gone cynic is actually a way to protect one’s own heartbeat from caring too much.

Cyncism is a rough scab over a deep wound. But having sat in the presence of the cynical and burned out; I prefer the presence of the tired and worn out to the bitter and sacastic.

Looking for the caring knob; examining my motives and intentions; and in this long off-ramp, turning my care to birds and my garden has helped me reach into my own inner self and touch this holy dial. Having now touched it; having now found it; embracing my nature and identity as a care-giver, I am pausing with it all and just being mindful of myself; noticing the truth and relaxing in any effort to do something about it all. If my legacy consist of one thing, it may be just this: I cared.

I’ve been away to the coast for a few days. In this time away, the bird feeders remained empty—even for the bluebirds still building their caring nest for their young to come. Upon returning home last night, the very first thing I did—even before I went inside—even before I unpacked the cooler was this—I filled all the feeders full to the brim. Within seconds, my feathered friends all returned to their Sabbath feast of mill worms, black sunflower seeds and shelled seeds as well. Something in me, pulled me to do this caring act. I just did it. It was just the caring thing to do—to take care of the birds.

I suppose they ate while I was away.

I am learning to practice trust.

I turned to writing a poem to help me work out this caring knob dilemna. Poetry is a way of working out something that is troubling the poet. So, my poem, “The Caring Knob” is my own way of searching for the knob and feeling the inabiity to “turn off” or sometimes even “turn down” this knob.

See what you think.

My poems are published in Substack for the readers who Subscribe to my work. The narrative is free but the poems—they are just too personal. They are expensive to write. They carry far more of my soul that I thought possible. Thank you for your support of my work.