Here is a revolutionary activity: listen to people who experience suffering beyond your reach. Do not try to put their experience in your categories. Stifle any cliché responses. Rather, listen; then, listen again.
Try to walk in their limping shoes. Try to live in their imprisoned body. Then, be quiet, and listen. Ask questions. Do not try to repair anything right away. Thousands of others have already tried and failed. They are sick of hearing pat answers.
Then, commiserate. Do not say, “It isn’t so bad.” How do you know? How can you know? You are a stranger to their misery and anguish. But you can be a compassionate companion along life’s way. Do not even say, “I understand.” You probably do not.
But, you can be the one in a hundred who dares to suffer well with others, to enter into their misery with no game plan, with no sure path to healing, and with no agenda apart from love.