Charity on the Bridge

Perched precariously on the edge of the concrete wall, the man sat in silence. His mind was a jumble of conflicting thoughts and emotions, yet his expression remained blank. He watched, as did the rest of us, as one of his shoes slipped off and fell 200 feet into the frigid darkness below. The murky waters mirrored the turmoil within him, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to dive in or run away.

Each moment spent on that bridge was critical. Every spoken word and movement had to be carefully calculated. A single misinterpreted statement could result in a fatal leap, and so all sources of light were turned off except for a lone flashlight trained on the bottom of the barrier, just in case even the faintest glimmer gave him the motive to jump.

Leaning on the hood of the car no more than twenty feet away, having been commanded by the man to step no closer, you get his attention and proclaim, "This is a really stupid decision, man. You realize you're leaving what matters, and if you don't repent, you're going to end up in hell…" As soon as you utter the words, the man vanishes from his seat, and the sound of him hitting the water reaches your ears.

This situation is all too common in our current era. Many individuals are treading dangerously close to the edge of a cliff, risking their stability and beliefs as they search for the truth. From our vantage point, the options are clear. Leave the cliff edge and backtrack into the safety of the faith, or fall into the dark abyss of apostasy.

We know the weight of the danger; we can see it clearly—or at least we can clearly see the big picture. So we shout, yell, and scream in hopes of guiding the person back. What we can't see, however, is the weight the person is carrying, how difficult it may seem for them to turn around on that path, and how clouded our shouts are through the fog of that cliff.

In our fervor and anxious anticipation, we shorten our words and yell them louder and with more ferocity. These warnings may make it to the wanderer on the cliff, but they serve only to add to the confusion and often push the person away—and sometimes, worse, push them off.

The reality is that loudly proclaiming from the safety of our perch does nothing to actually help the person. Proclamation from the perch is often no more than virtue signaling to those around us, watching from the same place of safety. We justify our misguided and frankly disordered actions through righteous indignation, pharisaism, and even simply a real fear for the soul of the one on the knife's edge.

Whether these actions come from pride or out of imprudence in fear, the result is the same: the enemy is pleased, and the angels weep.

So the question becomes, how exactly do we help these souls who have wandered off the path? Indeed, the situation is dangerous and requires some action, but what might that be? The answer is quite simple.

Charity. Prudence. Discernement.

The latter is the easiest to navigate - When we see people to whom we have no real connection, no relationship with, and thus no connection to build upon, we must recognize that we have no influence. In this case, think of those figures on social media who pronounce to the world that they have had enough of the scandals in the church and are leaving. What good will your shouts do for them? You have yet to earn a seat at their dinner table, and shouting from outside the dining room window will only force them to close the curtains. For them, prayer and fasting - generally speaking- is the most prudent course of action if you genuinely care.

Prudence and discernment are the critical pieces to this treacherous and often emotional puzzle for the very reason that these situations do indeed carry so much emotion. Yet prudence and discernment demand that you set your feelings aside and act as charitably as possible.

So then, what does charity look like? First, you have to remove yourself from your perch.

If you find yourself in a position in which you do have influence and have prayerfully discerned that you are being called to speak into this person's life, you act as Jesus did. You sit with the person and break bread. Returning to the bridge, how would you approach the person? How would you speak with them? Imagine the one on the edge was a loved one; how much more care and prudence would you take in each word spoken? Would you only talk at them or listen to their woes and do everything in your power to understand where they are coming from while carefully relaying the truth? This is charity. This is how you pull someone from the edge.

Love is the bridge over which truth can pass, and love is also the rope that may keep someone from jumping off the edge.