by Dan Nolta

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review by Tom Adams

MOST OF US can't resist the urge to glance over our shoulder as we pass the accident on the freeway or stand at the curbside with neighbors to inquire about what the police officer's visit to the family up the street might mean. We are attracted to yellow crime-scene tape for reasons not fully clear. But we can agree that the power of curiosity is different from the power of compassion. Chaplain Dan Nolta offers his readers both a heart-rending invitation to cross the yellow tape of a human tragedy and an inside look at the spirit of a chaplain and the victims, families, and police officers he cares for.

A storyteller at heart—drawing upon journal entries, letters, and haunting memories—Nolta has written an eye-witness account of a type of ministry that seldom relies on words or techniques. This ministry is a side of police work that lacks the defense of a firearm, handcuffs, or a police cruiser. By offering a centered, quiet presence, he tells how a police chaplain disarms the distraught, conveys human worth, and provides sacred hope in the midst of dehumanizing situations. The uniqueness of the job deserves a book.

Clearly written, holding the reader's attention even without glorifying gore, this book is also a personal attempt of one chaplain to break out of the alienation and numbness generated by daily exposure to suffering. His Quaker faith finds a mentor in Henri Nouwen's catholic spirituality, which shines a comforting light on how suffering shapes the soul and worldview of someone dedicated to compassionate service. After reading Nouwen's book The Wounded Healer, Nolta reflected, “This is about me. I am a wounded healer” (p. 38). Nouwen's book might make a good prerequisite to chaplain Nolta's.

Nolta, an experienced listener, is given a chance to speak in Compassion—The Painful Privilege. Chaplain Nolta structures his story around the concept of Christian compassion. He shows how compassion fits into his personal process of spiritual formation. He observes the loneliness of compassion, the cost of compassion, the ways of compassion. Yet for readers with a strong need to see justice done and wrongs righted, this will be a frustrating read. Compassion, it appears, absorbs pain; it doesn't correct it.

The book would have been stronger had it described more and told less. Nolta unapologetically assumes a Christian audience. He is true to his worldview and offers a window into how Christian discipleship can manifest itself in situations that are inhospitable.

At times chaplain Nolta is self-effacing, particularly as he describes his experience of compassion fatigue, bouts of posttraumatic stress, survivor guilt, and estrangement—products of being alone in a job that is beyond imagining for most people. He probes his own motives, such as the need to be needed (p. 57). On the other hand, there are times when the reader asks, “Is Dan really this perfect?” For example, he writes:

So many times while I have been in conversation with someone, the Holy Spirit has cautioned and prevented me, whispering into the “ear” of my heart, “Dan, don't say that. It will not honor me.” Each time I hear and obey (or for that matter, bake and deliver the cake with right motive and without expectation of accolades), I demonstrate the purity of my being, which God has sanctified with his presence. (p. 59)

Nolta offers quite a challenge to the rest of us who doubt our purity, let alone obey our consciences “each time” no matter how nudged we may be by the Holy Spirit. He also raises a question that goes unexplained: As God speaks directly to Nolta, how does Nolta know the difference between his own inner voice and that of God? How does he know—to use his example—whether to bake a cake or not bake a cake? He leaves that for another book.

In chaplain Nolta's defense, it is difficult to speak as an expert on compassion without sounding like a self-promoting superhero. There is an invisible cultural rule that says compassionate caregiving is only talked about from an observed perspective, not in first person. His story might have been stronger had he offered fewer maxims. On the other hand, the ones he offers are often original and helpful, such as, “If you seek to be the bread of life for them, you will be consumed” (p. 60).

The devotional style of this book will cause readers to sense the personal catharsis the author experienced in the writing process. Occasionally one feels, however, that chaplain Nolta's theology of pastoral care needs more reflection. For example, he writes:

While the loneliness was a terrible pain that no proximity of others could overcome, that very pain drove me—and drives others gifted with compassion—into the “field” again and again to meet with the freshly wounded one who feels so alone. The joining of two lonely ones provides a fresh touch of healing for both. Two kindred spirits connect, one having come to help and the other so desperately needing a helper. In that vacuum of need, a bond forms, a “friend” is found, and both have a need met. (p. 84)

It leads one to ask: Does the chaplain really find a fresh touch of healing by joining his loneliness with a lonely stranger in duress?

One aspect of this book I greatly appreciate is how he captures the toll compassion takes on ministers willing to make a vocation of coming alongside people in pain. “I can look back and see the heaviness begin to set in,” he says (p.82).

Early on, Judi said to me, “You don't laugh as much as you used to.” It was true. I found myself identifying with the Old Testament description of Jesus: “A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” The time came when the only thing I could do was to get away from it. And I have.” (p. 88)

This is the raw reality of seeing too much combat. It seems Nolta did not have the benefit of a team who could share the M.A.S.H. 4077 style of gallows humor. In his book, Nolta offers his companionship to other Christian servants, hoping to help save those who have lost their humor and wonder how to survive their roles. Chaplain Nolta provides the wisdom of senior status and retrospective life reflections:

For most of us…it is the long look back that allows us to see the full scope of blessing and reward…we see how our being there and exercising compassion made a difference…it affected spiritual change…people were helped and God was glorified. For many of us, it may be that only eternity will tell….” (p. 91)

When he asked a colleague, “What do you get out of being a chaplain? What are the rewards?” Her answer both surprised him and resonated: “It is an opportunity to share in the sufferings of the Lord” (p. 95). Nolta then reflects, “The personal pain involved in sharing in this way is sometimes indescribable. But to enter into it on behalf of someone else is another indescribable—an indescribable privilege.” (p. 97)

Nolta is able to see the value in his ministry and experience the gratification of having loved well in the midst tragedy. For some this will appear to be shallow triumphalism or a justification of one's choices. For Nolta, it is a recognition of congruence, having held faithfully to a course that began in his troubled family of origin and was empowered by his faith.

“It is in that realization that we can praise God in all things. In that realization I look back on my own life and find my early childhood to have been an asset to my adult life. In that realization I can cast away all thoughts of anger or bitterness, which may well be the natural consequence of such a childhood. I can know that God has used each part of my life's experience, not only to make me who I am but to glorify himself in my life.” (p. 102)

May God multiply in all our lives the compassion exemplified in Dan Nolta's ministry.

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