My friend Ashley and I are in the same English class this year and one of our assignments was to take two to three pages and define one word. She posted hers (about Love) on her blog and I liked that idea and I'm gonna jump on her bandwagon. :) This is my paper; I defined succor.
Run To Me
"For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted,
he is able to succour them that are tempted."
2 Corinthians 2:18
When someone is in dire need of assistance, succor is desired. Succor, as a noun, is a synonym of ‘help,’ ‘aid,’ and ‘assistance.’ For example, Mother Teresa gave succor to the infirm and the disadvantaged. Also as a noun, a succor is a person who gives help. If someone is magnanimous, she might be referred to as a succor. For example, Mother Teresa was a succor because she gave succor.
Unlike its dry synonyms, succor has an unusual sub-connotation of resolute compassion and devoted condescension. Succor is derived from the Latin word succurrere, which means “to run to.” When “resolute compassion” is engrained in one’s character, she would “run to” anyone in need of anything within the boundaries of his/her ability to endow. To “run to” an—in one way or another—bereft individual, the succor has no thought for herself. Indeed succor has a subtle, but substantive relationship with selflessness.
When selflessness is employed, or rather acquired, the world takes on a completely different appearance. As a person sees just how many people are in need of succor—which number far exceeds the starving children in Africa and the women in the Middle East who’ve been without rights for centuries—she becomes a contrasting figure. Selflessness is a young mother laying her own child in the arms of her chosen adoptive family. It is my mother caring for my grandmother day after day, hour after hour, for five to seven years without compensation. Selflessness was my friend Heather coming to the hospital immediately after learning I was so hypoxic I could barely stand and breathe at the same time. It was calling Heather’s name and trying to keep her somewhat vertical as she slumped over on the bed during her seizure(s). Yes, they present quite a contrast to the world and its principles—or lack thereof. A succor becomes introspective, but not self-centered, ruminative, but not obsessive. Far from drifting wayward, the individual drifts heavenward. But that is not to say it’s a gentle drift that occurs without effort—quite the contrary. This migration takes much work, but the drift-like aspect comes from the fact that the change is very subtle, but still a very substantive change. Over time, she learns how to recognize who needs her succor and how she can give it. While recognizing these indigent people, she also recognizes her own indigence, however. She sees that her succor is needed because the person is lacking something crucial while still seeing her own inadequacy and incompleteness. She knows she’s not complete. She recognizes that she isn’t whole. She sees she is not self-sufficient … and that is when the light penetrates. It pierces her to perceive the world and its inhabitants, including herself, for what it is and who they are and she understands that there is an unfathomable need for something and Someone much more whole and comprehensive than any world or person.
When this realization penetrates, so does a conviction that all the good she has done has only been Another’s work, brought to pass by her. Her instrumentality, however, gives her joy to know she is part of a work much bigger and more widespread than she herself could hope to be and that that instrumentality is purely for the benefit of mankind. Instilled in her becomes another conviction—the conviction of the worth of souls in their Creator’s sight. And this is when charity settles within her. As unnoticeable as descending dew, charity encircles and lights upon her. Succors don’t exalt themselves for this or even see that charity has found place in them—it just becomes part of them.
Charity, according to Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged, is “divine love for man; love in its perfection” and “the kindly disposition to aid the needy or suffering.” To be selfless is to look outward. To look outward with selflessness is to see people for who they are and to love them, despite differences. To love selflessly is to have charity. To have charity is to give succor.
To make this personal, and to revert back to the root of the word, I ask you now, when do you want someone to “run to” you? Under what circumstances are you? What emotions pulsate? We want swiftly velocious attention when we feel we need something—anything. We are usually under what we might call dire and desperate circumstances. Our emotions can cause our eyes to brim.
Conversely, when do we usually want to run to others? We run when we are happy, jubilant, and bursting to share our temporary pink bubble with another. The joy that consumes us lends energy that propels us, in short, and occasionally our eyes brim then too—only with quite a different pulsation behind them.
“And he will take upon him death, that he may
loose the bands of death which bind his people;
and he will take upon him their infirmities,
that his bowels may be filled with mercy,
according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh
how to succor his people according to their infirmities.”
Alma 7:12
The only way to truly know how to succor another human being is to have complete and genuine empathy. To have your own remembrance of the suffering and hardship compel and propel you toward the downcast individual is to devotedly “run to” that person. To have charity and give succor is not only to suffer like her or for her, but to suffer with her.
As most of you are aware, the Young Women's broadcast was held yesterday. This year we actually ahd tickets! I went down with Ashley and Jill, her mom, and Keri, a YW leader. Ashley's and my friend Mason informed us he would be an usher at door 19 so we made sure to go through that one and saw him, haha--this cute little genius Asian taking our purses and putting them on the conveyor belt. As he took mine, he said, "Hmm, I'll have to be sure and check this one." And at the end of the conveyor belt, as a woman was looking through my purse, I asked if she "saw anything she liked." She answered, "No. No chocolate." :).jpg)
they get emotional. You know they feel what they're saying so much, sometimes the outward expression of that helps convey something to me, personally--I don't know about anybody else. :) I won't do a recap of his talk just because you all probably heard it and/or will read it in the Ensign. :)
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