“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle” Plato
Indications are everywhere that as a society we are losing our capacity for compassion– a basic element of what it means to be human.
In the halls of American Politics, the search for the common good is being trampled on by the egoistic plays of one political party over another.
Social network activity shows a disturbing trend where our children are bullied and belittled to the degree that today depression and suicide runs higher than ever in adolescents, teens, and young adults.
The life expectancy of Americans has declined over a period of three years — a drop driven by higher death rates among people in the prime of life who were dying from so-called deaths of despair: drug overdoses, alcoholism and suicide.
And indications of this loss of compassion in our culture are found in everyday life as we walk by the homeless laying folded onto themselves on benches and door stoops—while we avert our eyes and mutter “someone should do something.”
Compassion is the willingness to relieve another person’s suffering by entering into it with them. It is a response to the inevitable adversity all human beings will meet in their lives, whether it is the pain of ageing, sickness and death or the emotional afflictions loneliness, estrangement, addiction, or mental illness. Compassion is is the capacity to stay open to the reality of suffering and to aspire to its healing.
Author Fredrick Buechner describes what it means to have compassion in this way:“Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else’s skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too.”
WOUNDED HEALERS
“Wounded healer” is a term created by psychologist Carl Jung. Jung purports that an analyst (or anyone who seeks to help others) is compelled to help patients because they themselves bear scars of their own wounds.
And who among us has not been wounded by life? If so, we each have within us the very thing by which to help others heal from their wounds.
St. Paul describes the way compassion is born and paid forward this way:
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 2 Cor. 1:3-4
We become compassionate when we become aware of how much compassion has been shown to us. History is full of examples of lives that were transformed through failure or trauma: St. Peter the betrayer, St. Paul the persecutor, St. Francis the materialist and mercenary, Jacob the trickster, and his son Joseph the braggart, and on and on up through today—stories of how the trajectory of a life was dramatically shifted away from seeking a life of self-satisfaction, fame, and comfort, to a mission transcending their own life. They discovered a new purpose that changed the world.
In Dutch writer Henri Nouwen’s book “Wounded Healer”, he maintains that our suffering world, our suffering generation, and a suffering person can in fact be healed by a suffering healer. It is his contention that we are called to recognize the sufferings of our time in our own hearts and make that recognition the starting point of helpfulness to others.
Compassion compels one to be willing to go beyond their private lives and become open as fellow human beings to the same wounds and suffering. It was said of Christ seven hundred years before he was born, “and by his wounds we are healed.” (IS. 53:5)
In the Program of Alcoholics Anonymous, it is the personal and painful experience of deep failure and powerlessness that becomes the seed of a life transformed into love and service.
“Showing others who suffer how we were given help is the very thing which makes life seem so worthwhile to us now. Cling to the thought that, in God’s hands, the dark past is the greatest possession you have – the key to life and happiness for others. With it you can avert death and misery for them.” Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 124
The immense popularity of the book and movie series “The Hunger Games” speaks directly to our hunger for more compassion in the world. In the dystopian world of the Hunger Games, political rulers have lost touch with human compassion. They are so far removed from their own personal suffering, unconscious of their own failures, that they have built a cruel society void of compassion and empathy.
The heroine Katniss, by sacrificing her own future for the sake of her sisters, treated her sister and some of the other tributes as people worthy of love and care, thereby breaking the Games. Once she has created these relationships of caring, the logic shifts from how to kill each other to how to beat the Games themselves, which translates directly into beating the leaders at their own game. Her decision to choose compassion changed her society.
Like Katniss, compassion first recognizes the suffering of others, then takes action to help. Compassion embodies a tangible expression of love for those who are suffering. This component of action is what separates compassion from empathy, sympathy, pity, concern, condolence, sensitivity, tenderness, commiseration or any other compassion synonym.
Compassion gets involved. When others keep their distance from those who are suffering, compassion prompts us to step in and act on their behalf.
Here is some practical advice from the very author of all compassion;
“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.” — Proverbs 31:8-9, NIV
“Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” — 1 John 3:18, NIV
“This is what the Lord Almighty said: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.'” — Zechariah 7:9-10, NIV
“Therefore if you have received any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.” — Philippians 2:1-2, NIV
Compassion is not taught in schools. Your formal education and professional experience will never make you a compassionate person. Yet, it is learned, and so is hate and indifference.
Listen to the Words of the songwriter Oscar Hammerstein in his song from “South Pacific”
You’ve got to be taught
To hate and fear
You’ve got to be taught
From year To year
Its got to Be drummed in your dear little ear
You’ve got to Be carefully Taught
You’ve got to be taught To be Afraid
Of people Who’s eyes are oddly made
And people who’s skin is a different shade
You’ve got to Be carefully Taught
You’ve got to be taught
Before it’s too late
Before you are six
Or seven Or eight
To hate all the people
Your relatives hate
You’ve got to Be carefully taught
Neither can we leave it to “others” whoever they may be; Federal, State or local Governments. Yet, we can and must speak up and out for laws that are compassionate, realizing this is just one aspect of a compassionate society.
Compassion is not a special gift for a few. It is innate in us. Just watch a new mother with her infant. No one taught her to do what she does. Children are naturally compassionate—but so often, as they grow in a society that does not support compassion as a necessary commodity, they lose their ability to feel for and with others. We had it once, but let it slip away.
If I want to be a compassionate person, I must attend to difficult and unpleasant moments, moments when it is easier to shrink in the face of suffering, anger, fear, or the alienation others are experiencing. I must remember I can cultivate my own commitment to resist my aversion to look at and enter into the suffering and troubles of others.
Compassion does not judge. It is never my job to decide who is “worthy” of my compassion, when in fact I was never worthy myself.
In the program of Alcoholics Anonymous , those recovering learn to treat all those who have in some way harmed them, whether “real or imagined”, as they would a sick person, for in fact all of us are to some degree and at certain times are “spiritually sick”.
“We asked God to help us show the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend. When a person offended we said to ourselves, ‘This is a sick man/woman. How can I help him/’her? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done.'”
Jesus most provocative and difficult direction for the spiritual life was to “Pray for your enemies”. This is the greatest demonstration of compassion..
Ways to Grow in Compassion: The Golden Rule
“So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” MA 7:12
The Golden Rule is so familiar to me that it would be easy to tell myself that it is my life rule. Yet, if I move through my day attendant to the suffering and trouble I come across each day in others, and I stop and with my imagination enter onto the suffering of others, what then? Do I step over the homeless, or will I stop and look at them, maybe chat for a moment, and maybe even pray with them?
Do I notice the stress and downcast look in the face of my wife, my children, my friends, or my co-workers?
Do I respond quickly to the felt but silent cries for help from the lonely, disenfranchised, ostracized, and repulsed?
The applications of compassion can be broadened and its power increased through learning and practice.
Some practical steps to cultivating compassion in the world:
1. BE INTENTIONALLY AWARE: Be present to the people around you every day. We have to teach ourselves to notice the pain of others.
2. COMMUNICATE VERBALLY AND NON-VERBALLY: Make eye contact, keep your body turned toward the person speaking, and listen quietly. You might also practice active listening, which involves paraphrasing what you’ve just heard, and ask open-ended questions to send the message that you’re ready to hear more.
3. ENCOURAGE OTHERS: When we praise and encourage others we can sometimes kick-start a positive spiral of behavior in that person. Positive reinforcement is always helpful to a person who is thinking they are either stuck or will never get out of the circumstances they are in at that moment.
4. VOLUNTEER: Cultivate compassion through volunteer service. Make your routine be about others. Spending time helping people is good for your body, mind, and soul.
5. CONSIDER YOUR WORDS: Think before you speak. At its heart, compassion is about paying attention to the present moment with a loving attitude. Simple things like turning off your cell phone during a personal encounter or sending a thank-you note after someone has you over for dinner can go a long way.
6. TEACH YOUR CHILDREN TO BE KIND: Use words when you must!
Do you remember when you were last shown compassion? Try. That is the starting point for turning outward towards others. It is the start of changing our world.
Kind Regards,
Bob
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