Thanks to Jay and Laurie for their responses to my last post via Facebook. We'd like to think this compassion thing would be easier than it is - and it seems quite simple from an intellectual standpoint. It's when we have to put those ideas into action in a real-life situation that life gets difficult.
Compassion = suffer together with. It's not simply an acknowledgement that someone else is suffering. It's a desire to enter into that suffering and help to alleviate it. It's easier with those we love - who hasn't watched a loved one suffering and wished you could take that suffering on yourself? Who hasn't wanted to be able to take away the pain, to exchange your own well-being so the one you love doesn't have to suffer? In fact, if you don't feel that way, I'm not sure you can honestly say you love someone. "Greater love has no man than this, then one lay down his life for his friends."
It's having compassion on those we don't know that becomes tricky. We see strangers suffer, like those in Haiti, and we wish and pray their suffering to go away. And yet, would we be willing to enter into their suffering, to suffer with them, or going even farther, to make their suffering our own? We'll send our money, maybe even give some of our time, but will we sacrifice our own well being for theirs? Most of us would answer no. We might sympathize, even empathize, but compassion goes beyond that.
Which brings the hardest call of compassion - to be compassionate to those we disagree with. Or even despise. How many of us are willing to enter into the suffering of those we call our enemies? The ones who have hurt us. The ones who have abandoned us. The ones whose beliefs run counter to our own. The ones who hate us as much as we hate them. So easy to see their suffering and believe they are getting what they deserve, that those are the consequences for their actions and they just have to live with them. We call it a tragedy when it happens to someone we love. We call it justice when it happens to our enemies.
The parable of The Good Samaritan comes to mind. As a Samaritan, the traveler was despised by the person he was helping. And he probably despised him as well. And yet, unlike the earlier travelers, he didn't see the suffering and move on. He stopped, bandaged his wounds, took him to an inn and paid for his lodging. He entered into the suffering of the one he did not know, did not love. Compassion is not a feeling, a sense of pity. It's a call to action, to put love into practice.
Much, much easier said than done, especially in the face of what we find abhorrent. Think of those you have a hard time loving, those you would consider the antithesis of all you hold dear. Those are the very people we are to have compassion for, the people, given the opportunity, we are to suffer with. Even if they brought that suffering upon themselves.
I know some would object and say that by doing so we condone their activities and behavior, give them our tacit acceptance. But compassion isn't about who is right and who is wrong. It doesn't judge before acting - it simply acts. The call is to enter into their suffering, not show them all their faults, help them become acceptable and then enter into their suffering. We don't show compassion so the person will change or so we'll feel all warm and fuzzy inside (though those things may happen). We show compassion because we know it is what Love demands of us and it is only Love that can help us to enter into another's suffering. Æ
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