Category: Compassion

Compassion 2

I’ve been thinking a lot about compassion recently. It’s something I’ve written about before, but the last six months have given me much more direct experience than I had previously. Having been on the wrong side of a cancer diagnosis in early summer, I’ve received a lot of kindness, help, sympathy and understanding, all tangible displays of love and support. But there have also been a number of people who have shown me immense compassion. They’ve offered a solidarity which has touched, strengthened and healed me in a much deeper way than anything else.

There are seventy-seven uses of the word “Compassion” in English versions of the Bible. Incredibly seventy-six of these are about the compassion of God (or God in Jesus), the only exception being in the parable of the Prodigal Son where the Father had compassion for his lost (prodigal son). And of course, in that story the Father’s response is a picture of God. So, the only uses of the word compassion in the Bible are about the nature of God.

What then is compassion? It seems to me that it differs from sympathy, pity, empathy, concern or assistance because it’s not just about reaching out and doing for someone, but about a complete identification with them and their situation. As Thich Nhat Hanh says, “When we can free ourselves from the idea of separateness, we have compassion, we have understanding, and we have the energy we need to help.” This was the essence of Jesus’s ministry. He identified with the suffering of human beings, especially those on the edges of society, so often defined as unworthy by the seemingly good and acceptable religious community, and he stood alongside the people who suffered. Not as a token of how caring he was, which we can sometimes do in our relationships with those in trouble or need, but as a sign of his oneness with them. He became one with us as he was one with God. It is a willing relationship of equals. There is no power dynamic involved – it’s not about someone being sorry for us and helping us – it is a response of the heart not the mind.

I don’t know if we can cultivate compassion in and of ourselves, but it is the essence of God, so it’s something that every single one of us can be given and receive if we desire it. It does not come without a price though, as the life and death of Jesus showed. His oneness with those in need brought a rejection by the establishment and all their lackies who knowingly or blindly bought into the false reward system they peddled. Ultimately as we know, the compassion of Jesus was something which cost him his life.

There is a good deal of compassion in 12 step programmes.  This is not particularly evident amongst active addicts – they may hang out together, but they’re not a unity. It only comes when addicts start to get well by working the programme, which rather than giving them an elevated sense of superiority over the active addict, actually creates a greater sense of one-ness. The programme works in a way which keeps people grounded, recognising the on-going similarity and unity between the active and recovering addict. As Eckhart Tolle says, “Compassion arises when you recognize that all are suffering from the same sickness of the mind, some more acutely than others.” We’re broken and remain broken, lost and without a hope, desperately in need of acceptance and forgiveness but by the grace, mercy and above all compassion of God, we are saved from ourselves and in oneness with each other come to the party, the feast that is given by God.

The Compassion of Christ

Christ is the one who sides with the addict,

Bears the bruises of the beaten wife,

Knows the cold and misery of the homeless,

Surrenders to the loss of control and fears of the person with dementia,

Shares the powerlessness of the little child,

Experiences the isolation and stigma of the mentally ill,

The hopelessness and confusion of those with long covid,

Accepts the shame and humiliation of the poor,

Carries the shackles of the slave,

Grieves with the bereaved,

Suffers the rejection and abandonment of the asylum seeker,

And offers his arms to take the poisons of chemotherapy.

Christ is for ever one with us and for us, in all our adversity and pain.

May we share his compassion with all those we meet on our journey through life.

Compassion

There’s a marked absence of compassion in UK government policy right now. Whether it’s in the heartless plan to send UK asylum seekers 4000 miles away to Rwanda for processing and residency or the progressive removal of mobility allowances from many disabled people, the tardy provision of visas for Ukrainian families fleeing warfare and violence or the lack of concern for the poor as fuel prices and the cost of living spirals upwards (two thirds of the British cabinet are millionaires), there is a coldness and disregard for those less fortunate who suffer. I suspect that this does not reflect the sentiments of the British people either, but like so much political rhetoric it’s dressed up as a necessary requirement for the times in which we live, peddling the lie that there’s not enough to go round.

I make no apology for this political introduction, because at Easter we have been reminded once again how political expediency works, with the unholy alliance of the Roman occupying forces, their puppet king and the Jewish religious leaders requiring the death of Jesus for daring to challenge what they stood for. His challenge was to offer an alternative way, where achievement, affluence and appearance were not the dominant values. Right at the heart of this alternative way of living is compassion; in the Kingdom of Heaven, loving God and loving others is supreme.

Compassion is central to Twelve Step recovery too, yet another shared hallmark which this blog seeks to highlight. Compassion means “to feel with,” usually in relation to feeling the suffering of somebody else and being moved by that suffering to do something to help them. We’ve talked about mercy in a previous blog (Mercy, Mercy), but compassion is different. Mercy implies some sort of power relationship and possibly the presence of wrong-doing or falling short. Compassion does not have this power dynamic at all – it is simply one human being to another. In the words of William Blake, “Mercy wears a human face, compassion a human heart.”

According to Jesus, compassion is the central quality of a life faithful to God. He tells us to “be compassionate as God is compassionate.” The idea of God being compassionate towards us is potentially life changing. We often think of God as harsh and judgmental possibly tempered by mercy, but compassion means he is alongside us, with a human heart. We are to model this behaviour, and Jesus, the visible image of the invisible God is our pattern or template. There are many instances of Jesus being filled with compassion for somebody – invariably this preceded him healing and restoring them. One of his greatest parables, The Good Samaritan showed us the compassionate behaviour of a traveller who belonged to a despised and outcast race who sees a fellow traveller who has been beaten and robbed and proceeds to rescue and care for him at his own expense. Prior to this the injured man had been ignored by high status people of his own country. In modern day terms, the politician and the priest have passed by with more important things to do, it is the refugee who shows compassion.

Compassion within 12 step recovery is perhaps understandable because every recovering addict has been there too, so can understand the pain and struggle another is going through, both in active addiction and early recovery. People working the programme enter the suffering of other addicts with neither pity nor pride and their caring is frequently both tireless and humbling. It is seen in the way newcomers are treated, which helps them to find a place of emotional warmth and understanding. It is there too in the welcome and acceptance each person receives when attending a new meeting in another place or country. Compassion is woven throughout the programme and is an important factor in the healing, transformational power it holds.

Like gratitude, humility or generosity we must practice compassion so that it becomes an established part of our daily living. The initial “feeling for” someone is often outside our control – we feel pity or sympathy for them without needing to generate it. What we must work at is the response, in which we then do something to help them. Our first reaction is to do something, but very quickly our mind (or other people) tell us it will be too difficult, too costly, too little or just plain misunderstood. We have to practice taking that step to make things better for the person we feel compassionate towards and ignoring the multitude of reasons we might find for not doing so. Remember how life changing it was for us when somebody helped us out of kindness and compassion?

As a friend of mine often reminds me, all of us are wounded, bandaged travellers on the road, sometimes wayward, often lost, invariably pretending that we are okay, but always, always in need of compassion, longing to be free, hungry for heaven. In the words of the Dalai Lama, “love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.”