Compassion

Compassion

      How the hell did I end up compassionate?  I don't recall being born that way. My uncle brought me a sucker when I was four and I remember clearly the injustice of having to share it with my best friend.  I was the youngest in the family, very cute, and I recall being born to be catered to.  Looked after.  Nurtured. It was right and good when the world was at MY beck and call.

      When I was a child being alone in the universe was too unthinkable to dwell on.  Still, it cropped up.  My friend had to have her tonsils out.  She was in hospital for a week.   She told me about the balloons she got and how the first few days after her tonsils came out all she had to eat was ice cream.  She appeared recovered and happy.  But I was horrified.  She had had to stay alone at night.  Without her parents, without family.  Balloons and ice cream?  I would have rather lived with festering tonsils than spend a night without a parent. 

      No adult I ever asked gave me a satisfactory answer for what would happen if my parents died.  They seemed to skirt around, something about how it would never happen.  But I saw the Wizard of Oz.  The teacher read Oliver to us.  Children's literature spelled out elderly aunts and orphanages in black and white.  Still, if the adults were in denial I had to let the subject pass.

      I did not bring the nurture of my parents to consciousness.  Like a well cared for child, I took it for granted.  But when any possibility of the absence of my parents cropped up, the universe was  a place I wanted out of.  A void, a swirling mass of humans and disconnections with no relationship to me.  I would not dwell long on such imaginings.  The adults around me had no answers for fears of abandonment.  They skipped over the topic. 

    Most of the time I could take the nurture of my family for granted. Meaning was grounded in the care I received, in the connections I lived closely each day.  The little girl skipped and read and learned with confidence.  Apart from occasional images of orphanages,  the nurture an unconscious birthright. 

    Fear of abandonment cropped up, but not often.  Even less often did I worry that I might eventually have to pay for the nurture I was receiving. Give in return?  What?  Responsibility to others?  Tuesday I do the dishes…  Earning love?  What's not to love about me? 

      But, I grew a little bit older.  Now and then I was nagged by messages that I should be thinking about the needs of others.  But then, what would that look like?  Church jingles like:  J  O   Y,   J  O   Y.  This is what it means.  Jesus first, yourself last, others in between…..Such jingles caused me annoyed pause.  I would turn them over in my mind briefly.   I figured either I was defective or the myths of the church were.  Jesus first?  Well then Jesus.  Show yourself. (I always shared a room with my sister.  Her bedtime was usually later than mine in deference to her elder status.  When I was three I was frightened alone in the room.  My mother said, "but you are not alone.  Jesus is here with you."  "Where is he?" I asked.  "He is not visible but he is here with you".  To which I replied, "I don't want anyone in here I can't see!")  J  O  Y.  Jesus first?   Then others?  How was I supposed to have any idea what was good for others.  Myself last?  But I was I.  I was all I knew.  I was pretty much my total experience to me. 

      There was one lovely soul though, who derived obvious pleasure from what I gave to him.  We had a magnificent relationship.  His name was Caesar.  He would ask me for things, and I liked responding to his needs.  He would seek me out to scratch his ears or rub his tummy.  He took this for granted and his total faith that I would give to him was immensely gratifying to me.  I was 5 when we first met and 14 when he died.  As I took the love and nurture of my parents for granted, the seeds of loving another were sown in my heart.    When I was ten my Sunday school teacher told us that only humans went to heaven.  Dogs did not go to heaven.  Well, then, I certainly was not going either.  Of what possible interest to me was a place where the soul I had given most to, was not admitted.

      Of what possible interest to me was a place where the soul I had given most to was not admitted.  Oh.  I see.  Now I am ten.  And a world constructed solely for my benefit, where I am simply a receiver, is no longer of interest.  Now I am ten.  Meaning now derives from the love I have to offer and no longer only from the love I receive.  Yikes.  No turning back. Heaven is not right and good if the souls we have given to,  are not there.

      And now, age ten, the myths of the church are the time and space examples of  Noah,  and Lots wife turning into a pillar of salt, and dogs not going to heaven.  That concrete stuff is crazy at ten.  And yet and yet….the relationships of compassion, of help to the poor…I want to know that some people out there think these things are important.  I am hearing stuff about problems in the world.  The world itself is making as little sense as the church.  What is this about hungry people in China?  

      Hungry people in China?  People?  How is this possible.  We find a baby robin in the alley, peeping hopefully, desperately.  My father says to leave it alone and the mother will come back.  But after a day, she does not come back and we are allowed to take it in and feed it.  What pleasure!!!  The ten year old dosen' t think about why it should please her to care for a homeless robin.  Doesn't think about what's in it for her.  The little girl's need to be nurtured, she took it for granted.  The child's need to reach out and care and nurture, now she takes it for granted also.  Who would question such a thing at ten years of age?  Double yikes.  The little girl is apparently wired to give even when there is no evident return.

      In Windsor we lived behind the garbage dump.  We collected over age chocolate bars as they were unloaded from a van.  We brought home dented heart shaped cake pans.  Selection and prices far better than Price Club.  A big oil company hollowed out ponds and would dump old fuel.  Waterfowl were frequently found floundering there (nice string of f's eh?).  Many died, but my father would pick up the birds he could reach from the pond edges and bring them home.  He would wash them in detergent and water and house them in the garage.  Until their next moult, they could not protect themselves from the elements.  Cute would not describe these birds.  They were bedraggled to look at. All were aggressively suspicious of humans.  They made it clear that the sight of us was as distasteful as the sight of the devil himself.  They did not gratify us by eating while we watched.  If we came too close they lashed out,  and let me tell you, a Canada Goose has a nasty bite.  And yet, by age twelve, compassion for these creatures was as gratifying as for a tail wagging dog and the peeping gentle robin.

      So now, the girl can take the love extended to her for granted and can extend herself in compassion to creatures who do not appreciate it and who actively resist it.  So to the adolescent, pretty sure that the Bible is 'not real', the Bible nonetheless becomes poetry.  After all, did the world around me actually make sense:  my brothers bringing home boys who had fled their homes to escape going to war in Vietnam,   psychedelic drugs with their varying images of beauty and horror or insight and fragmentation, a schoolmates brother drowning in a pond, hunger in Biafra, friends referring to their mothers as 'bitch' while chewing on their school lunches.  The world did not necessarily make sense but my father's treks to the mall for boots with a welfare mother,  despite her evident resentment for the world, made as much sense as "Coke, It's the Real Thing" (I still don't get that ad).  Compassion to a friend when her mother died, to speed addicts at  the drop-in  in Toronto where I handed out beans and hot dogs  -- both more real than Levis jeans.  (Though I travelled half a day on the subway once to buy Levi jeans.) The church might be little more than a  social club and its adherents might be naïve to quote passages of faith saving a man from being eaten by lions or whales spitting men unharmed onto dry land or some hippie skimming along the surface of a lake in his sandals. But, the pages of the bible gave counsel for inner peace and a lust to explore the world despite the world's contradictions. 

      The Sermon on the Mount, starting with Matthew, chapter 5, rose above an incoherent planet.  Above hypocrisy, above the humiliation of representing a life I was not sure I believed in, above a multimedia advertising culture and above anxiety for the future:

            Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break through and steal (remember the patent leather shoes?)

      But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where thieves do not break in and steal. (Heaven?  Is there such a place?  Who knows? But my father told me that heaven is 'love in every moment' and so at least, I could set my heart to treasure love)

      For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also (OK.  No contest.  Midas gold vs. the love he had for his daughter.  An old myth but certainly clear and instructive)

      The light of the body is the eye: therefore if thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. 

      But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness.  If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness.  (So we set our sights on what is light, what is inspiring.  We set our sights on our ideals and do not allow ourselves to be filled with visions that draw us to destruction)

      No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one and, and despise the other.  Ye cannot serve both God and Mammon.  Ye cannot serve both God and money. (OK)

      Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body; what ye shall put on.  Is not life more than meat, and the body than clothing? (And you call me a fashion faux pas!)

      Behold the birds of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are ye not much better than they?

      Which of you by thinking about it can add even an inch to his height?

      And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:

      And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

      Wherefore, if God so cloth the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

      Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, what shall we drink? Or, wherewithal shall we be clothed?

      For after all these things do the ungodly seek.  For your heavenly father knows that you have need of all these things.

      But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.

      Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.  Sufficient unto the day are the days own troubles. 

      Well, that is reassuring.  I did not really want to measure my worth by money.  I did not really want to measure the worth of others by their success.  And, I did want to meet each day with a pure heart.  With a clear search for meaning.  So, within my soul I am free to seek peace and purity. 

      And what about other people, how should I treat them?

      Judge not, that ye not be judged.

      For with what judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

      And why do you concentrate on the speck in your brother's eye, but pay no attention to the log in your own eye?

      You hypocrite, first cast the log out of your own eye, and then you shall see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

      Give not which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you. (Oh, a little caution. Thanks for the warning)

      What if I get lost, off the track, confused?

      Ask, and it shall be given you; seek and you shall find; knock and the door will be opened.

      For everyone that asks receives; and he that seeks finds, and to him that knocks the door will be opened.

      Are you sure this 'god', this pure and loving light, this way to set my feet in the world, will look after me?

      Or what man among you, who if his son asks for bread, will he give him a stone?

      Or is he asks for fish, will he give him a serpent?

      If you then, being sinful, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father in heaven give good things to them that ask him?

      Therefore, all things whatsoever that ye would that men do unto you, do so even unto them.  For this is the law and the prophets.

      How can I keep from being tricked by fancy words and promises?  What if someone who seems bigger and stronger than me and says that their way also leads to purity and inner peace?

      Enter ye the straight gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there are that go that way.

      Because straight is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leads to life, and few there be that find it.

      Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.

      You shall know them by their fruits.  Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

      Even so every good tree brings forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit.

      By their fruits you shall know them. (OK.  So it is not their words and outward demeanour but their inner soul, their inner peace and light, the path of healing I see in their wake?  If I see destruction and hurt in their wake then I should beware blasphemy? Though it seems that even blasphemous people know to give good gifts to their own children.)
 

      Compassion:

We have to deliver help, not in self-justification, but in loving challenge.  We instinctively recognise those who are (at least in that moment) more emotionally mature than we are because they never demean us, they do not delight in our squirming.  They would never profit by our immaturity to puff themselves up.  Those who are spiritually more mature than us do not dismiss our beliefs as insignificant or our struggle as pathetic.  They bend to lift us up without patronizing, because they simply want the company, the communion.  And, as we recognize true intentions of help extended to us, so we can learn the proper heart and soul and mind to extend true help to others - help never demeans, it does not puff itself up, its intention is to increase the dignity of one and another and so hope to increase communion and community.