CULTIVATING COMPASSION

It’s tempting to think of this month’s theme as one of our lighter, more pleasant ones. After all, compassion sounds…well, nice. It conjures warm feelings and tender thoughts. Images come to mind of people telling each other they are holding them in their hearts. It would seem to be all about emotional connection and empathetic feeling.

But then along comes some truth like this:

“Compassion hurts. When you feel connected to everything, you also feel responsible for everything. And you cannot turn away. Your destiny is bound with the destinies of others.” - Andrew Boyd

Or this:

“True compassion is to engage in the suffering of others.” -- The Charter for Compassion

Or this:

"Revolutionary Love is the choice to labor for others, our opponents, and ourselves to transform the world around us." -- The Revolutionary Love Project

Each expression reminds us that compassion is not just niceness and thoughtful feelings. It’s about something deeper: an impulse that drives us to act.

Indeed, that may be compassion’s defining characteristic; it is distinguished by doing. To feel the pain of another, empathy has that covered. But compassion takes it a step further. It urges us to do something about that pain.

In other words, compassion calls us to change things! It’s not just about comforting ourselves or others; it’s about our comfort getting disturbed. It’s about radical care, for self and others.  When we feel compassion - real compassion - we don’t just understand suffering, we want it to stop. And then we do what we can to make it stop.

And if that’s the case, then maybe compassion’s question for us this month isn’t what we first imagined. Instead of asking us, “How deeply are you able to feel?” maybe it’s asking, “What are you prepared to do?"