To behold the face of the other

“Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.” (Henri J.M. Nouwen)

“Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.” (Pema Chödrön) 

“How much can we ever know about the love and pain in another heart? How much can we hope to understand those who have suffered deeper anguish, greater deprivation, and more crushing disappointments than we ourselves have known?” (Orhan Pamuk)

“Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us.” (Eric Hoffer)

“With the afflicted be afflicted in mind.” (Saint Isaac the Syrian)

There are words which not only sound deliciously beautiful [melliferous, cinnamon, tantalizing, felicity], but which also carry a deeper and more revealing resonance [nostalgia, astronomy, angelic, philosophy]. And then there are others, the same beautiful and resonant, which go even further. To reveal profound practical realities once broken free from their etymological shell [compassion, companion, communion, compunction]. Here I would like to stop on a word which if we should stay to consider it in all of its wonder and implication, would bring us to tears. This is probably my favourite word: compassion. Compassion from Middle English: via Old French from ecclesiastical Latin compassio(n- ), from compati  ‘suffer with’. It is a “sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it.”[1]

Source: https://orthodoxartsjournal.org/st-peter-on-the-right-st-paul-on-the-left/

Love itself presupposes the movement of compassion for to begin with, love proceeds from a “strong affection”. If I have no compassion for you, then it stands to reason that my confession of love will not stand, it will not hold up. It would be like building a house on unstable ground. This is what the traditional words of the marriage vow: “[f]or better, for worse… in sickness and health”, are meant to convey. “Compassion is the greatest form of love humans have to offer” (Rachael Joy Scott). A truth which this inspirational young soul, who lost her life in Columbine far too soon, learnt early in her growing years. Love and compassion go hand in hand. I will stay with you, and if need be when that time arrives, I will share in your suffering and I will be there for you. I will co-suffer with you. I want for us to be part of each other’s redemption. To behold the face of the other. Like the heart-warming icon of the reconciliation of Saints Peter and Paul.

Compassion inspires hope, that feeling of trust and expectation, when everything around us might seem dark. We all do battle with our lives, oftentimes this battle is an inward one and it can frighten us to ‘conspire’ with harmful responses. Other times we cannot hide our sufferings and it is public for all to see, as was for example, the tribulation of the prophet Job. He was to ultimately through his steadfastness, experience both the compassion and the mercy of his Creator (Job 42:7-17). Those that love us will have compassion for us, they will extend their hand, put us in their embrace. They remind us of those good and vital things which we may well have forgotten, or which might now seem blunt. They give us hope and point us in the right direction.

“To be compassionate requires attention, insight, and engagement”, a religious has somewhere very well said. Even as the ‘leper priests’ did at the deepest level when they willingly entered into leper colonies to offer hope and succour to the suffering. We are no longer expected to do this, but let us think on this for a moment, we have become hesitant to even shake the other’s hand. Leo Buscaglia, the widely beloved philosopher and educator, reflecting on the meaning of life after the tragic loss of his student: “Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” This “power of touch” has nowadays taken on a new meaning. Masks, gloves, and social distancing. People dying without holding the hand of a loved one. Never before have we realized the vitalness of the power of touch. And of the magnitude of compassion.

We have seen that one of the evidences of compassion is to let the other know you are there for them. To speak words of comfort and succour into their ear. Don’t tell them that you understand, because in all likelihood you don’t, but do tell them that your empathy is borne from your own life-experiences. Thirst is a stranger to none. Nor is despair. Sometimes, too, when we express compassion, we might at the same time have to give the ‘benefit of the doubt’, to hold back on any judgements. In Buddhism compassion requires prajna [transcendental wisdom], that is, an ability to get past the shallow appearances and to discern the true suffering and needs of the other. This is to go deeper, if at all possible, to practise “compassionate empathy” when we are “spontaneously moved to help”.[2] In the Quran compassion is the most frequently occurring word and is often connected to mercy (7:156). Mercy is normally associated to the giving of forgiveness, so there will be occasions when we could be called to practise compassion by forgiving those who have hurt us, when they might not have known any better. “Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Lk. 23:34).

There will be days when we are tired or overburdened, or indeed suffering ourselves. When we cannot be the support we would want to be. The additional weight might be too much for us to bear for the moment. Even here, we need to make use of our discernment. Milan Kundera, the Czech writer best known as the author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being has described this very honestly, “[f]or there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.” What then? Do not feel guilty, for if you break down, you would be of no help to anyone. Emotional exhaustion [or even ‘pathological’ appropriation] is never a good thing. But try best you can, not to ignore the others cry, if you can. A letter. Or a card. Or an email. All this does help. And even if this is too difficult, then a prayer said with compassion, whatever the workings of prayer, is not lost. “But truly God has listened; he has attended to the voice of my prayer” (Ps. 66:19).

Many would be familiar with the Parable of the Good Samaritan one of the most beloved gospel stories from the New Testament (Lk. 10:25-37). The Samaritan at great risk to his own self, shows empathy and practises compassion to care for his Jewish neighbour who was beset by highway robbers and left to die. At the time the Samaritans and the Jews were at enmity one with the other. Others passed by the wounded and dying man and given their profession, you would have expected for them to stop. But they did not. They did not practise compassion. They kept going. But the good Samaritan stopped to give comfort and to care for his neighbour. He practised both compassion and mercy. And he was greatly commended by Christ that we might also follow in his example, “Go and do likewise” (Lk. 10:37). Compassion has no interest for race and is blind to the colour of my skin. It does not ask for my creed. It offers itself freely like a beatitude. Martin Luther King, Jr., loved this parable and made frequent use of it. He understood the road “from Jerusalem to Jericho” where the story unfolded as one which must be transformed so that true compassion is “not haphazard and superficial”. He knew too well that words devoid of truth are meaningless. So did the good Samaritan who did more than just “bandage” the wounds. Even the irascible Schopenhauer had recognized, "[c]ompassion is the basis of morality". It is a little more complicated than this long established aphorism, but it's truthful enough [3].

Why is it we naturally expect compassion for ourselves when at the same time we can often hold it back from others? This is a difficult question and it can challenge us. Only by looking deep into our hearts can we arrive at some answer, and even then, given any unpleasant discoveries, there remains the likelihood the response will not be entirely honest. We expect compassion because we are human and typically fragile. It is a healing balm. A medicine to the soul. “When we’re looking for compassion, we need someone who is deeply rooted, is able to bend and, most of all, embraces us for our strengths and struggles” writes the author of the Call to Courage, Brené Brown. There are times when we might hold back on this very same compassion, not because we are bad or wicked, no, but precisely because we are fragile and contradictory. Some could be normally suspicious, on account that practising compassion might mean giving the “benefit of the doubt” something which may possibly not come easy.

It will mean revealing the vulnerable side of ourselves at the same time. This could frighten us. And yet love, compassion, and vulnerability, are interlinked. Be certain on them, nothing in the world is more powerful or liberating. We have seen this manifested in history and in the lives of people time and again. It is the revelation to our hearts that we are not ‘existences’ in isolation one from the other. A universal idea so well synopsized by the well-known American Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, “[t]he whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another.” To love is to feel good, the heightened feeling of “communion” [from communionem, meaning "fellowship, mutual participation, or sharing."[4] To experience a profound pleasure in giving to the other. It is the same with the practice of compassion.

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/compassion

[2] http://www.danielgoleman.info/three-kinds-of-empathy-cognitive-emotional-compassionate/

[3] https://gophilosophy.wordpress.com/2014/06/18/compassion-is-the-basis-of-morality-schopenhaueressay-by-ivan-medenica

[4] https://www.etymonline.com/word/communion

Thirst

“Thirst is the craving for fluids, resulting in the basic instinct to drink.”

Credit: http://charginglife.com/2014/01/

In the Orphic theogonies Water together with Creation and Mud were the first things to emerge at the dawn of creation. This ‘trinity’ of elements is amazingly revealing in terms of the origins of humankind. Up to 60% of the human adult body is water and every living cell needs this chemical substance to keep functioning. We can survive for up to three weeks without food but die within days without water. What connects us even more than Poetics, or Music, or Art, or the collective amazement before any astounding marvel of human achievement, is water. And then there is thirst. At some point when we are starved of water, thirst will become more vital and desiring than all else. Thirst like blood which flows in our bodies is oblivious to creed, colour, or rank. “Of hunger and thirst, thirst is the greater imperative.” (Yann Martell, Life of Pi)

The most religious will thirst similarly to the most irreligious. The colour of our skin will not save us or deliver us from thirst. The greatest general will thirst in equal degrees to his lowliest foot soldier and he too would beg for water. There are some extraordinary exceptions, but these are unique and rare. Thirst like death makes us totally vulnerable. What is more in the account of Christ’s crucifixion in the gospels we find the incredible exclamation from the GodMan himself, “I thirst” (Jn 19:28 cf. Ps 69:21). The line which might run through biology and metaphysics and the understated difference between surviving and living becomes increasingly blurred during extreme times of mental and physical distress. Thirst is the great equaliser. It chastens and brings us to our knees in a hurry. With unrequited thirst there are no grey areas.

We can survive without our great poets and musicians and artists. But we cannot live without water. So when tempted to boast of our physical attributes or to flaunt our material successes, let us reflect on our grim condition three days from now without water. We first must quench our thirst and then afterwards we can create and build, but without water we can do nothing. Unsurprisingly, the first thing which the unfortunate figure dives from the well-known parable of “the rich man and Lazarus” asks is for a drop of water that he might “cool his tongue” (Lk 16:19-31). It was his thirst that he first sought to quench before all else, even before the warning to his closest kin of his horrible predicament. When we thirst the only thing which matters is water. If the powerful or godless have nothing else to contemplate upon, if memory of death is not enough, then let it be thirst, the need for water. Thirst humbles us. It brings us nearer to the soil. To the mud.

Thirst is a dominant metaphor in religious writings and is directly linked to the seeking after the divine, and of wisdom, and knowledge. In the Judaeo-Christian scriptures thirst amongst other things, such as the pursuit of righteousness symbolises the seeking after the living God and eternal life (Ps 63:1; Jn 4:14). In Islam where water is the source of all creation the Quran quenches the thirst for knowledge. In Buddhism spiritual thirst is quenched by the water of the Buddha’s teachings. In Hinduism where all water is held to be sacred there is the unquenchable thirst for the unknown. In Zoroastrianism the Supreme Being Ahuramazda creates water to defeat the demon of thirst. In many indigenous cultures water must not be polluted and all living beings must be relieved of their thirst.

Postscript: In this too robots will be ‘superior’ to us, not necessarily for their artificial intelligence, but for the fact they will not need water. Robots [or the biomechatronic organisms of the future] will not thirst. This alone will point to their inhumanity.

“Our dear God thank you for the blessing of water in our home, please do remind us daily that thirst connects us intimately to every other human being and that we should reflect upon this reality as we do upon our death, we pray too for all our brothers and sisters who at this very moment thirst and are without clean water.”

The Torment of Hypocrisy

“Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye” (Matt 7:5).

A gnawing fear for many people is being “caught out”. That is, to be saying one thing, and to be found doing another. It is “the practice of claiming to have higher standards or more noble beliefs than is the case.” Are we not all guilty of this offence, or have we not at least fallen prey to its lure. Is there anyone who has not wanted to appear to others in the best light and who afterwards did not feel the shame in speaking words to which there was little, if any, real substance. But is it so clear-cut and simple? We are all too human, let us not depress the spirit of others by expecting them to be what we ourselves cannot. And those few souls who have reached the state of dispassion, they see the potentiality of Christ moving in, and about, in everyone without exception.

An innumerable number of lives with lots of potential have been stunted or discouraged by those who have found it easy to judge. Younger people, whether religious or not, who are especially idealistic and lack the experience to know that life is full of surprises and shocks, are prone to becoming sad or even depressed at the thought that they do not live up to their best intentions or creeds. Older people, whether religious or not, though far more realistic when it comes to the frailty and weaknesses of the flesh, can still suffer if they perceive themselves to be falling short of their own expectations or religious convictions. This is the dreadful and interminable fear, that we are empty talk and full of humbug. But whether young or old we must not be discouraged and never allow for the realization of our brokenness to rob us of our beliefs and inmost  revelations. This does not mean that we do not chastise ourselves for falling short of our ideals nor that we do not hurt at the lost opportunities for the better man or woman. It is not to make easy excuses and certainly, above all, it is not a licence to draw others into our conflict. But it does mean that we make the distinction between hypocrisy as ordinarily understood and the ongoing and never-ending struggle against the “flesh”. It is good that our religious creeds are taller than ourselves. We should aim above and beyond our reach.

And so we will fall. But we get up again. Growing up is not easy.

I must not despair or consign myself to the outer darkness if I cannot live the life of a saint. For instance, I might be waging war against an addiction, and to believe whole heartedly this addiction to be wrong. I fight against it; I bleed against it; I judge it to be wrong; I might even write essays exposing its pitfalls; and yet sometimes I am caught up in its terrorizing and unrelenting grip. I pray for redemption. And my chest burns on account of my tears. Am I then a hypocrite if I speak out against this vice? But who knows better the horrors of this addiction than the addict who is waging war against it? Who can be a truer teacher than the one who is “trying”? It is a different matter to stand up on the pulpit, for example, to preach against the evils of adultery when you reckon it normal and healthy. Hypocrisy is to deceive consciously by not ‘boxing’ the self about the ears. Victory might be late in the coming, but it is always around the corner for it is the sum total of all other little victories.

And so do not destroy the pallet on which your colours have been set because you have given up on the vision you have seen during your brightest moments, when you were picked up by the scruff of the neck and given a glimpse of the horizon. Do not allow for anyone to disfigure the image which illuminates your soul because you are all too human. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). Are we not, all of us, engaged in our own secret battles? Are we not beset with a multitude of contradictions? And yet, as hopeless or far remote as it might appear, holiness is still possible and indeed, expected of us.

“Father, speaking Your name is enough to convict me of my powerlessness to keep steadfast to the truths which You have placed in my heart. But what is it that refuses to let me give up and to despair completely? I confess to what You already know… I am a hypocrite and heavy are these chains about my neck… And yet, Lord, thank You, I must not forget that however small my steps or dissembling in the eyes of others, it is these small steps which have brought me here, in this place, before You, day and night.”

Why go to the trouble of writing?

“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face” (1 Cor 13:12).

seanmanchester.blogspot.com.au/2009/03/13.html

The title to this post is not in reference to the great literature which can realize marvellous responses in us and in many instances also have a marked effect on our culture; rather the question is directly addressed to spiritual writings. So why go to the trouble of writing?  If it is a case of the author trying to convince his or her readers of a religious truth then the effort is largely doomed from the beginning. Language which is a tool of communication, and itself the subject of many definitions, is more limiting rather than revealing. As a result it is a notoriously difficult instrument to share or to express spiritual beliefs which are in themselves typically opaque. For this reason some religious have chosen either to not speak at all or to communicate their theology largely in ‘negative’ or apophatic terms (i.e. what God is not rather than what God is). We need not be adherents of philosophical schools which argue that meaning cannot be reduced to “ultimate simples” to recognize the traps should we reckon our voice possesses some unique clarity outside of the rest. Yet, even universally recognized spiritual writers would not suggest that religious language can capture the underlying essence of their subject, or the motivating desire of their contemplation. What is crucial, however, is to be clear on what we want to say and to have had some experience with the subject. If we are writing on prayer, for example, to at least have made the effort to pray. It is also helpful to remember that often enough it is how we practice our religion which determines our spirituality.

A great poet might ask of their work, “Is this beautiful?” An author on matters of the spirit is not too concerned with technique, he or she will ask, “Is this useful?” Then there are those, like Saint Symeon the New Theologian and the Spanish mystic Saint John of the Cross whose tongues have been set aflame, who might write both beautiful and useful. So when a writer who is fascinated by the ‘tremendous mystery’ and risks speaking on the great topics of God, Love, Faith, and Death, for instance, what do they hope to have achieved? Let us assume that outside unavoidable clichés the effort is genuine and sincere (and that the goal is not self-aggrandizement), what then is the point? Certainly, there are diverse answers, but hopefully the aim of all who engage in this quest will be distinguished by a common goal. That is, to lay out an honest reflection of the soul’s journey and to have been inspired by the need to partake of this spiritual pilgrimage with travellers on a similar path. If these efforts help to guide others with alike intuitions, revealing to them some of the received ways of entering the kingdom of God which is “within” (Lk 17:21), then it is good the risk was taken to write. This is a prime motivation for one of the most beloved books of the Bible, the Book of Psalms, which appeals not only to the congregation but also to the human will with its continuing encouragement: “These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I went with the throng, and led them in procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival” (Ps 42:4).