Hello friends,
And today I want to offer a story about compassion as a way to help you connect more deeply with compassion in your own life,
Both for yourself and for others.
This story comes from the book Christian Meditation,
Experiencing the Presence of God,
A Guide to Contemplation by James Finlay.
Imagine that you have a dream in which you are climbing a high mountain.
You know that the valley below is the place where you grew up and in which you experienced painful things and made all sorts of mistakes.
It is this valley of painful memories and self doubt that you are now trying to transcend and leave behind by reaching the summit,
On which you will be sublimely holy and one with God.
Suddenly the summit comes into view.
In that same instant the wind coming up from the valley below brings with it the sound of a child crying out in distress.
Just as suddenly you realise that there is no real choice but to renounce the hard fought for goal of the almost attained summit to go back down the mountain to find and help the hurting child.
Turning back you descend into the valley.
Following the child's cries as your guide,
You are amazed to discover that you have been led just as you knew you would be to the home you tried to leave behind in setting out to make your ascent into holiness.
Standing at the doorway of your own home,
Sensing the ungraspable and momentous nature of the moment,
You gently open the door and look inside.
Sitting there in the corner on the floor is your own wounded child self.
That part of you that holds the feelings of powerlessness and shame you tried so hard to leave behind.
Respectfully approaching this hurting soul you sit down next to the child on the floor.
Perhaps for a long time you say nothing.
You simply sit there grateful that you finally have the common sense to come back to the preciousness of your own wounded child self.
Then a most amazing thing happens.
Just as you're putting your arms around this child you suddenly realise you're on the lofty summit of union with God.
Suddenly you realise that in going forth to identify with the preciousness of yourself in your brokenness,
The lofty summit of oneness with God,
One with you as precious in your frailty is realised.
Here is yet another way of expressing the transformative power of compassion.
As we yield to compassion we are caught up in the updraft of grace that carries us aloft.
Then in one single continuous movement of love compassion draws us downward into the preciousness of all that is lost and broken within ourselves.
The deeper the brokenness the greater the momentum of the descent.
The greater the momentum of the descent the more deeply compassionate love descends into the innermost recesses of our doubts and fears.
Suddenly encountering such love our doubts and fears melt into the love that sets us free.
To be transformed in compassionate love does not mean that we do not have to continue struggling and working through our shortcomings and difficulties.
It means being reassured and essentially at peace in the midst of our shortcomings and difficulties.
For we've been graced to experience the Christ event in which love identifies with the deep down preciousness of ourselves in all our wayward ways.
Established in this love we are freed from the bondage of being invested in the outcome of our efforts to overcome and to move past our shortcomings and difficulties.
For as we continue to do our best to deal with whatever needs to be dealt with we know that right here right now just the way we are we are one with the love that identifies itself with us no matter what.
Immersed in compassion we look out through compassionate eyes to see the world in which we live.
Here the dream in which we return to our wounded child self takes on a new social dimension.
In this expanded version of the dream you follow the child's cries to the home in which you grew up.
You go inside to compassionately embrace the preciousness of the hurting child that still suffers within.
Then a most amazing thing happens just as you're putting your arms around the child it turns into your mother.
It turns into your father your brother your sister.
It turns into that person at work who keeps giving you a hard time.
It turns into every nameless face you have passed in the street.
It turns into the world that God so loved as to send his only begotten son.
God loves and is one with the communal preciousness of all that is lost and broken in everyone who lives.
So too you begin to realize that you're falling in love with each and every person in the world.
As you go on in this love for others you fail in it again and again.
This is no obstacle so long as your failure to be compassionate towards others is realized as just the latest opportunity to renew your compassion toward yourself and others.
What matters is that you have come to see a certain look of pain in the world's eyes.
You know that look well for that look has been in your own eyes as well.
It is the look of sadness and confusion in not realizing how loved and lovable one is in the midst of difficulties and shortcomings.
You begin to appreciate that every time you compassionately engage with another person your reason for being on this world is honored and expressed.
For the world is the arena in which suffering continues to arise in the absence of love and happiness continues to arise in the presence of love.
Meditation allows us to see the world through eyes of compassion.
This compassionate vision of the world impels us to live in ways in which our words and behavior toward others embody compassion.
Compassion forms the essential bond between seeking God in meditation and all forms of social justice.
For the more we are transformed in compassion the more we are impelled to act with compassion toward others.
May you grow in compassion towards yourself,
Towards others and towards the world.
Grace and peace to you my friends.
