Compassion

Compassion

            When I consider compassion my thoughts instantly go to the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi. It goes lit this, “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; Where there is injury, pardon; Where there is doubt, faith; Where there is despair, hope; Where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy. O Devine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; To be loved as to love; For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life”.  Amen

            I believe that I am a compassionate person, or that I at least feel compassion for the people and beings around me. The challenge is to act upon feelings of compassion. In my everyday life it seems that compassion gives way to pragmatism.  After reading about the assignment I started preparing myself for 24 hours of living compassionately by taking opportunities to perform a small act of compassion daily. I’m not going to detail every little act of compassion I performed for the past two weeks but I will reflect on the experience. At first the whole thing felt a bit contrived but over time it began to feel more natural. I didn’t do anything extraordinary just once a day put the needs of some other person before my own. This was in preparation for my day of compassion so that I didn’t feel like the entire day was contrived.

            The night before my 24 hours of compassion I made a few decisions. First of all I felt that compassion needed to extend to more than acts of kindness. I needed to try and feel for those around me to see other points of view.  Before I can explain that part of “seeing other points of view” I need to give you a little information about me. I have always been a bit of a news junkie but this past Lent I gave up all news outlets with the exception of print. I was having problems with the 24 hour news cycle. When I watched the news all I saw were idiots left, right, and center. I would see tragedy and be moved but at the same time be repulsed by the way tragedy was packaged for consumption. After Lent was over, I just never went back to watching the news. For my day of compassion I decided to try again watching the news through the lens of compassion. I tried Good Morning America, the Today Show, CNN, and Fox, I lasted about 15 minutes. I actually think my blood pressure went up. I turned the TV off. I ate a vegan breakfast, in fact I ate vegan all day. I will not continue that practice. However it did cause me to consider the horrific conditions in many of our commercial meat processing facilities as well as some of the horrible working conditions many farm workers endure. I think when I return home may family and I may reexamine our buying habits considering sustainability, organic, and human impact. I went up stairs to sit down to coffee with my elderly landlord, just some time spent with another person. I drove to school and when I parked I noticed that I hadn’t left much room on one side of my huge tank of a truck for the guy next to me to get out. So I re-parked leaving plenty of space for everyone.  I went to class tried and to give my classmates the opportunity to speak first and I simply listened. I tried to remember that I didn’t need to fix everything. Then class was over. Being compassionate in the classroom environment was easy.   I was among friends and people I cared about. When I got back to my basement apartment, I paused a moment to look as the spiders web that I allowed to be constructed two weeks ago. Spiders and their homes really are amazing. I decided to try the evening news and found that things were pretty much the same as when I left in the morning. Then it happened, I was moved to tears. 16 year old Malala Yousafzai was addressing the United Nations. You may remember her, she is the Pakistani girl who was shot by the Taliban for advocating education for girls in Pakistan. I’ve listened to her entire speech twice now and cried each time. How fitting that the world should take a lesson in compassion from a child. In her own words, “One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen can change the world”.  I think she may have changed mine. She made me remember that it was compassion the brought me into special education and compassion that kept me in special education when I had the chance to get out. Compassion will be what carries me into my classroom on August 27.