Receiving Compassion on the Day of Compassion

In the interest of spontaneity, I decided to begin the day of compassion on Monday morning right after Matt announced that we needed to do it.  I planned to continue my day of compassion until the end of class on Tuesday, and in this way I would cover a 24 hour period.  I was initially worried that I would have trouble coming up with fodder for my blog.  Living in a van behind the SRC and doing homework doesn’t offer many opportunities for human or animal interaction on first glance, but as the following account makes clear, I had ample opportunity to express compassion, and oddly enough to receive it.   The reminder of this blog will be in real-time journal from:

11:30 a.m.-   I discover that I still have two blog posts to complete.  My first act of compassion is toward Matt.  I think it will be compassionate to Matt for me to honor his assignments, so I find a nice location in the TLC and begin to type.  I finish the first blog for Matt’s class, but halfway through the second, my computer suddenly switches off completely.  One moment I am typing, the next my computer is completely off.  Puzzled and a little alarmed, I power the computer back up and attempt to log on.  As soon as I hit “Enter” though, the computer shuts off again.  I try this a few other times, attempt to start the computer in safe mode etc , but it doesn’t work.  I give up after about ten tries because I recall having heard somewhere that the definition of madness is to perform the same act over and over expecting that through sheer repetition you will receive a different result. 

My thoughts go to my wife and what she will say when I tell her that my computer has crapped out and I probably need a new one.  I decide to take my broken machine to the IT help desk and see if there is anything to be done.  The person I am assigned doesn’t really know what to tell me.  She is very nice though, compassionate even.  I say that because apparently helping students fix their broken laptops is beyond the scope of her job description, but she willingly watches me try to log on and attempts to help me fix the issue.  She proposes that the hard drive has gone bad or has an error, and her suggestion is to reformat the drive.  I think I turn several shades of white and red at this point since that act will erase all my data.  Uncompassionate thoughts flood my head concerning my computer.  I imagine throwing it in a dumpster and walking away.  Since my computer is a non-living thing I am not sure if this violent fantasy counts as a “compassion fail,” but I attempt to mitigate my non-compassionate feeling all the same.  I remind myself that this computer has given me 3 years of hard work, and that I shouldn’t expect it to last forever.  

In the interest of compassion, I thank the IT girl warmly for her time and exit the IT office.  When I sit down to think about my next move, I also further contemplate the genuine compassion the IT girl had for me.  When she told me I would probably have to reformat my hard drive, she seemed to have a pained expression on her face and she told me gently, as if she were telling me that my pet Cat wouldn’t recover.  Further, she violated protocol by even helping diagnose my problem in the first place.  Cool!  

1:00 I call my wife to tell her that my computer is broken, but in the interest of compassion, I neglect to tell her that it is probably permanently broken, and that we may have to purchase another one.  She is understanding and listens.  My wife then tells me that a book I ordered for school, the teachers as leaders one, arrived at the house approximately an hour after I left for Moscow.  In an incredible display of compassion, she then offers to load our two kids in the car and drive the book down to me, 3-4 hours round trip.  Since receiving an act of compassion of that magnitude will utterly fail me both as a student of compassion and as a husband, I refuse the offer but thank her.   I tell her that I will probably just drive back to CDA in order to pick up my book and see if I can recover the date from my computer.  This will also give me an opportunity to practice compassion on my family. 

1:30pm I call my dad and tell him that my computer crashed.  He tells me to bring the computer over if I want, and he will try to help me.  It’s a plan, and I start the 2 and 1/2 half hour drive.

2:30? pm  I make a stop in Worley at the grocery store to buy some snacks because I am falling asleep at the wheel.  I remember that my daughter loves special gifts so I pick up a box of animal crackers for her.  This is compassionate to her, and to my wife, who disapproves of candy proper but allows animal crackers on the grounds that they are at least closer to “food” than other treat option.

4:00 pm I arrive at my dad’s house in Rathdrum.  He is in the process of re-roofing his house and just installed a skylight which he is very excited about.  Just like me, he loves to talk about building and house projects. At the moment I am more concerned about retrieving all the data from my last two years of teaching, but in the interest of compassion, I listen to him describe in detail how to properly install flashing on a skylight.  He then drops his roofing project and takes a look at my computer.  He tries the same things I did, restarting it several time before he announces that it’s beyond him.  We then enlist the help of my uncle Mike is such a computer genius he could fix anything electronic with nothing but a length of wire, a Phillips screwdriver, and a can of WD40.  My dad drops his roofing project to come with me.   

5:00 pm We arrive at my Uncle Mike’s house, and Mike removes some part of my computer, blows some air in the thing and announces that he thinks the fan is bad.  He then offers to put a new one in.  The irony that I am receiving rather than giving help on my day of compassion begins to hit home.  It occurs to me that I am surrounded, literally surrounded by compassionate selfless people willing to help me at the drop of a hat.  I have always appreciated my family, but I am refilled with a sense of gratitude.   

6:00 pm On my way home I order Papa murphy’s so that I can have dinner ready when my wife comes home.  She arrives and is totally thankful.  My daughter announces that she loves me when she receives the animal crackers.  I go out of my way the help with the kids, cutting their pizza for them, changing a diaper, etc, and I can tell that my wife is blessed.  These things are not out of the ordinary for me, but they are appreciated all the more because my wife was expecting me to be gone. 

9:00 pm.  I have been up since 4:30 so I go to bed and fall asleep instantly.  It has always bothered my wife that I can sleep so easily because she suffers from insomnia, but at this point I am so tired it doesn’t occur to me that I could stay awake till she falls asleep. 

4:00 am  I wake up to find that my wife is awake.  I offer to get her a cup of water which I often do in the middle of the night.  She declines and I am gone asleep again. 

5:00 am.  Our youngest daughter Nora wakes up and I go get her and deliver her to my wife for the morning feeding.  Then it’s off to the U of I for class.  On my way out the door, I collect the drawings my daughter made for me to decorate my bus with, and write a love note to my wife on the window of the kitchen door with a white-board marker. 

The rest of my compassion day was largely uneventful.  As I said above, the biggest impact this day had on me was to impress upon me selfless nature of my family members, and how blessed I am to be a part of such a supporting community.  In a world where so many people are disconnected from their family members or even hostile toward them, I think I tend to take it for granted that I have a huge extended family in the local area and that every one of us is willing to drop what we are doing to help a relative in need.  It is ironic that on the day I dedicated to give compassion I ended up receiving much more than I gave, but luckily my compassionate expenditures aren’t limited to one day.  I think part of the beauty of compassion is its reciprocal nature.  I’ll get my chance to pay them back soon enough.  As for you dear reader, if you actually read through this monster of a blog post, I probably owe you some compassion as well.