About Compassion

We could really use a double dose of compassion right about now. The political rhetoric is heating up and about to explode. I will tell you right now, I am a hardwired liberal, a snowflake, totally woke. My family, my education, my religion and my culture made me that way. I walked the picket line in the 60s, protesting a no-sense war. In the 70s, civil rights. In the 2000s, anti-assault weapons. And now, at 70 years old, a myriad of injustices. I have often been pitted against neighbors, family members and friends. Why? Because they too, had a family, education, culture and religion.
And here is what I know about compassion and empathy – it has no lines of division. It only acts from caring to help a needy individual. It prays and cries for republicans and democrats. It reaches out to lift anyone who has fallen, and considers no poll numbers.
It realizes we all are deeply flawed human beings with a basic need for love and acceptance. Right or wrong has no place in a cancer ward or at the bedside of a sick child. Empathy means I feel your pain, compassion says I will do something to alleviate it. This doesn’t mean I won’t be picking up a picket sign. But it does mean I will lay it down so I have two hands to hug you when you are hurting, and two hands to pray for you when God holds your healing.

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