The Way of Compassion - Grace

Have you ever felt like you got something wrong? Have you ever got into trouble and needed someone's help or forgiveness to get out? Have you ever felt yourself vulnerable before a power greater than yourself? Have you ever been ashamed of your actions or disappointed in yourself? 

What do we do in those situations? Do we try and rewrite the story to make ourselves look better? Do we become a victim? Do we appeal to another's compassion or mercy? Do we harden up and isolate? Do we try being kind to ourselves and extra kind to others to compensate? 

What is our reaction then, when the offended party forgives us, when we receive a reparatory hug from a friend, when that person or entity of power loosens its grip and gives us a chance, when the person that we owe tells us we are off the hook? Or on a deeper level, what if the one who we ultimately feel accountable to, the holder of the truth of our lives, the lover of our souls, says we are seen in all our mess and beauty and potential and we are forgiven? Pretty good right?

The essence of true forgiveness and mercy, is that there is no price tag on it, it is freely given, though it may have cost the giver. But there is something else important about it: for it to stay alive it must move through us towards others.

Jesus tells a parable of a servant who owed a lot of money to an important king, but when he was acquitted of his enormous debt, he aggressively confronted a fellow servant who owed him less. It sounds mad, but unfortunately our blind spots are bigger than we think. Jesus likens this to having a log in our eye. We are quick to see the faults of others but slow to see our own hypocrisy. 

The economy of the Kingdom of God is grace, this means a continued flow of receiving and offering undeserved love and its power is incredibly healing. It is, however, often counter intuitive to our own sense of meritocracy and justice.

But the message is clear, true justice is 'to be merciful as your father in heaven is merciful', 'forgive and you will be forgiven', 'measure out as you would have measure' 'judge not and you will not be judged'. 

The Way of Compassion vs Competition

Compassion vs competition, ironic that even in the title of this post, some rivalry is implied. But really they are very distinct concepts, with a similar root. Competition also comes from something we have in common, a shared 'petition' or need. The difference is in how we approach it. In competition there is a sense that there is only one winner: if you get your request met, there is a danger that I wont. We fight over the last scrap of bread or the top spot.

With compassion however we are all winners and we are all losers. We share the experience of life with all its beauty and peril. Your less is not my more.

Competition is a fear response to the survival situation we have been launched into since birth and we are taught it everywhere, in school, in leisure, in the media, at work. So much so, it is hard to unravel it from our psyche. We are scared there is not enough, or that we are not enough, the open hand becomes clenched and we tough it out.

The path of compassion has a different mentality at its core. Yes we all have needs, but that is not a motive to fight but rather to share, the suffering and the joy of this crazy situation we find ourselves in. Rather than worrying about what people might take from us, we are called to give. 

Where are we all going in such a rush? Life is not a race ... no one is getting there first. How we live is the essence of life, the prize the love we experience along the way ...

The Way of Compassion - Growing Pains

The thing about humans is that we are born into vulnerability and necessary struggle. How scary to be launched into a world, wholly unprepared for survival, with complete reliance on another to ensure your safety! Of course a baby recently fed, asleep in their mothers arms, shows little sign of worry, but most parents will also have vivid memories of their offspring's bone-chilling night-time screams, cries for help from a place of complete dependency.

An average, a human baby takes a year to start walk, whereas for a horse foal, it is a matter or minutes. Whether by evolution or design, the human set up requires love. Not just any type of love, but the self-sacrificing thankless type, psychologically, the early years brain struggles to develop with out it.

So here we have it, to some extent we are all born into varying degrees of pain and love. We all have need, we all have struggle. we do not come out of a factory cling wrapped and ready to go. If we featured in a human unboxing video, we would be sent back for not meeting the specs. We grow and it hurts. How many of our erroneous decisions come from trying to get our needs met in the wrong way? Not everyone grows in the same environment or with the same level of support. The playing field is not level.

The Latin root meaning of Com-Passion means to suffer with. Surely if anything is the deepest human reality, this is it and we are all in it together. The loving parent does not condemn the child for their need, but rather helps them to grow, whilst suffering themselves in the process.  

So back to my train of thought about the ways of Christ. I sense from his words and actions in the gospels, that this was his 'attitude', this was how he saw the people he met, with compassion. He did not see 'sinners', but children of suffering, born into a world that had forgotten how to share the burden.

The Ways of Christ

Just jamming here with some new thoughts - well thoughts that have been marinading for a while and have come to the surface ...

I am the WAY the TRUTH and the LIFE ... words of Jesus, the Christ. I am not in much doubt that Jesus had something special, knew something special or embodied something special. Whatever stance you take, its hard to deny the influence of his person on history.

In modern Western Christianity there has been great emphasis placed on adhering to doctrinal beliefs as a passport to paradise. But here's the thing ... Jesus was an eastern dude. With the rising popularity of eastern philosophy, often grounded in practise, I can't help thinking there is something we are missing if we only operate in a western formulaic mindset.

There is a WAY of doing, living, thinking that is embodied in Jesus's life and teaching which is a path to liberation, even transcendence, if you like. I would like not only to unearth and understand it, but to live, breathe and walk in it. 

Indeed the first Christians were known as the people of the WAY.

Show me your Ways Oh God.

More to come ...

More on belonging

 If any of you have dabbled in Christian Evangelical circles (yes I know this is a bit niche) you may have come across a phrase "Belong, Believe, Behave" as a pattern of thinking about inclusion and transformation in church communities. Importance was placed on the order in which the process occurred. People should feel welcomed and included, subsequently, through exposure to the ideologies and experiences of the community, they might start believing and through that belief, behaviour would be altered. Though to virgin ears this may smack of manipulation, I think the concept was usually adopted with the genuine intention of offering unconditional inclusion and allowing a person to explore matters of faith at their own pace, and in that sense, they may have been on to something.

Unfortunately the process can unravel in the same way that it ravelled (is that a word?). If one of your B's starts to fail the others drop like dominos. I don't believe therefore I don't behave, I don't behave therefore I don't belong, I don't belong, therefore I don't believe etc. Perhaps that is normal. Every group has it's characteristics and rules (whether written or unwritten) about normative behaviour and values. The only difference is, that the church strives to do difference differently. 

Christ's message leaves an interesting challenge. All are invited to the table and the main criteria seems to be hunger, not table manners. But hunger for what? For a second chance? Forgiveness?

Peace, love, purpose? A new perspective? Well, all those things appear to be on the menu and yes, it could be a meal that transforms your life, but not always according to expected models.

Curiously, I was reading an article about the Australian government's framework for child development and found they had also had a crack at the 3 Bs. Belonging, Being, Becoming. This follows the idea that security and acceptance leads to identity formation and then self-realisation and the desire to contribute. Could this translate to faith communities and spiritual formation? One thing is for sure, people need safe places in order to flourish. Whichever Bs you choose in whatever order, it seems to me a worthy pursuit to create benevolent spaces where growth is a consequence not a condition of partaking. 

We belong here

 "Today, if we have no peace, it's because we have forgotten we belong to each other" Mother Teresa

I've been out of the blogging loop for a while, but this month on the Psychology Course I am doing, we have been tasked with writing a blog about belonging and aging. As academia will have it's own idea of what an acceptable blog post looks like, I thought I'd write here what I want to first!

Belonging is becoming a new buzz word in social psychology, as studies on our social connectedness, or lack of it are increasingly revealing its massive health and well-being implications. But as Kim Samuel states in her new book, belonging is not just about a connection to other people but our "place, power and purpose in the world". At a fundamental level belonging becomes an existential question "am I meant to be here?". The answer to this question gets filtered through a multitude of positive and negative experiences, reinforcing or reducing our confidence to say "Yes".

Belonging is connected to a sense of acceptance and positive affect. The feeling you get when you come home, if you have had the luck to feel it. Unfortunately many of us feel at odds with the world, fighting to find our place or prove we've earnt it, a strange phenomena of human consciousness, that leaves us hungry for reassurance and susceptible to doubt.

In this context belonging becomes an act of faith, in ourselves and in each other. Here is the bind, belonging is reciprocal, it involves the Universe saying Yes to us and us saying Yes to the Universe, or indeed to others,
in relationships and participation. Increasingly with the rise of social media, we want to connect but not commit, we want pleasure without participation, inclusion without intrusion. Traditional ritual based communities are eroding and with them our social glue is loosing its stickiness. 

Now, more than ever, we need to remember our common identity, practice compassion, create new rituals of connection and take a deep breath and know deep down in our souls that YES we belong here, we are home and we are loved.

What are we applauding for?

In Spain, the country where I am currently residing, there has been some noise made about the hypocrisy of the daily balcony applause. Some say, it's no good clapping if you are not going to vote for those that protect public services, it's no good clapping, if after all this, nursing staff continue to be undervalued and over-worked. It's no good clapping if you don't know what the consequences are or are not prepared for them ...

And on this Palm Sunday I was reminded of another group of applauders, those that enthusiastically ushered the entrance of Christ into the city of Jerusalem. But did they know what were they applauding for? Like so many of us today, they were looking for an answer, a hero, a salvation from their current circumstances. Indeed Jesus possessed these attributes, but not in the form that ultimately pleased crowds. Much like our NHS heroes of today, his salvation would involve sacrifice, 'greater love has no man than this, that he lay his life down for his friends'. There was no quick fix solution on offer either: 'if you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace, but now it is hidden from your eyes' said Jesus to his expectant onlookers.

So what was it? What was it Jesus, that would have brought them peace? I am inclined to think that it was to choose the way of a servant, to love their neighbour and give a chance to the hopeless, to become caretakers of each other and the world, to recognise Christ in their fragility instead of fighting for dominance.

So yes, I do applaud the health service and believe that these humble public servants are worthy of our upmost thanks and respect ... And I applaud the Christ and invite him to come ... But when the noise of the clapping dies down, will I have the heart to join Him and those servants, who on their bleeding knees, are paving the way for a new world?