A House for Compassion
A LITTLE GIRL LOST
What
image stays with me from the Karibu program (2005)
organised by the CRT in July each year in Nairobi, Kenya?
There are many but one stands alone.
It was in the Ruben ‘slum’ even though I spent
almost all my time in Kibera.
It was over in a minute or two.
But it was the arms out horizontal and bent upwards at the elbow that triggered something deep in my memory. Hands splayed, her forearms waved frantically as she disappeared running away.
I felt compassion, disgust, embarrassment, shock and an overwhelming sadness almost all at once.
Ian & Ros McDonald
Compassion
Compassion, born in the quiet, reflective moments of silence, is the most powerful force in the world today (Dalai Lama). The very last talk given by Thomas Merton in Bangkok before he died was on silence and compassion. Merton saw compassion as the awareness, through being centred in periods of quiet, of the interdependence of all living beings; the realisation of the unity of all life. It is an awakening to a sense of the connectedness of everything, unmasking the illusion of separateness that seems so evident to the senses. The discovery of this ‘connectedness’ can only be done through entering the heart of silence via a spiritual practice that takes one into stillness and quiet. The deeper we go into our heart the more connected we become to the wider earth community. To go inward is indeed to move outward to all living beings especially those who struggle for the basic necessities for living.
Rabbi Heschel said God is compassion so when we are compassionate we are reminders of God’s presence among us. I am not compassionate because I like you. Good people often find it hard to be compassionate.
Jesus captures this is his parable of the workers in the vineyard. Christians struggle with the parable of Jesus that tells of the labourer who was given the same pay, for just an hours work at end of the day, as those who have worked in the blistering hot sun for 10 hours. In the moral code of ‘good people’ the employer needs to be taken to the industrial tribunal to give an account of why he has treated his employees so unjustly. Yet each was given more than was required by the law of the land.
Jesus’ Way
But in the Jesus community all share the gifts of a compassionate God whose weakness is over indulgence and whose strength is unbounded generosity. This is just not the way our most respected community leaders behave or think about the treatment of people especially those who have little education and poor job prospects. Those who are financially successful, earn our admiration and approval, as we judge them to have worked hard and effectively to build up their store of investments so that they are not a burden on the ordinary tax-payer. If we live in a prosperous economy with a social welfare system then they are contributors and not users or abusers of the system. The self-funded retiree is the model for those who live in a capitalist, ‘free’ trade-driven economy. This is not the way the Jesus community sees it. Everyone is entitled to abundance.
Perhaps this upside-down-way of seeing is the starting point for leaders in the Edmund Rice Network/Community both brothers and associates. It may seem a strange starting place for transforming the hearts and minds of our society but it is the place where Jesus and Edmund started when they began their movement for a better world. They gave all they had to build a community where all were included and everyone had sufficient for a decent life. There were no judgments, comparisons and categorising.
House Warming Begins
The past 5 years has seen enormous restructuring of the Edmund Rice Community across the European, Oceania, African, Indian and North and South American Provinces. Leaders have given enormous energy to this task. With this magnificent house structure now in place what will be the quality and shape of family life within its walls? How will this new home provide the right atmosphere for abundant compassion, inclusive relationships and service to the marginalised? How will it help support life-giving relationships, sustainable living and space for silence and reflection? How will it call forth the timid and fearful to engagement with the refugee, AIDS sufferer, the unemployed, the world of the despised and those who have lost hope? How will it nurture the upside-down way of seeing that is born of compassion?
We become what we gaze upon (From the Orthodox Christian Tradition)
Peter Harney
(email: ptrharn@aol.com)
(On behalf of the Congregation Renewal Team, CRT)
For International Renewal Programs see www.edmundrice.org.au/crt