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Have not we all suffered by being among others?
Felt harmed by others?
Felt the temptation to strike out and harm in return?
Is not suffering one suffering,
even if arising from different causes and conditions?
In compassion, we do not have to understand the details
of the suffering to understand the suffering
to see the being that is not the suffering
to see the other is moving from the pain
is reaching out from a desire simply to be loved
* * *
That night, it was I, I was a safe target. This woman lived with the people in that small community, attending that little church. I was the outsider. I am glad she aimed her diatribe at me, and not directly toward her congregants, her longtime friends and community members.
Looking back, I do not see principally an angry person out to hurt me, or anyone. I see a deeply hurt person, a woman suffering, feeling a need to yell into what she saw as darkness. I see a person whom maybe many had hurt, over her life, and possibly being hurt now by those she truly loved in Christ.
So, in speaking above of the wedding of wisdom and compassion, in all the times in my work that I did not express those two qualities, for some reason that marriage came together in that response. As a young, idealistic, and fundamentalist preacher, I was prone to anger, to judgmental, angry responses, but in this moment something more than that young man arose to embrace the hurt of this dear one and, so, embrace the entire congregation. And, as to embracing her and the congregation in the cloak of Kindness, likely her pain expressed the hurt felt by others, expressed in voice the suffering others did not feel freedom to share. Sometimes one remains silent for others, sometimes one yells aloud for others.
in the moment of responding
to pain with peace
when wisdom, or insight,
when compassion, or empathy,
arise in a perfect expression of graceful Grace
we may sense the response as spontaneous
we may sense an absence of self
we may sense a self who is truly who we are
these are moments graceful
for of Grace
we are brought together
in a union of shared humanness and Spirit
with the other
we do not stand aloof as judge
we join with as sharing the same suffering
these gracious moments arise spontaneously
while we are more prone to them
when we are living daily in awareness and devotion
to and with Life
all graceful is of Grace
the Light pierces through the darkness, not misled,
for Light is attracted to Light
in these moments of Grace
given as gift to the other
is an affirmation of the Light within the other
a witness of the Light in them, a Light they
cannot yet see themselves
Continued... |
