*Entering the Castle.

Joe Bayly in View From A Hearse says one of the best things we can do for a person going through intense suffering and loss is our presence without words. He advised: "Don't try to 'prove' anything to a survivor. An arm about the shoulder, a firm grip of the hand, a kiss: these are the proofs grief needs, not logical reasoning."

"I was sitting, torn by grief. Someone came and talked to me of God's dealings, of why it happened, of hope beyond the grave. He talked constantly, he said things I knew were true.

"I was unmoved, except to wish he'd go away. He finally did.

"Another came and sat beside me. He didn't talk. He didn't ask leading questions. He just sat beside me for an hour or more, listened when I said something, answered briefly, prayed simply, left.

"I was moved. I was comforted. I hated to see him go."

Possibly, a reason Jesus practiced such spontaneous compassion was freedom from resentment. What is resentment? Resentment can be literally read "the action, or state, of feeling again."

What is compassion? Compassion literally is "to suffer with." In compassion we feel the pain of the other, we do not close our heart to the suffering of the other. We are willing to hurt along with the other.

Resentment can be compared to chewing on the same anger and displeasure over and over, without swallowing the pain and processing it. There is the sense of a deserved indignation.

Here, outside compassion for the other, we are caught in the human sense of justice. We are gripped by the demand that we be treated fairly. The world is not fair, thus, we can live caught in this whirlwind of rehashing hurts. This becomes a toxin, damming up the flow of our vital energies.

Yet, not only are we not having compassion for the other, we are not being compassionate toward ourselves. Indeed, often resentment is manifestation of a lack of empathy for oneself. If we had adequate compassion for ourselves, we would find a way out of hurting ourselves so much with re-chewing the same hurt repeatedly.

Within just a few months I went through the loss of a marriage and the loss of a job. I decided that such was a good time to look deeply and clean out the past - to have a new start.

What did I see? I saw, yes, I had lived, by most standards, a good life. I saw, however, that resentment had become, due to a history of many emotional hurts, a coping mechanism to deal with that one more sense of injustice.

I looked back over my life and could see that I had endured much injustice. Yet, I decided I did not want to protect myself or a sense of fairness anymore with feelings of harbored hurt.

I took this resolve into meditation. I had some time remaining in my present work, before moving on. I used the time wisely to work on healing resentments.

Yet, that was not enough for healing. I needed to sense within my whole being compassion. I worked on this through prayerful visualization, in more general terms, and with specific others whom I felt had treated me unjustly.

We are a constant flux of energies. The energies we nurture will be the energies we choose will grow. If we focus on our hurts, the hurt will grow, will linger. If we focus on the kindness and grace we can feel toward and express to others, that will grow.

As you work on nurturing compassion, even toward those who have treated you unkindly, do not be critical of yourself. See, if you are critical of yourself, you are resentful. Do away with all that resentment. You are not helping anyone rehashing the same old "I failed" message.

Practice grace toward others and yourself in prayer. You can use meditation. See yourself as compassionate, through and through; feel the feeling.

What do you look like being compassionate? What do you feel like feeling compassionate?

Another step I took after the divorce and job loss was a wiser choice in friends. Often resentment arises from our choosing unwisely friends or romantic relationships. We look back and beat ourselves up for letting ourselves be taken advantage of, or we feel anger toward those we feel betrayed us.

But, see, you do not want to live with those "friends," You do not want to be close emotionally to the same kind of persons. You begin to choose differently - in line with a new beginning, your resolve to live more healthily and lovingly.

To heal resentment can entail, then, learning to say enough, goodbye, not any more. I had a person I wanted much to be close friends with, and I really needed a close friend. The apparent friendship started well, but waned soon. After weeks of frustration at trying to be close to the person, and two conversations about the matter, I let go. Yet, the difference was I was learning better how to let go without holding any resentment.

I worked with this in meditation, and felt the freedom and health of how to say enough and let go without any anger or feeling of being treated unfairly. It felt freeing, it felt great.

What evolved was compassion. I began to feel, spontaneously, an unattached empathy for the person. There was appreciation. There was recognition of not wanting to hurt the person through silent anger, regardless of how I had felt disappointed in what had been a disappointing effort at a friendship - and one that would have meant a lot to me during such a time of transition.

See, here is the truth. Resentment and compassion arise from a like energy. The withness we long for in relationship can be frustrated. So, we keep re-sent-ing over the loss. It begins with the hurt. We nurture it. Soon, resentment has us, not we it.

When we relax into a deeper way of being with the other, not fitting our previous desire, we find compassion. We discover we can be with the other in a more spiritually evolved way of Love-ing. We let go of one withness, and we are found by another withness.

We can open our hearts and let love run through us. We can open our hearts and receive love. We can open our eyes and see universal love all around us, in places we never saw it before. We can awaken our souls and see that all these experiences have been lessons of love. Learning courage, faith, patience. Learning to love ourselves, when it looked and felt as if no one else did. Learning to express our creativity, express our emotions, and experience joy. Each one has been a lesson of love.