People for others

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.

If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

          The Dali Lama

 

If you want to be happy in a relationship,

work hard to make the other person happy.

          My Mom

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Somewhere along the line compassion fell into disrepute.

 

We see it in politics.

Just the other day Donald Trump Jr. stated that turning the other check,

try to work with  the “others side”

has “gotten us nothing.”

 

Just wow.  The scriptures as a manual for suckers and the weak!

the ethics of Jesus being counterproductive

in a world where dominance and wealth are everything

 

We see it in the church.

In how many churches are people told they are

miserable sinners in the hands of an angry God (Jonathan Edwards)

told they don’t deserve love

and only escape eternal suffering because a God of wrath

took his (yes it’s a male God in these churches) wrath out on Jesus.

 

But even then we had better be pretty darn careful.

 

A dominating God full of wrath

Primed to exact retribution

 

No wonder the right-wing church likes DJT

 

We see it on Facebook

Twitter

Everywhere

 

People who have abandoned kindness and compassion

for power and wealth

(but if they can have wealth, they really want that power).

 

And at some level their tactic is working

By abusing power

Stacking the deck

Legalizing inequity and injustice

 

By changing the rules (so that anything they do is OK)

By carrying weapons

By weaponizing the church

 

They people of the lie (think Scott Peck)

are getting what they want

power over others

and in the case of the already rich, riches.

 

But are they happy?

 

Perhaps the fact that no matter how much power they have

it is never enough

Perhaps the fact that no matter how much money they have

(it is obscene in some cases)

it is never enough

 

These people are perpetually hungry

famished

like the poor souls on Dante’s sixth terrace of hell

 

There is no enough

 

Enter compassion

Enter people who are so sate by Love

The love of God

Some filled with a sense of blessing

 

That when they interact with the world

They are not needy

They are not hungry

They are full

 

And being full can let go

of the need for power and wealth

 

focus on the other

 

and love

 

This is theologically sound

It is sociologically and psychologically sound

 

As Brene Brown reminds us

Only those who believe they are worthy of love and belonging

And have experience love and belonging

 

Can engage in the world

Wholeheartedly (Read Rachel Held Evan’s book, finished by Jeff Chu)

 

I want to be a wholehearted person

A person who knows I am love

Who has experienced love

And who can offer love

 

For love, not domination is the starting place is it not

in the divine equation?

 

For you shall love the Lord your God

with all your heart, soul, mind and strength (wholeheartedly)

You shall experience Holy love and acceptance yourself,

And…

You shall love those around you too

 

Compassion!