Stirring Compassion

In the winter season there isn't a person amongst us who isn't awed by the intricate, delicate, distinct uniqueness of a single snow flake. If we were to catch one on our fingertip, in the very moment we try to observe its beauty, it melts into a droplet imprinting a momentary memory of majesty upon our minds. A snowflake can stir our souls with wonder!

Compassion is an equally miraculous experience. It does not exist without our senses and souls being stirred. It is the gift of God indwelling us that enables the dovetailing of human lives together where need exists. It makes us both humane and divine in a single act. It blesses both the receiver and the giver.

Twenty years ago John Morgan & I as Seventies, volunteered in downtown Toronto at the Anishnawbe Health Centre once a week. From 8pm to 2am we would travel in a van throughout the city searching out the homeless to provide them with coffee, sandwiches, socks and such. One of those nights another Seventy, Steve Veazey, traveled the route with us. It was always a time of newness for us. You saw yourself in each person, heard your story in their story, felt their presence intertwined with yours. Perhaps these special people opened one further compassionate window of discernment in Steve's soul. They were touched by and themselves touched the life of a man who today leads our church in proclaiming to the world, "poverty must be abolished and needless suffering must end." Wolfman, one of our regular special recipients of need is one of many who have themselves brought blessing to others in his poverty and suffering to stir compassion mysteriously and miraculously in one who makes a difference.   

The prayer and act of compassion teaches us discernment. Our eyes are opened as if the veil is lifted and we begin to become aware of the person behind the masks which people wear, the feelings projected in one's body language; in the slump of a shoulder, the squint of an anguished eye, in the walk of the burdened soul, in the teardrop upon one's cheek. The awe of a snowflake is mirrored in a single teardrop. To hold a tear on your fingertip, is to touch another, to gain the trust of another, to be present to another. Imagine that teardrop poised on your fingertip as a transparent globe likened to a fortune tellers' magical ball. Envision as you look upon this globe, that the images of the person's life floats within this sphere, revealing the source of their anguish, the pain of their suffering, all mysteriously combining to create the very teardrop which rests upon your fingertip. That tear is often met with a tear by the compassionate person.

Discerning the need for compassion challenges us to be a person of compassion. Being compassionate engages our lives in the giving of self to bring solace, to offer hope, to befriend, to humbly be for the other the means to bring sparkling clear light to the other's teardrop. Let us pray and act to become a people of compassion transforming teardrops into the most joyful of expressions.