Some interesting thoughts compiled about compassion from author Matthew Fox and his book Compassion:
"Compassion is not pity in the sense that our culture understands pity. It is not feeling sorry for someone, nor is it a preoccupation with pain....Pity connotes condescension and this condescension, in turn, implies separateness....Pity sometimes regards its object as not only suffering, but weak or inferior....Pity works out of a subject-object relationship where what is primary is one's separateness from another....we apply pity to those who are in such a low estate that they are not or have ceased to be our own serious rivals. They are 'out of the running'. By pitying them, we emphasize the discrepancy between their lot and ours . Such attitude, we believe, motivates much so-called charity."
Compassion works from a strength born of awareness of shared weakness, and not from someone else's weakness. The surest way of discerning whether one has pity towards or compassion with another is to answer the question, "Do you celebrate with this same person or these same people?" ..Joy and celebration constitute the better half of the whole that compassion is about. Compassion operates at the same level as celebration because compassion is not feelings of pity but rather feelings of togetherness, suspended egos, or the 'feelings of kinship with all fellow creatures.' This kinship urges us to celebrate our kinship."
As I decipher Fox's writing, our common understanding in the West about compassion is often a feeling of pity that keeps everything on an us-them basis. It ends up being about competition and securing power, with the server/giver keeping the upper-hand.
True compassion, however, is about oneness and solidarity, where we understand our common weakness in humanity and experience the pain together. Joining with others in this way creates a oneness and wholeness that elicits joy and celebration in the togetherness.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Friday, October 30, 2009
the dollar bill challenge
I'm spending this morning putting dollar bills in locations that I frequently see in a day. Our bathroom mirror. Our fridge. Our van's dashboard. Our door into the house. These one dollar bills are a part of our upcoming Challenges for the Heart in which one challenge is to place these dollar bills around for three weeks to remind ourselves that almost 1/2 the world lives on less than $2 a day. Is this right? What do I live on? How am I stewarding God's resources to promote life, Jesus, justice? Will I pray for and consider the lives of my neighbors in need?
Shane Claiborne said it well in a few paragraphs he wrote recently in "The Restorer", an annual publication of CCDA.
"There are a number of core gospel values I see as a thread throughout Scripture- God created an economy where's enough. There's enough for everyone's need, but not for everyone's greed. In the manna story, He says, 'You are not to take more than a day's ration,' to remind them of His providence. Even in the communion sacrament, we pray, 'Give me this day our daily bread.' When Jesus did feeding miracles, there were even leftovers that came out of one child's gift. We also see an admonition not to store up extra and live in luxury when others are starving and when we don't even know what tomorrow holds. Rebirth and redistribution go hand in hand. John the Baptist said, 'Repent!' but he also said, 'If you have two tunics, give one away.' Within CCDA, we're committed to not just reading the Bible with a highlighter but to see what it means to be a fully devoted follower of Christ. In the book of Acts, they shared everything they had and things were distributed as people had need. And there were no needy among them. We have an invitation to bear each others burdens. When someone is without, that should disturb all of us; especially those who have a degree of comfort. Neighborly love involves redistribution, and we are becoming aware that the world is fragile. Scandals in inequity are causing an awareness that we need to change. We are re-realizing that we are to live in nonconformity to the world-that's a fresh word. We live simply because God is good and we want to make sure everyone can take part in that."
Shane Claiborne said it well in a few paragraphs he wrote recently in "The Restorer", an annual publication of CCDA.
"There are a number of core gospel values I see as a thread throughout Scripture- God created an economy where's enough. There's enough for everyone's need, but not for everyone's greed. In the manna story, He says, 'You are not to take more than a day's ration,' to remind them of His providence. Even in the communion sacrament, we pray, 'Give me this day our daily bread.' When Jesus did feeding miracles, there were even leftovers that came out of one child's gift. We also see an admonition not to store up extra and live in luxury when others are starving and when we don't even know what tomorrow holds. Rebirth and redistribution go hand in hand. John the Baptist said, 'Repent!' but he also said, 'If you have two tunics, give one away.' Within CCDA, we're committed to not just reading the Bible with a highlighter but to see what it means to be a fully devoted follower of Christ. In the book of Acts, they shared everything they had and things were distributed as people had need. And there were no needy among them. We have an invitation to bear each others burdens. When someone is without, that should disturb all of us; especially those who have a degree of comfort. Neighborly love involves redistribution, and we are becoming aware that the world is fragile. Scandals in inequity are causing an awareness that we need to change. We are re-realizing that we are to live in nonconformity to the world-that's a fresh word. We live simply because God is good and we want to make sure everyone can take part in that."
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
cubicle quotes
Some quotes I am staring at on the walls of my desk as of late:
- I have long since come to believe that people never mean half of what they say, and that it is best to disregard their talk and judge only their actions. - Dorothy Day
- Discipline- the glad surrender. (title of a book on my shelf)
- Love God, love people. Nothing else matters. (missionyear.org sticker)
- We must order our lives as if reconciliation and justice matters. - Laura Hoy
- Let the Lord direct your hearts into God's love and Christ's perseverance. 2 Thess.3:5
- I have long since come to believe that people never mean half of what they say, and that it is best to disregard their talk and judge only their actions. - Dorothy Day
- Discipline- the glad surrender. (title of a book on my shelf)
- Love God, love people. Nothing else matters. (missionyear.org sticker)
- We must order our lives as if reconciliation and justice matters. - Laura Hoy
- Let the Lord direct your hearts into God's love and Christ's perseverance. 2 Thess.3:5
compassion = suffering with
A quote from Compassion: A Reflection of the Christian Life by Henri Nouwen, Donald McNeill, and Douglas Morrison.
“The word compassion is derived from the Latin words pati and cum, which together mean “to suffer with.” Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human. When we look at compassion in this way, it becomes clear that something more is involved than a general kindness or tenderheartedness. It is not surprising that compassion, understood as suffering with, evokes in us a deep resistance and even protest. It is important for us to acknowledge that suffering is not something we desire or to which we are attracted. On the contrary, it is something we want to avoid at all cost. Therefore, compassion is not among our most natural responses.”
Why compassion, then, if it is so hard and unnatural? Because in the upside-down Kingdom economy, it's in compassionate living that we will find the adventure we're longing for as we walk with Jesus in a way that will restore not only the world but our own lives as well. Join us as Orchard Hill focuses in on compassion and begins three weeks of "Challenges for the Heart" starting November 1.
“The word compassion is derived from the Latin words pati and cum, which together mean “to suffer with.” Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human. When we look at compassion in this way, it becomes clear that something more is involved than a general kindness or tenderheartedness. It is not surprising that compassion, understood as suffering with, evokes in us a deep resistance and even protest. It is important for us to acknowledge that suffering is not something we desire or to which we are attracted. On the contrary, it is something we want to avoid at all cost. Therefore, compassion is not among our most natural responses.”
Why compassion, then, if it is so hard and unnatural? Because in the upside-down Kingdom economy, it's in compassionate living that we will find the adventure we're longing for as we walk with Jesus in a way that will restore not only the world but our own lives as well. Join us as Orchard Hill focuses in on compassion and begins three weeks of "Challenges for the Heart" starting November 1.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
CCDA in 2010
Next year's conference is in Chicago. The dates have moved a bit from the past few years. Next year's conference is SEPTEMBER 7-10.
MARK YOUR CALENDARS!
MARK YOUR CALENDARS!
ccda Saturday
Ellaysa, Blayne and Shane Claiborne.
Chassidi, Shawna and Ellaysa.
Great last day at the conference. We pull out for home tomorrow a.m. at 7:00 a.m.
Friday review
So much goes into a day here that it's tough to give a blog summary.
JP's Bible Study in the morning was again compelling. About justice being God's deep motivation for redemption. Unable to stand for sin, our Holy God asked the question, "how can I be true and just and yet deal with and get rid of the problem of sin?" Of course, the answer is Jesus, and we must continue to confess our sin to God and others so that we can be restored through Jesus and free to be used as God would like to use us.
Bart Campolo was our first speaker in the evening. He was gut honest and very strong in story and speech. In a nutshell, he spoke about how so very often in this walk of love and justice, we will walk with people who won't change. We can't fix and help so many....but there's nobody we can't love.
Alexias Salvatierra, an activist for economic justice in southern CA spoke eloquently about compassion and solidarity. She advocates often for immigrants in the USA, and she had some words that stuck...
Compassion means to "feel with". But before we can have compassion, we have to SEE people. It's not that we have compassion fatigue, it's that we don't have vision. We don't see because we don't have the courage to see.
She spoke about how it's not that we're not connected, it's that we already ARE family....we are connected in our human experience, and we need to live in the truth of that connection.
I bought the dvd of tonight, as the whole evening was very powerful.
JP's Bible Study in the morning was again compelling. About justice being God's deep motivation for redemption. Unable to stand for sin, our Holy God asked the question, "how can I be true and just and yet deal with and get rid of the problem of sin?" Of course, the answer is Jesus, and we must continue to confess our sin to God and others so that we can be restored through Jesus and free to be used as God would like to use us.
Bart Campolo was our first speaker in the evening. He was gut honest and very strong in story and speech. In a nutshell, he spoke about how so very often in this walk of love and justice, we will walk with people who won't change. We can't fix and help so many....but there's nobody we can't love.
Alexias Salvatierra, an activist for economic justice in southern CA spoke eloquently about compassion and solidarity. She advocates often for immigrants in the USA, and she had some words that stuck...
Compassion means to "feel with". But before we can have compassion, we have to SEE people. It's not that we have compassion fatigue, it's that we don't have vision. We don't see because we don't have the courage to see.
She spoke about how it's not that we're not connected, it's that we already ARE family....we are connected in our human experience, and we need to live in the truth of that connection.
I bought the dvd of tonight, as the whole evening was very powerful.
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