A New Look at Compassion
Compassion grips our gut
The word “compassion” in the Greek language is associated with the root word for “bowels.” The idea might lead us to understand that compassion is something that would move us from deep within. This sense of discomfort could be the motivation necessary to take action. Does compassion knot our insides with a desire to step close to those in suffering?
I had to think hard and long as I came across the above idea. With enormous numbers of people dying daily, I am tempted to feel numb and hear only a number. I must slow down and pause! I must hear with the capacity to translate a number into people with names! I must go further and grasp in my bowels that each person has a family and friends who are now suffering. I must let compassion move me towards action.
John Pavlovitz writes, “The sheer scale of suffering today can tend to overwhelm us, which is why compassion is in such great demand and why we need to practice empathy relentlessly. One of the greatest ways we can prepare is to keep our hearts soft even though so many others’ have become hardened, and to not lose the desire nor the ability to be powerfully moved by the pain in our path.
“It is a fitting way to walk into this season of Advent asking, “Where is the burden? What bothers me? What twists my bowels to the point of sickness? As we answer these questions and are willing to move in response, we perpetuate Jesus here. Today, see the suffering around you and let yourself be twisted.”*
While we might not be able to attend to the large scale of suffering, who is in our circle of friends that suffers from loss this year? They are the ones for which we can take compassionate action. It will matter to them. I want to keep feeling deeply the suffering of those near as well as far. What ways will you show compassion this season? Please share to inspire the rest of us to keep coming close to others who suffer.
© Karen Nicola/Comfort for the Day 2020
*Low, And Honest Advent Devotional by John Pavlovitz 2019
