The Power of Compassion

Today's post comes as a result of a conversation I had yesterday. I reconnected with a man that I've had a "love-hate" relationship with over many years. He's a man that I've found very challenging to deal with from the standpoint of his worldview, and how he used that to treat other people poorly (in my humble opinion). Our relationship has healed, because he has significantly softened (and is under less stress, both mental and physiologic) and my wife no longer works for him! ;-)

This man and I reconnected after a number of years and as we were catching up on each other's lives, our conversation lead into a description of what I'm doing running a public charity called, "Possibilities Journey, Inc." I told him of our mission to return wholeness to health and wellness, and how important compassion was to that process. He picked right up on the need for compassion and related the following personal story.

He has suffered from chronic health issues for most of his adult life. Recently he had an experience where he had to have multiple surgeries, which resulted in him (at the mid-point of the process) being significantly disabled. He was quite angry and withdrawn and no one (including his wife of many years) could get him to open up. He was visited often during this time by spiritual persons, in fact, he had Eucharist a few times each week - but no one recognized his spiritual pain. Until one day, a Physical Therapy assistant was able to show him compassion and to allow him the space to "let it all out". His ability to off-load his anger and frustration, his fears and concerns, began the process of his healing. It empowered him to take control back and to get his surgeon in line - to move past the error that had been made and to forgive him. That forgiveness of the physician allowed for that professional to move forward and correct the error, allowing my friend to walk again.

The power of compassion and compassionate acts. Compassion literally means "to suffer with" and is a gift that is seldom given in our world today. The folks at the George Washington Institute for Spirituality and Health (GWish) are trying to adequately define compassion so that they can measure it and then identify how to assess for its presence or absence. My friend can tell them about how it felt for compassion to be absent from the people he looked to for it. It took another human, far down the medical heirarchy, to empower him to heal. A message for all of us that no one is incapable of sharing this gift.

My wish for you this day is that you might be able to share (or recieve) the gift of compassion. May you find your vision cleared so that you might see the suffering around you and give freely of this great gift.

Peace and compasion,
Dan