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Meditation 17: Luke 6--Compassion

8/25/2009 8:06:19 PM

“[God] is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” Luke 6:35-36

Generosity of spirit is perhaps one of the issues I struggle with the most. To be truly loving, truly gracious, truly compassionate requires a heart that is filled with the light and love of God. It means we learn to relate to others soul to soul rather than physical form to physical form (ego). We understand the physical manifestation of the person isn’t the true self.

When I’m having a particularly difficult time relating to someone, I remind myself this person is a soul, the same as I, living on this earth, trying to do the best he is able, learning lessons just as I am. I don’t have the right to judge him or to feel he isn’t as spiritually mature as I am. I have no idea what the true person—the soul inside the body—is like and what lessons he is in the midst of learning.

The more aware I become of my own ways of relating and thinking that aren’t helpful, the more I must learn to be compassionate with myself and not judge myself either. Judgment leads nowhere. It only results in feelings of shame and failure if directed inwardly, and shame drags at the spirit, diminishing my sense of self and joy in life. If directed outward, to someone else, judgment makes me feel self-righteousness. Above all, either inwardly or outwardly directed, judgment blocks the compassionate love of God at work in me and through me.

If, however, I can look at myself and see the changes I must make in a compassionate light, then they become teaching moments rather than avenues to shame. I have always responded better to compassion than shame. Compassion open an awareness of God’s presence and takes me closer to the person I truly am and will be again, once I leave this life.

And the more compassionate I am with myself, the more compassionate I am with others. That’s why I often say to someone: ‘don’t be so hard on yourself.’ Not only do people need to be freed from the burden of self-inflicted guilt and shame, they also need the freedom to be fully present with and enjoy others. The best gift we can give ourselves and one another is to accept without judgment and without the demand to change before we bestow the gift of compassion. Compassion with conditions is not genuine.

God’s compassion is overwhelming; we have no clue just how deep and wide it is. We, who tend to put conditions on everything in life we do and feel, just cannot grasp how much God loves this earth and every living thing, for every living thing has its beginning in God.

God, whose compassion penetrates my life, help me to live this day aware that I am loved. Help me believe the love that covers my life also envelopes this whole world, and every person I meet is precious to you. Nothing that exists is outside of your compassion. Help me to live that truth.