Just a few months into the pandemic I stopped reading books about murder and revenge. In the past I sometimes turned to exactly those books because I knew with certainty that, though full of violence, in the end the hero would win, the bad guys would all be dead.
When looking for alternatives that felt better, I re-read
animal stories by James Herriot and then moved on to audiobooks while I walked
for exercise, to a couple of memoirs about humans finding and saving dogs: Finding Gobi and Craig and Fred.
I came across a discussion about compassion in, of all
places, a book called Saving Simon by
Jon Katz, the next audiobook I chose. The first half of the book was about Katz
rescuing an abused, nearly dead donkey, who he named Simon. It was heartwarming
and interesting to me, just what I needed to hear during the pandemic. What I
hadn’t noticed was its subtitle, which truthfully I didn’t notice: How a Rescue Donkey Taught Me the Meaning of
Compassion.
When Katz decides to visit the farmer who originally had the
donkey and treated him so badly, he ventures into the difficult issues of
compassion. I think Katz describes what I thought “While I tended to be
compassionate to people and animals I liked and who liked me, I found it hard
to be compassionate or empathetic to people whose beliefs and actions were
offensive or disturbing to me. Compassion, like freedom of speech, is one of those
ideas we love to talk about until something vile happens, and then not so much.
And yet, I thought, wasn’t compassion really about empathizing on a broader
scale than that?”
A lot has been written about compassion. Katz names
the Dalai Lama, Thomas Merton, Saint Francis of Assisi, Plato, Albert Einstein,
and Albert Schweitzer. Thomas Merton writes: “The whole idea of compassion is
based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings,
which are all part of one another and all involved with one another.”
This post is about the compassion we all at Unity Spiritual
Center need to feel for each other as we fill out the survey about our Center
and its future. There are as many different and seemingly opposing feelings and
opinions as there are people involved in this decision.
Katz, near the end of his book, writes: “There is a wonderful
simplicity to compassion… All you need to do is ask yourself this: what kind of
person do you want to be?”
I try to remind myself to be kind.
With love,
~ Jean
Notes about the books: Finding Gobi. The True Story of a Little Dog and an Incredible Journey by Dion Leonard was the first. The writer is an ultra marathon runner and he encountered Gobi during a 155 mile multi-day run in China and Mongolia including across the Gobi Desert (thus the dog's name). They "fell in love" and Leonard decided to do whatever it took to bring Gobi, a small brown dog, home with him to the UK. I listened to this book during a 13 hour two-day drive to visit my mom.
Craig and Fred. A Marine, A Stray Dog, and How They Rescued Each Other by Craig Grossi. The writer was a Marine stationed in Afghanistan when he encountered Fred, a stray white dog. They too "fell in love" and Craig along with the help of his fellow Marines, a vet, his sister, a DHL crew and others smuggled Fred out of the country to the US where they are constant companions now.
I wanted to write a bit more about the farmer I mentioned above: As part of his research on compassion, Jon Katz visited the farmer who had owned the donkey before he was rescued - hoping to understand him better. Katz writes “The farmer was defeated, worn down, humiliated and, now, trapped. He couldn’t take care of his family. He couldn’t keep his farm. He was beyond caring about a hungry donkey.” The farm had been failing for a few years, he couldn’t give his wife or son real gifts at Christmas and barely had enough food for his horses much less a hungry donkey he hadn’t wanted. “He never thought he would be in this position … he never thought he would be so up against it.” Quoting Jon Katz “The definition of mercy is ‘the compassionate or kindly forbearance shown toward an offender, an enemy, or other person in one’s power.’ The definition of compassion is ‘a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for those who are afflicted by misfortune.’ Wouldn’t the farmer be entitled to some of both? Or had his treatment of Simon forfeited that right?”
ReplyDeleteI think compassion and forgiveness are similar in that an individual can feel compassion or forgive but that does not excuse the behavior. And just as it is difficult sometimes for me to forgive, sometimes it is difficult to feel compassion for someone. But both are necessary for my soul health. Jean