Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and named him Seth, for she said, “God has appointed for me another child instead of Abel, because Cain killed him.” To Seth also a son was born, and he named him Enosh. At that time people began to invoke the name of the Lord. (From Genesis 4 in today’s Morning Prayer)
I'll try to keep this short. I want to take one example and use it to play out what compassionate thinking in the presence of God looks like. At least how it works in me.
First, let's revisit the idea of compassionate thinking.
Compassionate thinking: Involves going out of oneself, standing alongside the other person, and sharing their feelings and aspirations, which leads to increased sympathy and community building. “For the Christian, compassionate thinking takes the form of intercessory prayer, a compassionate confrontation with the needs of the other in the presence of God. Intercessory prayer includes compassionate thinking, but it is something more and implies the belief that in such prayer, not only the person who prays is sensitized and stimulated to action, but that the power of God himself is somehow related to the situation, which is the concern of the prayer. (From “Compassionate and responsible thinking” of January 11)
For today’s effort I’ll mostly leave aside the “responsible thinking” part. Though it would be deeply mistaken to do so in practice. But I want to keep this short!
Let’s take the Palestinian - Israeli conflict
Many of us have gotten stuck in a moral grove in which our compassion is mostly on one side of the conflict. At best we give a resentful nod to the other side. And we entirely leave out the fact that there are more than two sides.
My own experience is that engaging in “compassionate thinking in the presence of God” doesn’t usually happen organically, in the sense that I am so naturally compassionate that my head and heart just go there. Only God’s head and heart do that. I have to put myself in the pathways of grace. So, let’s say I’m walking along California Avenue and that conflict has come to mind. I need to do something within myself. Maybe just the turn of a phrase from a prayer - “lift me to your presence, where I may be still and know that you are God.” Okay, step one. I can’t be literal about it because I’m walking - so I’m not “still.” But you get the idea, I am calling on God for help, for grace, for compassion.
Then maybe I think on how much suffering the Palestinians have gone through in the past two years. So many dead, so many children. For just a few moments I’m trying to see through the eyes of God’s compassion. I have experienced life as decades of oppression, I’m afraid and angry, I carry the stories of displacement within me. (Go ahead write your own words into this)
Or maybe I begin with the Israeli Jews. My people came out of the Holocaust in Europe or the displacement from Arab lands. I've experienced large parts of the world once again turning against my people. We are the people who went through the Genocide being accused of genocide. It's a moral obscenity. We are surrounded by enemies. I'm afraid and angry. (Go ahead write your own words into this)
It is difficult to hold onto both realities. It makes me uncomfortable. I want to end my discomfort and simply choose a side. In essence, I want to decide which side God is on. I want to be right about this. I don't want the confusion and complexity. But when I am engaged in compassionate thinking that's exactly what I must give myself to. I need to accept the discomfort. And one of the reasons I must do this is the same reason why the-people-in -the-room, those who make decisions about war and peace, must finally do it. The imperfect solution that people will have to live with rises out of the suffering of two peoples. I lack the patience and humility the situation requires. I don't want to stay there for even a few minutes and the-people-in-the-room would have to have the capacity to stay there for days, weeks, years. I hear Esther deWaal’s wisdom, “For stability means that I must not run away from where my battles are being fought, that I have to stand still where the real issues have to be faced.” [1]
And I do want to flee away. So, things come to mind to cloud God’s compassion. If the Palestinians would just let go of their grievance and choose peace over war all this would not be happening. Or I might think, the Israeli settlers are attacking innocent farmers. The specific offense doesn't really matter. The point of the thought is to draw me away from compassionate thinking. If I give myself to that thought the tension will be reduced, and I may feel better. And isn't that the point of it all, that I feel better?
My mind will finally want to give itself to “responsible thinking.” The seeking of ways to live that accept “responsibility to the neighbor and taking into account their needs and claims.” Compassionate thinking can bring us to that place of truly having some sense of the “needs and claims” of the people involved. The task then is to find some imperfect solution. And that once again will call us to patience and humility, and maybe one other thing — intercession for the-people-in-the-room. We can stand before God with those people on our heart. (More) So I must pray for those imperfect people who will arrive at some imperfect solution.
Heavenly Father, in you we live and move and have our being: We humbly pray you so to guide and govern us by your Holy Spirit, that in all the cares and occupations of our life we may not forget you, but may remember that we are ever walking in your sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
This abides,
Brother Robert, OA
[1] For stability means that I must not run away from where my battles are being fought, that I have to stand still where the real issues have to be faced. Obedience compels me to re-enact in my own life that submission of Christ himself, even though it may lead to suffering and death, and conversatio, openness, means that I must be ready to pick myself up, and start .all over again in a pattern of growth which will not end until the day of my final dying. And all the time the journey is based on that Gospel paradox of losing life and finding it. ..my goal is Christ. (Esther deWaal in Seeking God: The Way of St. Benedict)
From the West Wing - On compassion