💔 Obstacles to Compassion

Dear Friends,

This week we are reflecting on compassion and what gets in the way of compassionate responses.

This comes up for various reasons: the global pandemic we now living in, celebrating the life and witness of Rep. John Lewis whose whole life was one of compassionate response, calling us to get into “good trouble.” And because of something Katniss Everdeen said in the the second book of The Hunger Games.

That’s right. Let me back up for a minute.

Our family loves road trips and part of that love is the time it gives us to listen to audio books. On move from Camas, WA to Greensboro, NC we took ten days to drive listen through Lemony Snickett’s “Series of Unfortunate Events” corpus. That has in turn become a kind of canon for our family.

This time, on our drive to and from Ocracoke Island, we listened through books two and three of the Hunger Games. Which will make you think a lot about empire, power, and revolution, if that is your thing.

In one scene in Catching Fire (Book 2), Gale, one of the protagonists and best friend of Katniss, is being whipped in the town square by the head “peacekeeper” Thread. It is a brutal scene that I won’t recount here, but it brings Gale within inches of his life. The part that struck me this time around is when Katniss looks back on that day and notices that, “Yesterday, the square emptied so quickly after Gale’s whipping.” There was a town gathered around, watching this unjust beating of Gale, and it is only Katniss (a victor of the Hunger Games so she has relatively more positional power) who steps in initially to try and stop the beating. As soon as Thread is convinced to stop the beating people flee, rather than come to Gale’s aid or see how they could help. Fear overrides compassion. Only Katniss and a couple others were willing to get into “good trouble” which saved the life of Gale. Why? What causes some to respond one way, and others to turn away?

Thank you for reading, and I hope you will find ways to get into good trouble this week in honor of John Lewis.

-Wess

I have been thinking a lot about compassion. Covid19 is certainly a big part of this. How do we account for our responses, or lack of responses, to one another in this ongoing crisis? Who gets prioritized when the money is tight? Who is willing to go beyond offering “a word of support” to taking actual steps, personal risks, putting something on the table when a compassionate response is needed?

Millions of Americans are out of work. Once rent protection ends, more than 20 million people will face potential evictions (one estimate says 40 million during Covid19).

Wearing masks has become a political dividing point for some. There have been plenty of articles and anecdotes about who is and isn’t wearing masks. For me, it is certainly one way to be compassionate towards others, as well as oneself and ones family. As a person who has lived with chronic asthma, I take wearing a mask seriously for many reasons.

This week congress has been debating the stimulus. What started out as an already far too meager boost of $600 in unemployment is now likely to be cut by $400 or altogether. As congress debates the amount of crumbs to throw to struggling Americans they try to sneak into the relief bill $686,000,000 for greater militarization. This isn’t work. Our GDP is the worse than it was during the Great depression.

Meanwhile, business like Amazon, and organizations of all sizes play fast and loose with people’s livelihoods and health. Here are some numbers for how some Americans are doing during the pandemic.

In the face of a global health pandemic, a pandemic of racism and violence against others, and the pandemic of poverty:

This got me thinking about another question. Why does it seem so hard, so counter to our nature to offer the compassionate response? What are the obstacles to compassion? What keeps me from responding compassionately? What keeps you from doing the same?

From the simple things to the far more complex. What stands in the way of moving towards other individuals, even when it is (or even just feels) risky?

How you would respond to this question? What are the obstacles (whether legitimate or not) to a compassionate response to another human being?

I turned to twitter to see what folks there said. Here are a few of the really great responses.

You can read the rest of the thread here.

Do any of these speak to you? I know they do me. I’d love to hear your response to this question. You can respond to this email, write on the Twitter thread, or share in the Newsletter chat group.

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For my part, I think there are a few things that come to mind as obstacles:

Compassion closes the gap between those who are alone, vulnerable, at risk. Compassion may cost us something, but in doing so it seeks to level the field for others or protect them from ongoing harm. When Bayard Rustin calls for angelic troublemakers, I think he is talking about compassion:

Compassionate responses are responses of the movement and of movement. They build and they move towards pain, move towards the unknown. Compassionate responses move because of commitment, practice, and conviction in the face of odds not being in one’s favor.

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Contact me for more information, discuss what is needed, and pricing. Email me at: wess@hey.com

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Gustavo Gutiérrez, the father of Latin American Liberation Theology says, “Love of neighbor involves demands which challenge our apathy and our desire to avoid problems.” 

Thank you for reading,

Wess Daniels

Greensboro, NC (Haw River Watershed)

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