Compassion, Dignity, and Respect

32 “If you love those who love you, why should you be commended? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 If you do good to those who do good to you, why should you be commended? Even sinners do that. 34 If you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, why should you be commended? Even sinners lend to sinners expecting to be paid back in full. 35 Instead, love your enemies, do good, and lend expecting nothing in return. If you do, you will have a great reward. You will be acting the way children of the Most High act, for he is kind to ungrateful and wicked people. 36 Be compassionate just as your Father is compassionate.

~ Luke 6:32-36, CEB

A few days ago, I wrote about the fact that compassion should challenge us. It isn’t supposed to be easy. That doesn’t mean, though, that we subject ourselves to a lifetime of abuse. It doesn’t mean we’re required to walk through life with no dignity or sense of self respect. It simply means why prioritize compassion beyond what is intuitive. The limits must be discerned with the help of a wise community.

If you know that you will have to be hospitalized due to mental of physical abuse during the holidays, then prioritize compassion to yourself and do not jeopardize your wellbeing simply because it’s customary to spend time with family during the holidays.

On the other hand, don’t use this as justification to get out of something that is merely uncomfortable. If you’re uncle has bad breath, stands too close, and tells too many “guy walked into a bar” jokes, you can probably tolerate that for the sake of your family. Uncles like that are probably lonely, and could use a little bit of the benefit of the doubt.

Do you see the difference between these two things? Compassion is not one-size-fits-all. It takes some work to find the appropriate path forward.

Compassion is a Competition

32 “If you love those who love you, why should you be commended? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 If you do good to those who do good to you, why should you be commended? Even sinners do that. 34 If you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, why should you be commended? Even sinners lend to sinners expecting to be paid back in full. 35 Instead, love your enemies, do good, and lend expecting nothing in return. If you do, you will have a great reward. You will be acting the way children of the Most High act, for he is kind to ungrateful and wicked people. 36 Be compassionate just as your Father is compassionate.

~ Luke 6:32-36, CEB

Compassion, true compassion, forces us to compete with ourselves. Why? Because true compassion does not feel natural or intuitive. It requires us to move beyond what feels good or right in order to live out of our certain way of seeing.

If I say, “Our culture has no compassion,” most people would likely nod and say, “Yes, I agree,” and perhaps even think of multiple examples of types of people who are not compassionate enough (or not compassionate at all). It takes spiritual discipline, though, to imagine the ways in which I (Scott) am not compassionate, to compete with myself.

If we wait to receive compassion before we’re willing to show it…why should we be commended? That’s easy.

Over the holiday season, think on compassion, but do so with discernment. Sometimes compassion means a gracious withdrawal. Sometimes it means avoiding a situation where compassion would not be possible if we showed up. Sometimes it means sucking up our pride for a few hours and being present in an uncomfortable situation.

I can’t say which situation is yours but, whichever it is, chase compassion.

Plan for the worst, Hope for the best

When it comes to difficult holiday events with family, sometimes it helps to have a plan for when things go sour. So often we walk into these events with fear, stress, anxiety, and more, but we don’t have a plan. When things take a turn for the worst, we react. That generally is not a great strategy.

So, in preparation for this holiday season, think about some ways that you can hit the “reset” button within the confines of the types of situations you find yourself in. Is there a way to hide, for instance? Can you sneak off to a bathroom and meditate (or scroll on your phone)? Can you plan to spend less time in a hostile environment? Perhaps you can plan some stock phrases for awkward conversations: “I don’t appreciate it when you talk about me that way and I think I’ll be going now,” is a better choice than “F*** You!”

What kinds of situations do you find yourself in?

How would you like to respond, if you had the option?

Wisdom for the Holidays

Good friend, take to heart what I’m telling you;
    collect my counsels and guard them with your life.
Tune your ears to the world of Wisdom;
    set your heart on a life of Understanding.
That’s right—if you make Insight your priority,
    and won’t take no for an answer,
Searching for it like a prospector panning for gold,
    like an adventurer on a treasure hunt,
Believe me, before you know it Fear-of-God will be yours;
    you’ll have come upon the Knowledge of God.

~ Proverbs 2:1-5, Message

The goal for us, at all times in life, is to live out of our certain way of seeing to the best of our ability. Sometimes there are constraints on that ability. In ideal circumstances, let’s say, I may have the potential to be 100% compassionate. Under stress, maybe the max number is something more like 50%. We don’t need to live in fear of God or shame of ourselves because we aren’t able to reach 100% compassion under stress. We’re better off realizing that 50% is the best we can do and then brainstorming how we get to that number (as opposed to tumbling down to something like 10%).

Perhaps if you spent less time with your family, you would be more likely to reach 50% compassion (or loving or gracious or merciful or whatever), than if you spent more time with them. So often we think being loving and compassionate is giving people whatever they ask for, but, sometimes when we give people everything they ask for we lose the ability to fully display our certain way of seeing. If boundaries help us get closer to our “max number”- then why not consider implementing those boundaries? Everyone wins.

Scapegoating and Forgiveness: Part III

We're carrying on a conversation from the past few days, feel free to get caught up before reading this one.

Empathy for offenders (when and where it's possible) begins with seeing ourselves as we truly are: people who are just as capable of creating offense as receiving it. Unfortunately, this is not something that can be taught and learned, it can only be discovered. Sadly, we tend to discover this truth only when we find ourselves on the outside of a group, banished, with no false group identity to protect us from seeing ourselves as we really are (this is, again, Girard's thought).

When we recognize the truth about ourselves, then we recognize that there is no great divide between ourselves and other people who cause harm (even, perhaps, our offenders). Now, again, I'm not suggesting there is no moral distinction between a victim of rape and a rapist but, I am suggesting that, over the course of a lifetime, all of us cause harm and are capable of much more. If we discover this about ourselves, then we don't see ourselves as people above wrongdoing.

The goal in viewing ourselves as wrongdoers is not to shame ourselves for being wrongdoers but to simply see ourselves accurately and to discover exactly how much grace and love we receive from God (and, hopefully, community). We do not need to see ourselves only as wrongdoers but as people who miss the mark, people who struggle to live out our certain way of seeing. This is what allows us to empathize with others. We recognize our struggle, and that means we can recognize that others struggle as well. Most people do not get up in the morning with the intention of ruining people's lives. There are, of course, exceptions, but most people cause harm because they are struggling. This means they are not so different from ourselves.

Side note: Of course we’re not going to empathize with every offender and we do not need to empathize with every offender. However, it never hurts to learn to view ourselves accurately and to find a more nuanced perspective on the world in the process. In this case, we discover that we are not only victims of our offenders. Our identity can be much larger, if we can see ourselves accurately. Learning to see that offenders have an identity beyond their offenses is a tangential benefit.