How Can I Help?

Rev. Peter Friedrichs

September 20, 2009

The debate continues over the propriety of Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst during President Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress. Most of us agree that it was rude and disrespectful, while others contend that it was a splendid example of "speaking truth to power." And, of course, "You lie" has now become a catchphrase of the American lexicon, up there with "You're Fired" and "Where's the Beef?" In fact, I'm waiting for someone to shout it out during one of my sermons.

Wilson's outburst has been unavoidable since it happened. It's been all over the media. But what has stuck with me since the President addressed Congress about health care reform is a different kind of spectacle. As the television cameras panned out across the congressmen and senators listening to Obama, I was struck by the sea of stony faces that greeted his words. I was struck by the wealthy, comfortable, well-dressed and well-fed crowd that was sitting in judgment of Obama's proposals. The well-insured crowd. And how apparently unmoved they were by the plight of millions of their constituents. And I asked myself, "What does it take to touch these people?" "Have they never experienced a personal crisis?" "Where is their compassion?"

Now, I admit that I am painting with a broad brush here, and I know that these men and women (but mostly men) are technically "public servants," devoting their lives to ensuring the ongoing functioning of our democratic way of life. And I know that many of them earnestly want to transform health care policy, and eradicate poverty and expand public education. But the impression I was left with after the President's speech was that, once again, the "have's" are sitting pretty and are turning a cold shoulder to the "have-not's." It's the same feeling I have when I hear all the screaming and shouting at the town hall debates about health care. Those who oppose reform are generally the ones who already have coverage they're satisfied with. It's not so much the tea party marchers with their vicious posters and their hateful slogans that bother me. It's the "I've got mine, don't mess with it" mentality that is so deeply troubling. And again, I am left to wonder, where is the compassion?

As the universe is wont to do, I was called up short on this same question just a couple of weeks ago. Irene and I were in Center City, showing off the City of Brotherly Love to our German exchange student-daughter who came to visit us after the wedding. As we walked up Market Street toward Independence Mall, I passed at least half a dozen people looking for handouts. These people looked homeless and helpless, dirty and in dire circumstance. And all they were asking of me was a dollar, or less, to help them get by. As I passed each one by, avoiding eye contact and trying not to really see them, I felt guilty. But I kept walking. And so I am compelled to ask myself that same question: Where is the compassion? And it's a more troubling question than that. It's "Where is the compassion in me?"

The concept of compassion is perhaps most simply and elegantly expressed in the form of the Golden Rule, variations of which you heard during our service last week. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." "Love your neighbor as you love yourself." "Do not injure your neighbor, for it is not your neighbor you injure but yourself" While the Golden Rule is often attributed to the great Abrahamic faiths - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - it was first offered up by Confucius, some five hundred years before Jesus was born. Confucius preached the gospel of compassion as a means to transcendence. The concept of ren, or "loving others" is central to Confucian practice. Several hundred years after the time of Confucius we find the revered Jewish Rabbi Hillel. A story is told that one day a Gentile came to Hillel and said he would convert to Judaism if the rabbi could recite the whole Jewish teaching while he stood on one leg. Hillel stood on one leg and said "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary. Go and study it."[1] According to Karen Armstrong, the author of books such as A History of God and Islam, A Short History, the Golden Rule and its ethos of compassion is the central, unifying concept in all the religions of the world. She writes: "It is an arresting fact that, right across the board, in every single one of the world's major faiths compassion - the ability to feel with the other - is the test of any true religiosity and is what will bring us into the presence of what Jews, Christians and Muslims call "God" or the "Divine. It is compassion, says the Buddha, which brings you to Nirvana."[2] Our own Unitarian Universalist faith calls on us to "promote and affirm justice, equity and compassion in human relations."

While I'm not sure that I have scientific evidence to back me up on this, I believe deeply that all human beings have a natural urge to be compassionate. That compassion is an innate response within us and that we each possess deep wells of compassion. Our hearts are not taught to break when we see pictures of starving children in Africa, nor do we need to learn to be moved when we hear the stories of families left bankrupt and destitute because they had to pay for their mother's cancer care. These are inborn responses, as natural to us as breathing. In their book How Can I Help, authors Ram Dass and Paul Gorman put it this way: "Caring is a reflex. Someone slips, your arm goes out. A car is in a ditch, you join the others and push. A colleague at work has the blues, you let her know you care. It all seems natural and appropriate. You live, you help."[3] It is, I believe, truer to say that we un-learn compassion than it is to say that we need to be taught how to be compassionate.

But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself here. Let me back up and talk about what compassion is before we go looking for it in ourselves and in others. Because we probably all are making some assumptions about this thing called compassion and it's good to get us all on the same page. Even Ram Dass seems to have compassion confused with some kind of action. The reflex to help. So the first thing I'd say is compassion is not the same as helping. Helping - the action of assisting those who need it - may (and it may not) flow out of compassion, but it is not compassion itself. We may help others because we care, but we may also do it because it's expected of us, or because we're being paid to do it, or simply because others are watching and judging us. So reaching out isn't necessarily an altruistic act. And compassion, while it should lead to action, isn't the same thing.

Compassion is about our interior landscape, our state of being. It's about our heart and our soul. The question of compassion calls us to consider ourselves and our place in the world. When we are the center of our own universe, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to be compassionate. The philosopher Joseph Campbell told journalist Bill Moyers that compassion "is the awakening of the heart from bestial self-interest to humanity, the natural opening of the human heart to another human being." Compassion moves us out of the center and places there instead someone else whose needs and interests are not necessarily aligned with our own. Karen Armstrong has said that "when we feel with the other, we dethrone ourselves from the center of our world and we put another person there. And once we get rid of ego, we're ready to see the Divine."[4] Compassion, then, requires us to step aside and to make room for others. And that seems to be what is missing in the public debate over health care. We are unable simultaneously to hold our own self interest as primary and to be compassionate toward others.

There is in compassion an element of invitation. Compassion calls us to open the door to our heart and to allow another to enter that sacred space. And so, compassion requires us to be vulnerable, to risk losing everything, including our very selves. To be compassionate we must be prepared to experience pain. We must be prepared for our hearts to be broken. Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron refers to this place of vulnerability as our "soft spot" or our "Bodichitta" which translates to "noble or awakened heart." I would call this our soul, or the place where the Divine dwells within each of us. Thus, compassion lies not only at the heart of what it means to be religious. It lies at the heart of what it means to be human.

Compassion requires us not only to put self-interest aside and to invite the other into our lives, but it calls us to conscious awareness as well. To experience compassion, we must be willing to see the other, to meet the other where we find them. In the hospital emergency room, at the senior center, on the streets of our own hometowns. We cannot be at once compassionate and detached from the messiness of life. We must not avoid, but instead notice and see the suffering around us. There is no other way to compassion than through the muck and the mud of life. Pema Chodron, whom I quoted earlier, instructs us to get "right down there in the thick of things." Because that is where life is lived, where lives are won and lost, where hearts are moved and hands are motivated to action. Just last Friday I picked up the Inquirer and, there on the front page, above the fold, was a picture of Frank Marshall, an unemployed security guard whose circumstances have unexpectedly forced him to live in a homeless shelter in West Chester. Here was another moment of truth. Would I meet Frank's eyes and allow myself to be moved by his story, or would I turn the page and choose not to see him? We are all faced with this same challenge every day, and if we are going to be compassionate people it is imperative that we dare to return the gaze of our fellow human beings who are hurting, and hopefully be moved to action by their stories. And, ultimately, action is what it's all about, isn't it? Why are we here if not to alleviate the suffering of others? To give voice to the voiceless? To transform ourselves and our world? Our compassion for the plight of others - our willingness first to see them, then to be moved by them and ultimately to stand alongside them, without regard for our own self-interest - that is the true expression of our own humanity, and our own divinity.

I spoke earlier about theologian and author Karen Armstrong. Dr. Armstrong is so convinced of the universal nature of compassion and its ability to bring people of diverse cultures and faiths together and to actually save the world that she has launched an initiative called "The Charter for Compassion." She has brought together leaders from the great religions of the world to craft a statement of common purpose and common interest, based on the Golden Rule. This Charter will articulate the ties that bind us together as people of faith and serve to promote not just tolerance of religious differences, but unity around a shared principle. It is hoped that the Charter will help those of us who seek the goals of global community and peace counter the divisive influences of fundamentalism. Listen to these words from Karen Armstrong as she states her case for the Charter for Compassion:

The Charter for Compassion has been drafted and will be officially introduced to the world on November 12. I hope that we, as a congregation and as a faith, will choose to participate in its launch and will support its adoption.

This notion of compassion, of experiencing the pain of others and responding to it, lies at the heart of who we are as people of faith, as people of this faith, as people of every faith. Setting aside our self interest and our ego is no small task. I have only scratched the surface of this topic and plan to return to it throughout the year. As we consider our answer to the question I posed at the outset, "Where is the compassion in me?", let us consider these words of Ram Dass: "On this path we will stumble, fall, and often look and feel a little foolish. We are confronting long-standing patterns of thought and action. Compassion for ourselves, perspective, humor…these are our allies. With their help, we can come to see, in the words of the Bhagavad Gita, that 'no step is lost on this path, and even a little progress is freedom from fear.'"[6]

May it be so.

Closing Words~ Adapted from the First of the Ignation Spiritual Exercises by Julia McKay:

Let us not fix our desires on health or sickness,
wealth or poverty, success or failure, a long life or short one.
For everything has the potential of calling forth in us
a deeper response to our life . . .
Let us fix our desires on a deeper engagement with each other.
Let us risk vulnerability and ask for the help that we need.
Let us reach out to one another in love,
Creating the Circle of Care and Compassion that is the whole.

^[1] As told by Karen Armstrong at the TED Conference February 2008, id.

^[2] Armstrong at TED Conference February 2008.

^[3] Ram Dass and Paul Gorman, How Can I Help p. 5.

^[4] Karen Armstrong, from TED Talk dated February, 2008,

^[5] < http://charterforcompassion.org/docs/why_a_charter.pdf>

^[6] How Can I Help? p.16.

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