Compass.ion

There are people I encounter, and situations I find myself in where I am overcome with feelings of intense and uncontrollable compassion. It’s that feeling where I feel like I have an enormous pit in my stomach; I feel like I could weep, I feel deeply saddened. In comparison to the hardened cynicism that I often struggle against, these feelings are intense and unfamiliar.

These are strangely memorable moments. Sometimes it’s because of an unfortunate situation someone I know finds himself or herself in, but more times than not its caused because of a completely random person in a completely random situation. Like the time at my high school where I felt compassion from watching a dorky, lonely kid getting his birthday balloons popped with pens by the jocks at my high school. Another instance, I always felt sick with compassion whenever I even saw the freshman at the end of my street who was covered in pimples, whose hair was greasy, and who had no friends. Sometimes it’s the guy taking my order at the drive thru, the attendant at the gas station, the gnarled grocery employee who fetches carts, the single mom with four kids, the overweight runner. It can be invoked by an angry outburst I see, or a happy gesture. Sometimes there is an obvious reason, like a disability, injustice because of another, some type of physical grotesqueness, or evident sadness. Other times there has been no explanation whatsoever, no reason except the overcoming sense of pity, sadness, and sympathy that erupts.

These moments of intense compassion are some of the most defining moments of my life. Whether it is defining because I was too busy, too cool, or rationalized myself of acting upon the burning within; walking away feeling remorseful and ashamed because of the moment I allowed to pass. Or defining because I chose not only to be seized by my compassion, but also to act compassionately on what I believe is an emotion closest of the heart of God.

Compassion was an emotion that defined Jesus’ life. In all four Gospel stories Jesus is driven to heal, to ease the suffering and pain around him because of this feeling. This compassion sustained him; it carried him forward, even to the beams of wood on the day of his execution.

My desire is to be motivated by this type of compassion; I want it to guide my life. I need to abandon the comfort, mundane and mediocrity to spend my life where people in need of compassion are; I want to commit myself to loving those who are “like sheep without a shepherd.” The times where my soul weeps and groans are times that I want to be commonplace. I want to live compassionately.