Welcome to Compassionate Sunday. We're working through Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life by Karen Armstrong, one step per month.
If you'd like to share a post about what you learned about compassion (The First Step), what you're seeing in your world (The Second Step), self-compassion (The Third Step), empathy (The Fourth Step), mindfulness (The Fifth Step), action (The Sixth Step), how little we know (The Seventh Step), or how to speak to one another (The Eighth Step) use the link list below. Or join the discussion in the comments or on Facebook.
I took on this project to work through Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life in twelve months because I feared a particularly bruising election year. I hoped for balance. Instead, I'm encountering discouragement.
As I reach the end of The Eighth Step, I despair that we have any capability at all to speak to one another with compassion. "All lives matter" shouted in a hate-filled voice. Issues that force people into two opposing camps when compassion might call for sympathy for every one in the whole sorry situation. People in so much pain that asking them to consider compassion would be a cruel act.
My focus is on the wrong place. It is the opposite of compassionate to judge the level of compassion in other people's words or actions. I've been startled several times while pursuing compassion at how often it leads back to me. I control only one person's words: mine. My quest to speak with compassion begins and ends with me. I'd be happy to have you join me, though!
About Joy Weese Moll
a librarian writing about books
