Empathy, Compassion and Power

It's easy to forget just how powerful we are. Partially we are frightened, scared of our own part in the overall picture. We smokescreen our own power by playing mental tapes in our heads, fussy, untrue tapes about how alone we feel.

That's when we get sick or run down and blame everything around us for our malaise, refusing to see the truth - that we have fallen into our own mental trap of denying compassion in our world.

Empathy is easier to grasp than compassion. We can all agree for instance that health care is in a ridiculous state in this country. I am reminded of pictures I've seen from the Great Depression, lines of people waiting desperately for help. A dentist down my street offered free dental work all day yesterday as a gift to the community. (My skeptical self saw it as a marketing ploy.) Nonetheless, there were blocks of people in line yesterday morning at 7:30 when I drove to work waiting for the office to open two hours later, desperate for dental services. There were plenty of children in that line. It's odd to think we live in a time when a child could get sick or be in pain and not receive treatment.

So I felt empathy, a pain in my gut for the situation, and an odd guilt in knowing somehow I'm not using my own personal power to fix it. Empathy is a start, but our aim should be compassion.

Compassion is the life blood of being - all being - it is the magic, healing ingredient that stirs the pot, generates movement and flow in an out of itself. Compassion exists within and with out the being, our being, at the same time. It fills in the spaces that engender life itself. Our compassion will be our salvation.