Joy shared, twice the gain; sorrow shared, half the pain.
Swedish proverb (most likely)
Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2023/02/22/one-liner-wednesday-icy-nature/
The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings which are all part of one another and all involved in one another.
Thomas Merton
Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2022/11/30/one-liner-wednesday-ha/
There is so much in the world right now for which I feel compassion. I’m sure many others are also joining in this sense of compassion, too.
Media is filled with the heart-breaking situation in Ukraine. So much destruction. So much death and injury and hunger and lack of shelter. The incomprehensible targeting of civilians in their homes, of food warehouses, of people who are trying to flee besieged cities. The deaths of so many soldiers on both sides, compounded by the fact that Russia is not bringing the bodies of its dead back home to their families. The millions of internally displaced people and the millions who have become refugees in other countries.
Meanwhile, the pandemic continues to cause suffering. The omicron subvariant is sending cases higher in many countries, just as most had relaxed their preventative strategies. Now into the third year of the pandemic, the accumulated losses are staggering. Millions dead, their absence felt by their families, friends, and communities. Many millions more dealing with lasting damage, some with long COVID, others with lung, heart, vascular, and/or neurological damage that they don’t discover until after recovery from the initial infection.
There are other armed conflicts, droughts leading to hunger, other disasters that cause suffering, and always the unfolding disaster of climate change.
All call for my compassion.
There are personal things, too. The neighbor who just lost his mother. Friends and relatives in medical battles. On and on.
I try not to be overwhelmed or succumb to compassion fatigue. I offer help as I can and support efforts for peace and justice. I don’t know if the people for whom I have compassion can feel that support or not. Perhaps, with so many sharing in compassion, they can and feel a little less alone in their suffering.
I hope.
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Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is to write about a word that contains “comp.” Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2022/03/18/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-march-19-2022/
“When we forget that politics is about weaving a fabric of compassion and justice on which everyone can depend, the first to suffer are the most vulnerable among us—our children, our elderly, our mentally ill, our poor, and our homeless. As they suffer, so does the integrity of our democracy.”
~~~ Parker Palmer
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Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday! Find out how here: https://lindaghill.com/2018/11/28/one-liner-wednesday-meeeoow-%F0%9F%90%B1/
#1linerWeds badge by Cheryl, at https://dreamingreality646941880.wordpress.com/
“Our challenge today is to trust the power of love at the heart of life, to let ourselves be seized by love, to create and invent ways for love to evolve into a global wholeness of unity, compassion, justice, and peacemaking.”
~~~ Ilia Delio
Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday! Find out how here: https://lindaghill.com/2016/08/03/one-liner-wednesday-it-was-the-beginning-of-the-end/
I just posted this quote for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday:
“Compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind.”
– Albert Schweitzer
Because it is Earth Day, I want to expand a bit on Dr. Schweitzer’s quote. Yes, we must embrace all living creatures and all of humanity, especially the most vulnerable, but we must also embrace the plants and earth itself. It is essential that the nations of the world come together in Paris in December to adopt limits on greenhouse gas emissions to avert catastrophic climate change. We can’t undo the damage we have already done and additional climate impacts will develop in the coming years, but we can still keep the earth livable if we act boldly and quickly to phase out fossil fuels and ramp up renewable energy. We have the technology needed to do this, with advancements occurring every year which will make the transition easier. There is no other option. It’s our only world.
“Compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind.”
– Albert Schweitzer
Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday: http://lindaghill.com/2015/04/22/one-liner-wednesday-like-a-rolling-stone/
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