It’s more than just understanding, various dictionaries define it as a strong feeling of compassion and sadness for somebody else who is facing problems, as well as a strong desire to improve the general condition to reduce suffering. Is anyone of us compassionate?
To show compassion requires a lot of “space” in your “tank”, as you think you might be giving a lot of yourself to give attention to the one suffering and find ways to help them.
When the problem is so big, the one able to show compassion will realise restoring the suffering person is key, and how the person is like is not important. That shouldn’t be in the way. It should not be a condition that the suffering person ‘improves’ before you can show compassion and help them. You help because the person is in a bad state and you are able to help.
Your closest friends will be best to help you, showing compassion and giving practical help.
Some of life’s problem can be so big, complex or confused that you don’t know where to turn, any decision or action you take makes things worse. You wished you could back track and not go down this way that arose so many problems. Indeed, some issues are not just about you. You might have been on track to fulfil something to benefit a lot of people, but somehow things have gone sour. The “system” didn’t work out; “stuff” happened and before you know it you were dealing with the symptoms and outcomes 100% rather than doing the good work.
It happens to all of us. We all need compassion. Compassion calls for love unceasing, no condition attached. In such a dark place, we must be assured others take us as we are, no pre-condition or sets of rules to fulfil.
Our band plays Everyone Needs Compassion in a really upbeat and joyous manner, because we are declaring God who is forgives and shows compassion to us when we are in the most depressed situation and gets us out of there. Maybe this piece ought to be rendered in a more “calm” way. For us, we start at the top, because we are assured of his compassionate love.
Compassion calls for love unceasing, no condition attached.
I could not think straight when I faced tremendous problem with my PGCE course in the early 1990s. I was poorly prepared for it, and the course itself assumed you are already geared up for it. Today, course managers would not make the kind of assumptions they did then. Further, for then, equal opportunities meant they let more people with different background on to the course and there it ended. It did mean they hoped you quickly morphed into somebody like the others. The school was keen that I found ways to ‘fit in’ and discovered their ways of working. Today, you probably find there is an orientation programme, at least a step for both sides to learn about who we are. I know I ought to speak more with the subject teacher, though I feel on the start of each conversation I was more like one of the classroom students than an apprentice. The subject teacher appeared to be confident in what to do, or what ought to be done. But we were poles apart. While the deputy headteacher did not spell it out, it was clear it was up to me to make things good. A fair point to make is that both sides (myself, school) did not have support from the college. The college left it to me to discover, it also left it to the teacher to discover. I was in a big, big trouble.
