Compassion and Ethics

Many years ago I made a spiritual retreat with a group of women at a retreat house in Houston, Texas.  Sometime within few years or months near that time I also took a course about the philosophy of morality.  While the ideas I gleaned and contemplated as a result of those two events did not change either my moral philosophy  nor my life's ethical framework, I gathered much that both began and encouraged deeper consideration of why I chose as I did then and continue to choose through my life since.  Indeed, as I have learned to live more connected with the truth of my soul inculcated with the depth of Spirit of Love and compassion I continue learn, my decisioning process has become increasingly built on the foundation of ethics framed within the aura of as much compassion as I am able to experience.

To my way of thinking, compassion is the agape we about which we hear and read, the love for others that seeks only the highest good without judgment about those others, this deep commitment to accept others without question while learning to maintain the balance of appropriate boundaries.  My more religiously fundamental friends and family will state this as, "Hate the sin, love the sinner."  For me, it is much more accurate to express my approach as this:  love the person and accept and respect the choices that person makes that have nothing to do with love and acceptance of the person her/himself.  Perhaps an example might be helpful as illustration.

Some years ago I had a committed relationship with a passionate, mercurial man whose emotional and psychological balance began to deteriorate towards what eventually could be described as manic-depressive disorder.  He was very clearly in a mental and emotionally depressed state over a very long period that continued only to worsen as life events seemed to ensure more and more pain and difficulty.   When I committed to marry him, we had been friends for over three years and seemed reasonably stable in most ways, although he definitely showed signs of wide mood swings at times when the going got a bit more than usually challenging. 

Then, the downhill slide began in earnest after moving to southern California and his growing lack of realistic thinking and inability to both find and maintain adequate employment.  The proverbial final straw began bending towards breaking when we brought his elderly mother to live with us and spent the last short years of her life dealing with her declining health and death.   He was becoming more and more financially irresponsible and erratic, and eventually I had no choice left but to file for bankruptcy.  Over the six years of marriage cohabited only two.  Otherwise I stayed to take care of his mother and to provide as best I could for both of us.  After her death I stayed one more year because he had become suicidal.   This was the only compassionate choice I had at the time.  Staying through the end of her life was a compassionate choice for her since I was the only person upon whom she could rely for her needs.  I loved her.

The final decisions were compassionate for both of us.  While I filed for divorce finally, the state was kind and compassionate in recognizing the short duration of our life together and annulled the relationship.  He was compassionate eventually in opening the door and telling me he would be able to make it without me taking responsibility for him any longer.  And I was compassionate towards myself.  We remained friends and are still, although I have had little contact in the years since I left southern California.  However, I do not miss the financial cartwheels I endured or the emotional whirlwind that I lived each day.

Any serious decision, if it is to be the best one, must be considered with the clearest honesty possible in both mind and heart.  There usually is unity and peace when one makes a decision based on those together.  It can be very easy to let the "monkey mind" confuse the process, but taking the time to examine what one's heart says in the silence and what one's mind knows when the cobwebs are swept out can lead to the most loving choice.  That choice is not always the easiest or the least painful in some respects, but it usually is the best one.  A decision made in fear rarely is a good decision, nor is it compassionate towards one's self.

When I have faced my aunt's end-of-life choices, the compassionate choice was not to extend her process of leaving this earthly home unnecessarily.  She had clearly and frequently expressed her desire to pass from life without intervention.  To honor that request was not a difficult decision, and her passing was peaceful and actually rather beautiful.  She had lived just weeks short of ninety years.

The ethical choices in life, whether about relationship, job, or any other area where we must choose, are the best choices when we remember to consult our hearts without self-deception.  Unfortunately, many among us have not learned self-honesty and integrity in living.  Yet, it is not up to any one of us to judge or condemn when another chooses badly.  All we can do is love each other and accept each other, be compassionate companions.  

Try Again Until...

Here it is two years later and I shall try again to make a habit of sharing a few thoughts now and then.  I have read it takes 21 consistent days to form a new habit.  Day 1 has begun.

David and I were talking a little earlier about life-changing events and the effects such things can have on how one chooses to live afterward.  I had just been reading a short bio of Michelle Cruz-Rosado, a woman who survived the World Trade Center collapse and, as a result, made huge changes in her life.  Hers is a story worth reading, and what she shares with whomever will open to what she has to offer definitely will benefit.

Many times in the thirty years since I was shot in an armed robbery I have returned to how that singular event was the beginning agent of all the changes that followed.  I continue to learn and to grow because I chose then not to become a victim, not to suffer.  Often I have commented that the time I was unable to walk -- and that was as short a time as I could manage -- was the time I learned I had wings and could fly.  It took a few more years afterwards to exercise those wings enough to begin to soar. 

Perhaps now, with time to balance and distance from the old pain, I can speak more openly about some of those changes and the impetus behind them.  I sense it is an appropriate time to talk about how significant events can be the source of courage to take control of how one chooses to live.  While much of this is history, the effects linger, continuing to color not only my life, but the lives of others who were part of the unfolding of our lives at the time.  Thich Nhat Hanh has said something to the effect that in coming to understanding we are able to love.  I offer, then, the opportunity to understand.  Whether those whom I love and who are sometimes hesitantly part of my life or not can open to accepting my love again is their choice.  But I still will love them and it is in that spirit I write.

One of the most profound effects I experienced  from that long-ago event and continue to live each day is very simple to write and fraught with implications to live.  I choose how to live in the way most expressive of my being.  I live as seems most appropriate for who I am, not as other people think is best for their interests.  When one shares daily life with others that decision and ensuing action can have profoundly difficult and painful effects in the beginning and often long into the ensuing years.  However, living with integrity demands choosing honestly and accepting the responsibility for those choices.  I have long accepted the pain that sometimes still bites my very soul but I do not suffer.  That, too, is my choice.

Ah, there is so much to share, so many thoughts crowding into my fingers to type onto this space.  But this is a blog, not a book.  More later.

Catching Up

Has it really been so long since I wrote anything? So much has happened, so many good and wonderful things!

One of the most wonderful is the family you see here. Son Brendan (the adult on the right) and his partner Andy adopted those four beautiful children last year. From left to right - Jacob (10), Kim (5), Louis (8) and Andrew (12). The details of my new grandchildren's lives prior to coming into our family are unhappy, to say the least. It probably will be many years before they will be whole in spirit, and everyone who knows of them holds them in love and the healing light and power of the Sacred.

I was blessed to be present on the day of their court appearance for the final adoption. Even the caseworker and guardian ad litum, who see abandoned, neglected, abused and otherwise mistreated children regularly, were in tears during the hearing. The judge couldn't stop beaming at everyone. As he made the final statement and signed the final document, Andrew, who was standing next to him, quietly stated: "At last, I have a REAL family." I think that did all of us in emotionally.

Another big event occurred in late May, still in Austin, TX. Son Ross received his B.S. in Economics and was accepted into graduate school to work towards a Masters in Public Accounting. To quote daughter Maggie, that makes six out of six siblings to finish college. I use "finish" with some hesitation, since I'm not sure if it applies accurately. It was wonderful to share the occasion with four of the other children, Ross's fiancee and now wife Vivian, her mother, along with the children's father and his sister Marjorie. It is probably accurate to write that I am incredibly proud of the hard work and accomplishments of all those beautiful, successful grown adults who, like it or not, call me "Mom."

Ross and Vivian were married during the summer and are expecting Molly Rose in a couple of months. I like the name they have chosen for their little one and look forward to meeting her when I can. Ross will be getting his Masters in the summer and, I am sure, will be glad to be finished.

For me, life is good, peaceful and moves gently along. I have enough petty annoyances to remind me I am still very human and enough peace to tell me I have lived long enough to know the joy of seeing hard work from many years yield results now. David is happier and more himself than ever I could have hoped or imagined. I am grateful to have learned a little about being truly compassionate and loving unconditionally. Such loving opens up freedom of spirit, not only in me, but in those with whom I have contact. All of us are free to be truly who we are, no conditions, no criticism, no hidden agendas...just loving.

Perhaps I shall make more effort the share a few thoughts on a more regular basis. I'll give it some thought.

A Few Thoughts

There has been a question pushing at me lately and everything finally fell into place this morning as I was driving into work. Why is it that, while I am completely and unequivocally committed to living responsibly with as much awareness and practice of environmental and financial sustainability, so much of the rhetoric, most of arguments and discussions I hear and read leave me cold? Rather than feel energized and inspired, much of what is said either bores me almost to distraction or leaves me feeling oddly dissatisfied and noncommital. Then I realized anew what seems to be a significant majority of attention and discussion is somewhat negative and the arguments for change are based either on fear or thinly disguised and questionably sensible consumerism. "If we don't do this, a terrible ... will happen." "If we don't this or that, something awful will..." Fill in the blanks. We all are aware, bombarded as we are.

There is enough to consider to make many blog posts. The frequently irresponsible consumerism in our Western society, also infecting much of the rest of the world, is a subject I will leave for another time. I work in a financially focused business where I see daily, even hourly some days now, the terrible effects of ill-considered, unwise financial decisions. For now I shall stick to the thoughts about the overarching and often subtle attitudes influencing use of resources and the effects on environment and lifestyle.

My partner is dedicated to working towards more sustainable lifestyle and in building community around that goal. He is an activist. I am just as committed but something about so much of what he reads and shares with me, about what I find for myself and hear around me troubles me....or bores me. Perhaps part of my reaction comes from the fact I know enough science to understand the environmental issues, enough about relationship and living as a human being to understand the needs and desires we hold in common. Consequently, after a while, enough is enough. I do not need daily sermons or arguments to convince me further. I got it already. So, my next thought is to get moving and stop talking so much.

However, that is only the first and easiest reaction. Why my heart and mind have not been captured by all the talk and words has made me think hard about why. Then, this morning, the light came on. Highly intelligent, deep thinking people have been and will continue to discourse. Yet, so much of what they have to say comes from a deep fear of what can happen if we do not "get it" soon. I absolutely do not discount the seriousness of the environmental and lifestyle sustainability issues. These are critical times demanding critical thinking and responsible, sensible choices and change. Nothing, though, will benefit by acting from a place of fear. My own attitude will make all the difference in how successful any effort I make might be. Acting from a place of fear often sends the message of "I have to do this or that or something so terrible will happen." This can become a self-fulfilling prophecy out of the negative energy fear creates.

As a response to my perceptions of the fear I offer a beautiful, profound essay by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. I cannot say it any better.


You Were Made For This
by Clarissa Pinkola Estes


My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world now. Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.

You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is that we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.

I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able vessels in the waters than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind. Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.

In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency, too, to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails. We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear. Didn't you say you were a believer? Didn't you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn't you ask for grace? Don't you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater?

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good. What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these-to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.

There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it. I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate. The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours. They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for.

Dancing, Dangerous God


I heard a phrase in a song and it has piqued my imagination. "Dancing, dangerous God" How I like that thought. Perhaps I might share some of what comes to mind as I think about a relationship in which that is an appropriate description of the Sacred, as I understand and experience such.

Probably an accurate picture of how I relate with the Divine is one of incredible passion. I am, to use someone else's words, God-mad. Most of my life, until a few years ago, I had read and heard the term "unconditional love" and believed it might be possible. However, I felt challenged to integrate such a concept into reality in my mind and spirit. Although I still get off-center from the knowing of such love (LOVE being my favorite name for the Sacred), one day I encountered this reality of whom I am part and who is greater, who is all of us and all of life and all that is.

The encounter was not my first, nor has it been the last. I seem to have lost track of how many times I have touched Love and known Love so beyond my ability to articulate. From the first instant I realized what had happened, I was changed. I understood the phrase from the Christian scriptures, "Perfect love casts out fear." It does. I have a healthy respect for the evil we humans can inflict on one another, and I am pragmatic and realistic. Yet, I live in constant presence and knowledge of Love and I believe rainbows and hummingbirds and the laughter of children are all music both audibly and visually expressing the unlimited power and magnificence of Love.

This is a dancing, dangerous God, if that word expresses the Sacred Reality better for some. This God dances in joy of sharing love and such love brings our spirits to sing and dance. The dance makes the flowers bloom, the rain to come (hopefully), the birds to soar and sing, the mountains to shield and to scrape the skies. We know the dance of this God in the hug of a friend, the gentle touch of a mother's caress on her child's face, the patient listening and sharing of thoughts.

This is a dangerous God. To know the Sacred Reality and to delve into the Love and all the challenge of what unconditional love can mean is to face all the difficulties of our modern lives, the crime and hatefulness, the fear and anguish of illness and injury, the unanswerable questions we ask. To dance with this God is to dance across the firestones and through the flames of each moment and know, regardless of any momentary challenge we might face, the Lover never leaves us and shares each of those moments and challenges. To dance with this God and to accept such Love as the very root of our being is to realize and live the dangerous knowledge that each being is just as loved, just as precious and just as sacred as we.

Once we begin this dance we no longer trudge, even when we go into the darkest paths to seek out and to enlighten our shadows, to find our own beauty and majesty, then to find that same beauty and majesty in every other person we meet. It is immensely dangerous to find the shadows and look into them with the light and power of unconditional love. There we shall discover just how lovable, how gifted, how magnificent each of us truly is. And our lives will be forever changed as we begin to learn how to live with such magic.

Choosing Compassion

Recently a friend commented on a particularly challenging reality so many of us face as we attempt to live as caring, compassionate and connected beings. Her reaction came as the result of reading another blog I wrote in which I shared the story of a man whose relationship I lost as he lost all his relationships, his career, and even his mental health. Her observation spoke to the truth that there are no guarantees that even our best efforts will not end in loss and pain. We can do everything right in a relationship, but the results are not completely ours to control.

There was sadness in her comments but also positive resolve to continue choosing compassion as a way of life.Ever since reading those comments I have been thinking about them. I made the choice to be a compassionately loving person and there is no other path I would take. I believe I made that choice when I agreed to be in physical existence at this time. For me, there is no other way to live but to love without condition and to love with compassion.

I also became a bit curious about the distinction between compassion and altruism. Blame it on an inveterate desire to use words precisely. My daughter Maggie says, "Mom, you're such a Virgo...and so am I." However it plays out, I make efforts to express my most accurate meaning and hope my words are understood as I mean them to be understood. That is why I checked my definitions to be assured of clarity. Of course, the desire for clarity around those two terms has led me on another merry mind chase.

To share (for the sake of clarity) before I proceed on with why I continue to choose a compassionate life: altruism is about doing for the benefit of others without expectation of return. Compassion is all about altruism but with an added motivation - to alleviate suffering. In either instance, there is no thought of or desire for recompense or return. It seems to me that compassion is altruism taken to the level of the heart in a manner suggesting a sharing from a deeply personal place. There appears to be a more passionate connection between the one who loves and acts with compassion and the one whose suffering evokes such response. Altruism is a good and necessary quality. Compassion makes it personal.

As I think about being compassionate, I realize it would be so much easier, less challenging, take less energy and time to stay present with people on the level of altruism. Altruistic people do care, otherwise they would not give so generously to facilitate all manner of beneficial activities. To love beyond that place is to become more deeply connected to the lives of those who suffer and seek not only to improve the welfare of those who have need, but to seek to understand the individual pain the need causes. Perhaps it is such understanding that recognizes the often painful reality that such needs cannot always be resolved completely and the opportunities for continued suffering are abundant because of insufficient resolution. Yet, even with continued suffering, compassion seeks to ease the pain even in the midst of its cause. Compassion is not so much about doing as being.

Even as I think about all these things, I realize I choose compassion because it is who I am. There is no other answer. It is, though, a definite choice. It comes from a place where I have experienced and now live in complete awareness and growing understanding of unconditional love. To have realized I receive the gift of unconditional love evokes the only response I understand, to love unconditionally myself. This is action, not a feeling when it is comfortable and easy. Loving without condition and acting with compassion are anything but easy and are often very uncomfortable. Because this loving is unconditional, there is no motiviation, no expectation, no desire for anything but the ability to continue. Love is for its own sake.

On occasion, sometimes frequently, other times not at all, there are the "warm fuzzies" of feeling to help the process along. Because I seek to love without condition and because I have the gift of discernment, seeing people and situations very clearly, I recognize easily the ugliness, occasional stupidity, frequent selfishness and all the foibles, mistakes and mis-steps all of us experience as humans. Yet, loving without condition allows me to see and to experience such challenges without losing my balance. Along with the darkness a person can show to everyone around I also see the beauty in that person's soul, sometimes unrecognizable or even unknown to that person. The challenge is to know when to speak and when to be silent, when to act and when to stand still. Above all, respect for each person is key to true compassion. There are times nothing can be done to ease the rough path a person walks as result of the choices he or she has made. Compassion, then, is standing beside the road and being ready for whatever can arise, even if it is nothing at all.

Celebration

Nothing defines us more than our celebrations, and all of us in every culture, society or group of people celebrate our connectedness with others with more traditions and passion than anything else we can imagine. The power of the United States' celebration of Thanksgiving Day is its recognition of the importance of community and, to a large majority, the nuclear family itself. Perhaps the angst so many people feel when this holiday is not what we imagine it “should be” is how clearly we recognize the lack of close community and disconnectedness some of us live.

This day is the one day, almost more than any other on the calendars of U.S. residents, when we recognize the one truth by which we define ourselves. We are community beings. I have yet to see or hear a person define him/herself without at least some reference to connection with someone else. Even the Christian metaphorical description of the Sacred is one of community, the Trinity. All cultural and religious traditions are centered on relationship of one sort or another. Community, family, togetherness is what defines life itself. It is something not only to be recognized as important, but something to be celebrated as life-giving and life-supporting.

One of the most powerful examples I have observed was the life of a man whose spirit and life virtually disintegrated as he lost, one by one, all the signs of connectedness and community he valued all his life. I met him in mid-1985, a few months after returning to single living. He was an effusive, gregarious, emotionally expressive man, Jewish by birth and from Brooklyn. My experience of my Jewish friends and acquaintances tells me this is probably a culture and identity with some of the most powerful traditions we can imagine.

Over the ten years we were connected I saw a vital, intense and interesting man become someone no one who had known him before this time would recognize. Before we met in Houston, Texas, he had lived all his life in New York or close by. He had enjoyed a successful career on Wall Street until one of the severe economic downturns ended his work there. In very few years he lost his marriage, his home, his livelihood and his father. All these things were crucial to him as identification of who he believed himself to be. When he and I met on a commuter bus to downtown Houston and our jobs, he was living in an apartment in the southwest side of the city and working on the security staff of one of Texas' major banks.

By the time we went separate directions he was mentally disassociated from everyone except the rare times he was able to see his son. He lost his ability to maintain adequate employment as what had begun as depression took on the characteristics of what now is often described as bi-polar disorder. He no longer could enjoy reasonably intelligent conversations, nor could he maintain responsible behavior. He lost his ability to relate and to see himself as related to others, except his son. This last characteristic was exacerbated and hastened when his mother died. Eventually, because he knew his inability to be responsible, reliable and relational had destroyed our life together, he requested that we go separate ways. He no longer wanted to try to live in relationship because he did not know himself to be connected to anyone or anything.

We seek to celebrate our connectedness, our identities as family and community. This is so crucial to our wholeness that we build all sorts of traditions and expectations into one day in the year. It is no wonder no other celebration carries as much baggage and has so much potential for anguish and joy. Our spirits long for unity with each other and with the Sacred, and when we lose some of the connections, it is no surprise we can find this day to be so difficult. Then, if we choose, we can begin to rebuild and to rediscover the connections to others and with the Sacred Presence. Then we can again celebrate and be grateful.