Editorial – Compassion : Not what we see but how we see…until we can no longer look away

For better or worse, it’s been impossible to ‘look away’ from the unfolding episodes after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, or to avoid looking back at her life. We are held in a kind of thrall when it comes to wealth, fame, and power. Some consider how it has been used, and for others, the glamour is enough, but none of us have been able to avoid gazing toward this event, at least not without difficulty. The media capitalise upon it, and we are distracted from the real connections in our lives for a time.

This concentrated gaze upon wealth and power made me reflect on one of the key thoughts that has repeatedly occurred to me through this year of reflection on compassion - reading about it, witnessing it, hearing others describe it – compassion is a different kind of connection, so that when we truly encounter it - once we see it, feel it, live in it - we can’t look away, we can’t turn away, we are captivated, not because it’s a distraction from the ‘real’ things in our lives, but because in that moment, it is the only real thing there is.

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When we teach, we illustrate, we demonstrate, we model the very thing that is to be learned – we mirror it. When Jesus teaches about compassion, the very process of learning about it seems to require the same thing as the process of doing it – first, an undoing.

When Jesus used the parable of the Good Samaritan to show us the meaning of compassion, he used the lowly and despised Samaritan as the hero of the moment and up-ended his listener’s expectations on the identity of the ‘worthy’ people. When he used the parable of the prodigal son, he up-ended his listeners' expectations on which character was returning the highest ‘life-score’- he rewarded the apparently irresponsible and hopeless son in comparison to the good and dutiful son. And when poor pharisee, Nicodemus, at great personal risk, crept in under cover of darkness to ask about the secrets of the kingdom, he was told he needed to be ‘born again’ in order to understand the spirit.

In every example, Jesus turns his listeners upside down and shakes out their previous expectations about how we are connected to each other - who is queen and who is not, who is worthy and who is not, who is hopeless and who is winning, who is wise and who is as naïve as a newborn.

To hear Jesus teach on compassion, we need to be prepared to be completely emptied and to make new connections with those around us; not based on monochrome distinctions, rich/poor, fit/unhealthy, hopeless/successful, male/female or us/them but drawing on the most colourful palette of creation, a richer and more colourful connection with one another. In each of his parables, the ‘kingdom of God’ is given to all, is a part of all, and thus, from all, we hear God’s voice, the voice of all.

A few weeks ago, Reverend Garry Deverell of the University of Divinity, a trawloolway pairrebeenener man from lutruwita/trouwerna (Tasmania) came to speak with the Kildare Ministries Principals and Leaders about Country and Wisdom. In his talk, he drew upon three texts; Uluru Statement from the Heart, Wisdom 7:25-8:1 and Matthew 13:31-32. Garry pointed to the innumerable connections between humans, plants, animals, sky, stars, earth, water and trees. He said that all these connections speak in the voice of Country.

This matrix of inter-relatedness creates a sense of moral reciprocity between all the parts of the whole.  Country cares for us. Country provides everything we need to sustain life for ourselves, our human communities, both now and for countless generations to come…In Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander society, if you want to know who you are, to whom you belong, and what you are called to become, you listen to country.

Garry then went on to explain the pluri-vocal nature of country interpreted through the Elders

‘And the voice of country is interpreted by Elders who have lived within this eco-social imagery all their lives and know its voice intimately. We do well to listen to our Elders, if we truly want to hear what country is saying.  But we should not expect Elders to speak with one Voice. For the Voice of country is pluri-vocal. Only by listening to the many and discerning its larger themes will you hear the One across and through the many.’

Garry asked, 'To what end does country speak through Elders and prophets?' He offered the parable of the mustard seed as one way of answering this question:

Jesus put before them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.’

The mustard seed, small but not the smallest of all seeds, grows into a large bush, but not the largest of all bushes and it shelters ‘the birds of the air that neither sow nor reap or gather food into barns.’ Garry said:

‘So, whatever the size and greatness of the seed or the tree given by God, wherever it sits in the economies of colonial empire or the common wisdom, it is given simply to feed and to clothe those whom empire forgets. The lowly, the least, the communities who live close to the humus of the earth and depend upon her gratuity.’

No matter where the compassion of God is found and nurtured, it is free of the restrictive binary distinctions made by empire, commercialism, ‘religion’ or politics. We are all called by God, to find God, in all of creation and in each other.

Renee Oberin

Mission Leader

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