Compassion is Not a Weakness
By Jessica Shepherd
If we feel besieged by an awful person or people, it’s time to practice
compassion - not for their sake, but for our own mental well-being.
David Michie – Why cultivate compassion for awful people?
Tavish, our three-year-old pup, cares not at all about tariffs or the whims of the stock market. The rising cost of groceries doesn’t faze him a bit, as long as there’s kibble in his dogfood bowl and twice-daily walks to be had. He is gleeful in every bone of his body for this spring day and, frisbee in mouth, leads the way down to the lower overlook. He leaps over puddles and tests the wind for the scent of squirrels while I walk with my head down, doomscrolling the latest onslaught of headlines on my iphone.
This doesn’t feel like my America anymore. I optimistically believed we were a country dedicated to science, research, and education. We had the ambition and means to reduce the suffering of the less fortunate. We were on the path to greater equality, better health for ourselves and the planet, and stronger international ties. Now, daily, I face the reality that this administration is perversely against everything that speaks to the environment, inclusiveness, and compassion.
Tavish comes trotting back to me, tail wagging, and drops his frisbee, and looks at me intently. Dogs, it appears, can teach us everything we need to know about present moment awareness. I slide the phone in my pocket, fling the frisbee, and watch as he runs, leaps, and catches with a well-honed grace. The sun glints off the fresh snow on the Kenai Mountains, the bay calms after yesterday’s wind, and I think, for the umpteenth time, “Wow! Look where we live!”
Compassion has become my mantra in these troubled times. Compassion for the thousands of talented people who are cannon fodder amid the malicious dismantling of Federal agencies. Compassion for the foreign graduate students arrested for simply stating their minds about the genocide in Gaza. For the Trans athletes, cancer patients in defunded medical trials, and the farmers who made investments based on promises the government has reneged on. Some would say they got what they deserved, as many of these same farmers voted for this administration, but I don’t see it that way. I’m certain that most people who voted for our current administration, didn’t do so in order to deprive low-income children of breakfast, or allow unfettered access to confidential medical records. Many of them, perhaps most, are compassionate people.
The man in the Whitehouse believes that compassion is a weakness. But, as with so many things, he’s wrong. Compassion may be our greatest strength. Without it, we are petty, vindictive, and bitter. And isn’t that exactly what we don’t like about him? He only has power because we give it to him. We let him inject us with fear and hate. But we can do better than that.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex stated at a recent rally, “Ironically, the most divisive forces in this country are actually starting to bring more of us together. And that's important, because the same billionaires taking a wrecking ball to our country derive their power from dividing working people apart."
Tavish returns, gives the frisbee a good shake, and tosses it at my feet. I pick it up, a bit slobbery now, and throw it, as Tavish sails after. His delight is contagious. “We have to sustain each other. Making joy isn’t denial, it’s how we will survive.” AOC again. Around me, green buds swell on the elderberry bushes and lavender nettle shoots unfurl amid last fall’s leaf litter. Yesterday, we heard the first Sandhill cranes and saw a checkmark of Canada geese overhead. Nature doing what she does best – encircling us with hope if we only look up.
I think of the words of a Native Elder I know, Emily Murray. Emily has long fought the good fight to maintain her subsistence way of life. Her approach is always forthright, “We’ve gotta keep speaking words of light.” Words that bring us together, not words to widen the chasm between us. If we foster empathy, not just for those who look like us, or vote like us, but for all who suffer or feel abandoned, we’ll find we have more in common than the hate speeches and algorithms that foment distrust would have us believe. Perhaps compassion is the anchor that saves us.
Well said Don. Your generation (and you’re not that much older than me), led the way on so many key issues, like women’s rights and equality for all, regardless of race or sexual leanings. I grew up taking all of those liberties for granted, and now here we are, fighting the same fight.
I grew up in a politically active Southern family. They were remarkably liberal in their day, so I joined in the Civil Rights marches in Atlanta. I wrote for an underground anti-Viet Nam war when I was in the Army, I supported my female friends’ liberation, I joined Earth Day rallies, and spent my career in the conservation world. By the time President Carter signed ANILCA I figured, “Well, we did it, we’re finally all equal, stopped the war, and saved the planet. Now we can rest.”
Turns out I was wrong. While my boomer generation was part of great strides in the 60’s and 70’s the pendulum has been swinging the other way for over forty years, and now we see real threats to the great civil, scientific and national achievements of the post WWII years. As I get perilously close to eighty, I’ve joined the demonstrations again where I meet many of my peers, which is fun. But more revealing and gratifying is the fact that there are many who are not just younger, but much younger there too. They are fighting for the same things I did fifty years ago and I know that the pendulum will swing their (our) way.
Greed and racism will alway be with us, but so will compassion. People are helpful and kind, they are brave, strong and loving. I believe that if we all pitch and with a little help from our friends we’ll support equality, stop wars, and save the earth. It’s deja vu all over again. Do your part.