God is making room in my heart for compassion: the awareness that where my life begins is where your life begins; the awareness that the sensitiveness to your needs cannot be separated from the sensitiveness to my needs; the awareness that the joys of my heart are never mine alone – nor are my sorrows. I struggle against the work of God in my heart; I want to be left alone. I want my boundaries to remain fixed, that I may be at rest. But even now, as I turn to God in the quietness, God’s work in me is ever the same. God is at work enlarging the boundaries of my heart.
The opening quote comes from Dr. Howard Thurman in Meditations of the Heart. He is describing, I think, a different kind of revolution…it is the kind of revolution that Gandhi practiced…the revolution that is illustrated in the non-violent resistance in other countries, such as South Africa and our own country. Tracy Chapman was able to clearly state what this revolution is about…what it is based on. It is based in our common humanity, as well as, a recognition of our utter dependence on each other, despite our strength and independence. Thurman states that God makes room in our hearts for compassion. He describes the process as one of reciprocity…or more…the reality that we are all one in this place…our body, our mind, our soul and indeed in the world. Our joys and our sorrows are never mine alone, despite our insistence that they are. It is God who is making room for this process of enlarging our heart…this process of compassion.
Matthew Fox says that the clue to all compassion is interconnectedness. He says that this lies at the very core of all that exists. This is communicated so well by Fritjof Capra:
…a careful analysis of the process of observation in atomic physics has shown that the subatomic particles have no meaning as isolated entities, but can only be understood as interconnections between the preparation of an experiment and the subsequent measurement. Quantum theory thus reveals a basic oneness of the universe. It shows that we cannot decompose the world into independently existing smallest units. As we penetrate into matter, nature does not show us any isolated ‘basic building blocks’, but rather appears as a complicated web of relations between the various parts of the whole.
This is, for most of us, difficult to understand. We have been so affected by the myth of rugged individualism…of pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, that it will take nothing short of a revolution to connect to this understanding of the world and our own physiology. Fields of biology, neurobiology, psychology and so many other disciplines were considered in the work of Dan Seigel who uses the term Interpersonal Neurobiology. He recognizes that, instead of being isolated entities, we are connected on a very deep level…the cellular level. Understandably, people have argued against this view and his actual research by asking…
“How can who I am—my subjective sensation of being alive, my perspective, and my agency for being an initiator of action—be both a me and a we?”
Seigel and his co-researchers respond…
We want to suggest to you that we have the opportunity to integrate these two fundamental sources of self-experience—of an inner Me and an inter We. To honor the differences between the inner and the inter and link them without losing their integrity, their differentiated nature, their essence.
This is an interesting response from a bunch of scientists. It is a reality that I often speak of using the words of Howard Thurman…
Every living thing, including man…every living thing belongs to every other living thing. I can never be what I ought to be until the last living manifestation is
what it ought to be…for better or for worse,
tied into the idiom of everything that lives.
If I forget this, I profane God’s creation.
If I remember it I come to myself in you and you come to yourself in me.
And…
There is something so private and personal about an act of thought that the individual may very easily seem to be a private island on a boundless human sea. To experience one’s self is to enter into a solitary world that is one’s unique possession and that can never be completely and utterly shared.
Yes, it is difficult to process these two realities but as Seigel says, it is the integration of the two which will shed light on our path to wholeness…to the healing of our trauma as individuals and as communities of individuals…to arriving at spiritual truths. Included is the understanding that compassion is key to our interpersonal neurobiology. As the boundaries of our hearts and minds expand, we are able to open ourselves up to the space that God is offering us. The space created may encourage us to embark on this revolutionary journey…a journey that will change our current situation. And sometimes we need the help of the elements that surround us…in order to accomplish our revolutionary acts.
Karl Marx said: If humanity is shaped by its surroundings, its surroundings must be made human. This is the revolution that must take place. We must move from a thing-oriented society to a human-oriented society. Most of us would not argue this point and it is being echoed by so many of our leaders right now. What these leaders seem not to be able to clearly tell us is how this process will occur. What do we need to do, both personally and interpersonally to change things? What will this revolution look like? And what can each of us do to begin?
Of course, we can start in communities like this one, grappling with these truths. This is important, but only part of the work. The work on a personal level is, I think, what Thurman spoke of…making space for God to do God’s work…allowing an expansion of our heart and mind, to include all of creation…the oneness of reality. This is difficult work…work that takes discipline. It means that we must take responsibility to be part of this revolutionary spirit. This is something that I work with people on as a psycho-therapist. It is also something I was familiar with before I started this work. In the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous is embedded a practice…a discipline that can keep us enlarging the boundaries of the heart…enlarging them to accommodate the space for God and the space for our brothers and sisters…those on the road with us…the road of compassion and of growth. The fourth step is that practice. It states:
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
This is a personal practice…one that we take up with God. Still, it is meant to be practiced with at least one other person. This is crucial. This is the power of the practice and of groups like AA. Without at least one other person or the group itself, it is impossible to heal. I remember feeling this in the 12 step rooms. It was the awareness that:
…where my life begins is where your life begins; the awareness that the sensitiveness to your needs cannot be separated from the sensitiveness to my needs; the awareness that the joys of my heart are never mine alone – nor are my sorrows.
I am reminded again of the work of our ancestors…in India, South Africa…in this country during the civil rights era and also during the time of the brutal enslavement, oppression and destruction of so many individuals and cultures. The intersection of the enlargement of the heart…of a compassionate response and a revolution could be seen very clearly in the lives of those that continued to be traumatized. The response was one of power and of action…revolutionary, compassionate action. It was a revolution of compassion…compassion amid the perhaps least compassionate situation. There was an ability to recognize the humanity of others despite their own humanity being denied. And it was strengthened by a felt connection with our source…our divine source…between us, among us and in the world around us.
I’d like to leave us today with a song that speaks to this revolutionary compassion…this recognition that we are one, despite our different experiences and individual challenges. And if we could all sing it together, we might truly experience God’s work and the reality that our nervous systems and minds are connected in a way that provides guidance for our journey. May we feel the revolution of compassion coming closer as we travel together.
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