Compassion's Spark in the Dark Night

Diversity provides lenses through which to look at life in different ways.  We are able to see the other and realize that their reality may be very different than ours.  Through this understanding we find ways to form a bridge of mutuality. Diversity is a magical element that when blended into community creates a mutuality where the potential for possibilities exists. Those possibilities are more brilliant than what would have been realized separately.

Lately I have been more and more aware of the potential for diversity to divide and destroy the bridge to understanding. We may find camps based upon gender, race, politics, values, ecological concerns — the list is endless. When we sit around the fire of these individual camps, we share with those like us. Instead of our beliefs and judgments being questioned, they are strengthened.

We are not peacefully challenged to look at our beliefs, judgments, and assumptions. We believe without engaging in what Thomas Merton calls looking at the factors behind the facts. Two people can look at the same set of facts and draw very different conclusions. We have to look at the factors that are instrumental in our interpretation of the facts. And, listen as another shares the factors behind their interpretation of the same facts. This information builds the bridge to understanding.

I have found that often the most profound way to bridge realities creates by diversity is through acts of compassion. I cannot tell you the number of times a conversation with another has provided insight into how different yet similar we are. When I listen with compassion, I begin to, at the very least, appreciate that their factors behind the facts may be different than mine.

This is the foundation of peaceful understanding. We may acknowledgement that we may never agree.  But, through peaceful understanding, we gain mutual respect. While this may not be instrumental is creating world peace, we fuel a spiral of compassion that twines out in the world.

I do not need to know how many people this twining compassion touches or where my compassion ends. I need only be a willing conduit for compassion’s presence. Each time my compassion twines with another, the dark night of divisiveness flares brightly with compassion sparks. And, the light guides us across the bridge to where diversity is celebrated and shared.

The night becomes not a place of divisions shrouded in darkness but a place filled with the sparks of compassion. These sparks lead the way to the creation of community where we share in the greater unity. All the individual parts come together to create a sum greater than the individual parts.  We are part of something greater, more brilliant than we ever thought possible.

Vanessa

Vanessa F. Hurst is Compassion Officer at Intent & Action.  She is a Mindful Coach, Community Builder, and Author who interweaves her inner wisdom in all she touches.

Her books are Engaging Compassion Through Intent & Action and A Constellation of Connections: Contemplative Relationships.

More from Vanessa: www.intentandaction.com