Compassion, part 1

As it usually turns out, I find a few words in a book that strike a real chord with me. Yesterday was no exception.
"All wounds are openings to the sacred," the great holy man, Dune the Derelict, once taught me. "You must crawl inside those chasms. Go alone, on your hands and knees, and sit in that terrible darkness. If you sit long enough, you will discover that the worst pain is the breath of compassion." p. 29. People of the Silence by Kathleen O'Neal Gear and W. Micheal Gear.

It was a paperback I picked up at the used book store so that I could read while in the pool. It is about the Anasazi of the Midwest, and I find it fascinating.

So, as I have written this blog, I have shared some of my wounds. Several of those wounds happening within a church. Last year, my family started visiting a local Methodist church when my oldest daughter was invited to sing with a Praise Team. I had a very difficult adjustment to make from a 'high church' mentality to a contemporary service complete with power point and recorded music. One night at the youth 'jam', I started wandering the halls and found a bible study. I was made welcome, so I decided to stay. As we started a section about the place of church in people's lives, I started sobbing. I told these new friends of my hurts from church and declared I would never join another church. Not only did they not judge me, one of them even shared his own similar story. Later that night, I would skype with my Spiritual Director. I had time to become embarrassed about my meltdown, yet she praised me. She told me that was how I needed to start the healing process.

About 6 months later, my family decided to become official members of this small country congregation. I relented on my refusal to join another church and went up on stage to join in being welcomed into a new community. Several people from that bible study class followed us onto that stage and supported us. I then cried tears of joy, understanding how lucky I am to have been able to sit long enough in that chasm.

Last night, the pastor came up to me and asked me how I was doing with this Transition. It took me several minutes to be able to speak, because my emotions are still very deep. I told him about my mom's cousin telling a group about our family tradition of starting off Episcopalian and ending up Methodist. My grandmother was 92 when she changed churches. I then managed to thank him for asking and that this church had been very good to us. He said it works both ways, we had been good to them. We agreed that it is best when it does work both ways.

That is what compassion means: to suffer with. It means that we are all suffering, and we all need love to flow between us. I understand on a very deep level the pain of the breath of compassion. It is hard to breath it in, finally; knowing that it should have been there all along. Yet, when you do breath it in, you can live.

As I write this, I hear the voices of several teenagers at my house. They are on that Praise Team at church and they sound like angels.