Loving Kindness And Compassion

I threw away the most important essay of my life.

R e s p o n s e   t o   t h e   D o s t o e v s k y   L e c t u r e   J a n u a r y   3 0 ,   2 0 0 9 

The definition Dr. Kelly gave for compassion:
to suffer  someone else's burden with them until the burden is lifted.

  How  is  this  done?  Does  it  help?  Can  it  be  done  effectively? 

Especially   pertaining  to  the  burden  of  guilt.  It  is  not  a  physical  burden,  though  it  can  affect  us physically.  It  cannot  be  physically  lifted.  It  is  an  emotional,   mental,  and   spiritual   burden.  If  I take on  someone  else's  emotional/mental  burden,  will  it  actually  lighten  their  load?  Or  will  there  now  be  two  people  and  thus  twice  the  burden? Are  emotional  and  mental  burdens  tangible, do  they  have some  unrecognized  substance?  I  don't  know.

But  what  of  the  spiritual  aspect?  I  hate  to  separate  it  out,  because  it  is  so  intertwined  with  the  emotional,  mental  and  even   physical   (again   the   spiritual   burden   can   affect   us   physically).   But   I   think   there   is   something   special   about   a   spiritual   burden.   Because   Christ,   in   His   compassion,   took   on   our   spiritual   burdens. 

 Is   His   compassion   more   powerful   than   mine?        
  - undoubtedly 

 Can   my   compassion   provide   a   small   version   of   the   relief   that   His   brings?  
  -   I   don't   know. 

 Can   my   compassion   for   a   soul   make   a   difference?   Perhaps   my   compassion   is   similar   to   my   light   or   my   love.  The   reason   there   is   power   in   my   love   is   because   that   love   is   given   me   of   Christ.   I   can   shine   light   into   someones   life,   because   Christ   is   the   source   of   that   light,   all   light.   

 So   if   my   compassion   stems   from   Christ's   compassion,   it   is   a   small   particle   of   His   compassion.   Even   just   a   tiny   particle   of   that   pure,   true   compassion,  there   could   be,   would   be,   great   power    in   that   particle.   If   its   source  is  Christ   then,  small   as   it  is,   the   potential   to   work   good,   bring   comfort,   relief   and   peace   is   there!  Not  only   there,   but   strong!   Vast!   Deep. 

 If   I   pull   from   that   source . . . what   could   be   done!   So   much,   if   this   is  true.   Pull   compassion  from   a   connection   to   Christ.   We  must   be  connect   to   Him!  This   is   the   light   of   Christ!   Summon   compassion,    patience,   love,   virtue,   charity!   How   do   I   tap   in?   Prayer.   Something   in   my   soul.  The  Holy   Ghost  must   aid. 

 Maybe ,  most   likely   I   cannot   remove   or   lift   a   burden ,   another's   or   my   own .   I   suspect   only   Christ   can   do   that .   But   I   am   beginning   to   believe   that   I   can,   somehow,   lighten   someone   else's   suffering,   ease   their   burden .   Bring   hope . 

"People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people may accuse you of selfish motives. 

Do good anyway. 

If you are successful, you may win false friends and true enemies. 

Succeed anyway.

The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable.

 Be honest and transparent anyway. 

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. 

Build anyway. 

People who really want help may attack you if you help them. 

Help them anyway. 

Give the world the best you have and you may get hurt. 

Give the world your best anyway."

Mother Theresa

Something Sweet

I admit it.  I only post here when I feel I have something beautiful to say. And in fear and scrambles I hold back my thoughts from even the best of friends. But once a sadness is wearing off, once temporary, purposed numbness retreats, the world holds no dangers. For what can you lose when you've already lost it? But it's terribly freeing. Except that when it counted you couldn't be yourself. Wasted days of shydom and empty headedness. Ironic that your mind was so full, and your heart. But you're free, so you'd better blaze that trail between heart head and habit while you can, before you find another reason to clam up again. 

There is a green place, by the river in my dreams, where I never even think of who I am. 

Men

I love men. You wouldn't believe the men I've had in my life. That seems to be all. Peace.

Don't Ask Me

I'm not comfortable in my own skin. I'm sick to my stomach half the day. I spend the other half laughing. I need a good dose of OKGO, my Daisy, and maybe the submarines.  People tell me to stay, but every week I think, "nah man, I gotta move." 

              yo. 

Flourish

So, once a great long time ago I lived with 5 women. Five is a mighty much to be put in a place of small surroundings. But we were close, and not just in that ironic you've got to be close when you're in an apartment of that size kind of manner.

There they gave me a name, for a flower. They Christened me a Rose. It made sense I suppose. I am red. I like to smell nice. They thought I was pretty like a rose. And while they never seemed to notice the metaphor went deeper, to a very soft center, tender and fragile hearted, with thorns long and poisonous protruding out to protected it.

That's what I am. But it's not what I would be. I would be a Sunflower. They are bright, yellow and red, happy things. Some are dark, some grow very tall. Some give seeds you can eat. They grow in the wildness of deserts. Glimmering gold in the dry landscape, they firmly grow making the hardest, desolate places beautiful. Smiling up at you, occasionally even down on you.

But all the sunflowers, in their great variety have one thing in common. They follow the sun. Truly, it's not mistake. Each morning they turn facing the east, greeting their beloved rising sun, and follow him through the day till evening, as he sets they face him in the west.

Well I used to want to be a firefly or a light bulb so I could shine light wherever I went, I'd now rather be a sunflower, more like venus than a star. If I could point you to the true source of light each day....well let me say, Christ, the Savior is the Son of God. The living waters, the light and life of the world. If you want to be happy, look to Him. If I could point you anywhere today, I'd point you to Him.

Now never with wishing could a leopord change his spots. And I cannot seem to give up my heart, but many a day I would shed the thorns. The Lord makes the roses and the sunflowers both. The wilder the rose, the sweeter the smell, and the more numerous the thorns. There is no smell I love so much as wild roses. But if a rose I must always be, I will be a rose like you never see. I will crane my neck each morning east, and point you to the sky all the day long. If that is all I can do to show you His light, I may not be yellow and sunny and bright, yet if only you can see that He brings everything good to be.

Interestingly there are a great number of proverbs on roses in every culture (the ones with roses and proverbs that is). But I like the French one best.

It is the belief in roses that makes them flourish.

Cheerful and Grateful

It's Thanks Giving and I'm home with my parents. It's been a crazy Fall for these two. 

My father had a knee replacement surgery last week. He's still got staples in his knee and using a walker. Recovering from knee surgery takes a long time. He decided to walk out to the mailbox together to get a bit of air and exercise. I rather like my father and went along for the walk down our long driveway with him. As we returned I commented on his the many challenges that had come for him this fall. 

"You know Dad, you've had a lot of really rough things this fall." 

His reply? "Well, the meningitis wasn't that bad."

Yep. That's what he said. The meningitis wasn't that bad. Let me tell you about that meningitis. It was in September. He was having Grand Mal Seizures, and the doctors had no idea why. He had trouble walking, and serious short term memory loss, was in the hospital for three days, and had to be returned after only two days home. Is brain was swollen, he was put on anti seizure medication and not allowed to work for drive for over a month afterward. 

What a man my father is. Through all of that time he'd smile at me, tell jokes, always looking on the bright side. Today was just the same. "Oh it's not so bad." he'd say, showing off his scar, determinedly doing as much for himself, and anyone else, that he can. 

Oh how I love my father. He tells me he believes women are made out of finer stuff.  

He followed up that statement on meningitis with "It was much harder on your mother."  

I told my mother about our talk. She, in her faithfulness said, "The Lord has been polishing us." 

What cheerful, grateful, faithful people my parents are. If imitation really is one of the most natural ways to learn, maybe there is hope for me yet. What a blessed life I have to grow up under their tutelage and examples. 

Sound and Distant Friends (NOT FINISHED)

If anyone could prove to me that Christ is outside the truth, and if the truth really did exclude Christ, I should prefer to stay with Christ and not with truth. -Fyodor Dostoevsky


I love the writings of Dostoevsky. He died hundreds of years ago, but he feels like a close friend. It's different from how I feel about other Authors. Reading C.S Lewis, for instance, is like coming home. And when I read Louisa May Alcott it's like I'm in the backyard, sharing a shady spot with my mother under a tree. 
Few things have ever shaped my heart the way this did. It set me on a track, infusing into me a thirst to understand Compassion and Christ. Now, I came to love many great Russian Authors that semester in Dr. Kelly's class. And make no mistake I'll be telling you about Pushkin and Tolstoy another day. But my connection to Dostoevsky was set. I felt it so strong that the following semester I took a class on him from Dr. Mark Purves. What a class, and by the way WHAT professors. Each taught me so much. There isn't a class I have recommended more, or even as much, as I have these. 
Now many people see Dostoevsky's writing as cold and atheistic. And why not? He writes of Patricide, Prostitutes, Poverty, all the while his characters making very reasonable arguments against God. The Grand Inquisitor in "The Brother's Karmazov" is the most thrashing argument I've read thus far. Indeed I even listened to a minister quote and site that chapter, as part of his explanation and justification for choosing to become an atheist. 
But I think they see only what they wish. And while I admit the same may be true of me as well. I would rather learn, in fact I crave to understand, what Dostoevsky thought himself.  He said in one of his notebooks "It is not as a child that I believe and confess Jesus Christ. My hosanna is born of a furnace of doubt."
"Even those who have renounced Christianity and attack it, in their inmost being still follow the Christian ideal, for hitherto neither their subtlety nor the ardor of their hearts has been able to create a higher ideal of man and of virtue than the ideal given by Christ."

   But Dostoevsky is something else. Something in the blood as it pumps through my heart tells me I need to hear what he was trying to say. And that in some small portion what he wrote was written so I would read it. Somehow, over 200 years and thousands of miles, he wrote to me. 


I first had the inkling when listening to this talk by Dr. Michael Kelly, a professor of Russian at BYU. He spoke on loving kindness and compassion in Dostoevsky's writing.