The Importance of Compassion

The COVID pandemic created a lot of feelings for most of us. During the past years there have been many important issues that were too quickly "resolved" by public opinion or political decision. And then the war in Ukraine.

This is not the first time society has had to deal with distress and disaster. Humans have survived famine, drought, war, and other hardships since the beginning of time. These are the things that cause reflection, thought, and evolution. It is not pleasant but maybe if we can see purpose that will help.

Over the past years I have had many opinions about the events of our time, but have held off writing them publicly because that is not the purpose of this blog. Forming opinions and hopping onto one or the other side of complex matters would cause division and assign right or wrong to any particular issue or point of view. This blog is meant to explore ways of honoring all beliefs and points of view.

Society must make difficult choices and decisions, this cannot be escaped. These choices and decisions should get made compassionately and carefully, and without creating more division than necessary, or by presuming there is an absolute right or wrong perspective. Managing societies is very complex and requires amazing leaders and leadership, perhaps we can do better in this regard.

So, how do I communicate something helpful about all this? I have to start by learning enough about what I truly feel, not from my fear of catching COVID or my beliefs that no war is good war, or my viewpoint on vaccines after educating myself, but from my heart, from my desire to love all people and to live and let live. This means I have to see life through the eyes of as many others as I reasonably can, and then step carefully into a position that honors those perspectives equally to my own.

The past few years have been extremely hard because important information seemed to be filled with distrust, tribalism, and black and white positions that divided people and caused more hatred and separation. This disappointed me more than I could have imagined. My life's passion has been exactly about this point, on all things but particularly when it comes to God and "Truth". Why should God be dismissed simply because people have been told who and what God is? Why should there have to be any one or two or any other number of definitions for God. Why should humans be led to believe there are truths or answers on any number of complex matters?

Perhaps my perspective is the same as yours, or not, but I hope to express myself in a loving, compassionate way that includes you and your perspective. I want to rest firmly in a place of consciousness and thought that includes every other human beings perspective, and refrain from making any of them (or anything) wrong or right.

This does not mean society should not choose a path or way to move forward. This only means choosing the way forward should not pit us against one another, and instead seek to find the path best suited to the largest number of people. And remind all of us to be compassionate and loving above all else.