On Compassion

I’m having the most relaxed and quiet day today.  I have no obligations except for this blog.  The weather is gorgeous and all of my various hobbies are calling to me.  This is one of those days it’s OK to have a touch of ADD because I end up working on all of them at once:  I baked a cake and put it into the oven.  While it was baking I sanded the top of a new table I’m making.  On the way out to the workshop I stop to check on the apples I’m dehydrating.  I’m ready to start a new book binding project now that Beaven had cleared his latest electronics project off the kitchen table. Once I finish today’s blog I can go get some 1X4 pine for my next table. 

I think I've hit some sort of creative renaissance.   Please allow me to be brief so I don't waste this weather.

One of the things I heard on TV yesterday during the observation of MLK Day was what an important tool television became in promoting the civil rights cause.  Television in the sixties came of age.  They say that Kennedy was able to win the presidency against a man with impeccable credentials because he looked better on TV.  That same guy was killed and our whole country was glued to their TVs to be part of the drama of his funeral.  We watched his assassin killed on live TV. 

So when the TV showed us pictures of little children confronted by raging attack dogs or when we saw young women dragged down the street the American public couldn’t look away or pretend it wasn’t happening.

One of the excuses the German people gave for allowing crematoriums in the concentration camps is that they “didn’t know.” 

Well, today we know.  We know because we have access like never before to scenes of bombings and  brutality.  We cannot pretend we don’t know.  

When I opened my email this morning I had a link from the Charter for Compassion.  Here's what they say about it all:

Today the Charter for Compassion movement grows globally not because we join hands, smile at one another, and continue on in our complacency. It grows because individuals around the world are acknowledging their discomfort. They are saying, "I cannot sleep at night. I cannot live with things the way they are." The Charter for Compassion movement grows because as a human family we are embracing our discomfort. We are no longer denying our outrage. And we are compelled to take action. But we know deeply that we cannot change things alone.
True compassion comes from standing for and with others, and acting on the behalf of others. Knowing deeply that to serve others, serves us all.

Today, we invite you to challenge what you think compassion means in your own life. To contemplate your discomfort. To feel deeply the pain of the world. To turn toward that pain, rather than avoid it. And to join thousands of others around the world who come together and take action from their hearts and act for a more compassionate world for us all.

Check out their website:  charterforcompassion.org  Then go outside.  It's gorgeous here in Texas,  Sorry if you live in Michigan or somewhere like that.  Oops.