The Fruits of Compassion

"In everything do to others as you would have them do to you, for this is the law and the prophets." -Matthew 7: 12

Imagine if everyone abided by the Golden Rule.

This is the dream of contemporary religious writer and former Catholic nun, Karen Armstrong.

Imagine if everyone practiced compassion: the activity of "feeling with others." How could we then hate anyone, or go to war with anyone, or mistreat anyone?

Armstrong’s is one of the most powerful and reasonable religious voices speaking today. She is the author, among many other books, of A History of God, The Battle for God, and A Short History of Islam, as well as her autobiographical works Through the Narrow Gate and, most recently, The Spiral Staircase. Since September 11, 2001 she has spent much of her time trying to educate people about Islam and about the dangers which religious fundamentalism poses not just in that faith, but in all faiths--Christianity included. It has not always been a very popular activity, and she has been criticized sometimes for being overly sympathetic with our perceived enemies.

Christians and Jews don’t usually want to hear that they are just as prone to the destructive tendencies of religion as anyone else, but of course they--and we--are. It is much more comforting to believe that fanaticism is the special possession of our enemies and not equally of ourselves.

Religion has tremendous potential to heal our broken world. Unfortunately, it has often--as I believe it is today, in many parts of the world, including right here at home--been used more to divide people rather than to unite them. This stems, in my opinion, from a profound misunderstanding of religion, a misunderstanding that sees religion as more about belief than practice, or a misunderstanding which attempts to co-opt religion in favor of parochial, political, or tribal groups or ideas.

Religion is only partly about belief, and, I would argue, belief is not the most important part. In fact, it is the part of religion which causes the most problems. Religion is really about connection, about repairing and healing what is broken and about how we treat other people, our brothers and sisters on this little spinning planet. Religion, that is, is most importantly about practice, not belief: it is about the practice of compassion. If you are looking for a simple and memorable definition of religion, there it is. That doesn’t mean it is simple, of course.

We live in troubled and troubling times. As always, the times are made more troubling because of the fact that some of us profit from them. Many of us with money in investments like pensions and mutual funds and IRAs benefit when Exxon-Mobil announces its $36,000,000,000 profits, even at a time when paradoxically we are all paying higher prices for gas for our cars and oil to heat our houses. Those of us fortunate enough to own our homes actually benefit from the high prices which prevent others from entering the housing market. If we look into our hearts, I venture to say that most of us will confess that we have said on occasion, "At least I already have mine."

Capitalism as theorized by Adam Smith was supposed to free capital in order to repair rents in the social fabric and to improve the lot of everybody in society, especially the poor--what Jesus called "the least of these." Instead, as now practiced, capitalism places obscene profits in the pockets of a few, and does too little to improve the lot of those at the bottom of the economic ladder. Take hurricane Katrina, and what it has shown us about the state of our own social fabric, as only one recent but vivid example.

Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong, another contemporary voice of religious reason, has observed the world scene at the beginning of 2006 and written, "I am deeply discouraged by the trends of 2005. I see the world heading toward a new ‘Dark Age.’ I see fear as the emotion that places people, who are so obviously inadequate to the task of leadership, into positions of power. I see Christianity increasingly identified not with peace on earth or building wholeness, but with blessing tribal attitudes, justifying lingering prejudices, and violating those different by race, religion, gender and sexual orientation."

According to Karen Armstrong, it is our egos which most distort our vision and which limit us from achieving our full humanity. Our egos are the cause of almost all of our problems. The good news is that we can do something about that, and that it is even good for us to do so. In The Spiral Staircase Armstrong writes,

What I now realize, from my study of the different religious traditions, is that a disciplined attempt to go beyond the ego brings about a state of ecstasy. Indeed, it is in itself ekstasis. Theologians in all the great faiths have devised all kinds of myths to show that this type of kenosis, or self-emptying, is found in the life of God itself. They do not do this because it sounds edifying, but because this is the way that human nature seems to work. We are most creative and sense other possibilities that transcend our ordinary experience when we leave ourselves behind.

But true religion, according again to Karen Armstrong, is a way, and not a destination. It is "treading the path," a state of transcendent goodness, compassion and selflessness, or of being awake, as the Buddha was, to the full range of human experience and of human suffering.

I confess that like many, if not most, of you, I am pretty depressed about the state of the world. At times I am overcome by feelings of hopelessness. I am embarrassed by so much of what passes as religion in this country. But unlike some of you, I do not see all the problems or evil of the world vested in one political party or in one particular religious tradition or in one or two or more particular people, offensive as I, too, find many of them. It’s just too simple. It is much too easy to blame someone else, but not to recognize how deeply implicated we all are in the besetting problems of our time; to see the speck in someone else’s eye and miss the log in our own, or to recognize how lousy a job we have done of subduing our own egos and overcoming our own self-interest, our own selfishness, and how little we have done or are doing to make a noticeable difference in our world.

Perhaps because of the work I do I am confronted on an almost daily basis with the image and reality of my own shortcomings, with the recognition of my own lack of compassion, with the depth of my own implication in the system, and with my own failures to speak out. I know that I could be doing more. We all could be doing more.

Karen Armstrong writes,

Maybe this is a time for honest, searching doubt, repentance, and a yearning for holiness in a world that has lost its bearings.

The best theologians and teachers have never been afraid to admit that in the last resort, there may be Nothing out there. That is why they spoke of a God who in some sense did not exist. It is why the Buddha refused to comment on the metaphysical status of a Buddha after death, and why Confucius would not speak of the Tao. What is vital to all the traditions, however, is that we have a duty to make the best of ourselves. Our task now is to mend our broken world; if religion cannot do that, it is worthless. And what our world needs now is not belief, not certainty, but compassionate action and practically expressed respect for the sacred value of human beings, even our enemies.

In the face of this reality, anger is useless. In the face of this reality, I believe that what we need to do is to stop placing blame and begin doing some reassessment.

There’s a pretty good chance that in our lifetimes global warming, over-population, environmental degradation, famine, and disease are going to end up being far more of a threat than Islamic or Christian extremists or people who differ from us politically. My only hope is that good people will ultimately be united across all lines of party, nationality, ethnicity, race, and religion to meet the challenges posed by these very real and universal threats to our continued existence on planet earth.

The human species will either get together or perish together. If we let ourselves be divided by demagoguery or preaching or party or sect or whatever it is that threatens to separate us from one another, we will never stand a chance of solving the real problems which face us. Those things are just a smokescreen blinding us to the precipice upon which we presently stand.

In his "Meditation at the end of 2005," Bishop Spong wrote,

I vest my hope as 2006 dawns in the words of one of our great hymns: "Time like an ever moving stream bears all its sons (and daughters) away." I greet the New Year as one who is grounded in that transitory character of time. I take comfort from the lessons of history that it is always darkest before the dawn. Support for the war in Iraq is weakening. Global warming is beginning to be recognized as a major problem. The attempt to ignore the poor if proving too expensive to continue. Awareness of the radical interdependence of all life is rising in each of us. I see the day coming when the cry of the prophets, ‘How long, O Lord, how long?’ will be answered by an aroused public, ‘No more, no more!’ I greet 2006 with that prayer.

The practice of compassion has to be consistent; it does not work if it is selective. If, as Jesus explained, we simply love those who are well disposed toward us, no effort is involved; we are simply banking up our own egotism and remain trapped in the selfishness that we are supposed to transcend. That, I think, is why Jesus demanded that his followers love their enemies. They were required to feel with people who would never feel affection for them and extend their sympathy without expecting any benefit for themselves.

I believe that we have far more in common than what threatens to divide us. May the bonds of love that unite us be ever strengthened, and may we find even in our differences reason to celebrate and support one another, now and in the treacherous days to come. Amen.

The Rev. Harold E. Babcock