What Is Compassion, Again?

 

A couple of nights, my teammate Kathryn and I took a walk in the field in front of the house here at Casa Shalom.
By field, I mean sticker field and not grass field, but that is not really the point.
During that walk, though, we had a wonderful discussion about a myriad of topics.
One of the subjects that came up was compassion, specifically the spiritual gift (which I have) and what it looks like to actively use it.

A lot of times, I feel like I just don’t know what to do with the gift of compassion.
It will come out in specific moments with overwhelming force, especially when the person I am feeling it towards lets whatever they have been struggling with see the light of day.

But it comes out in just those moments.

My greatest struggle (in this area) is with allowing compassion to be more than just a few seconds.

How do I operate in this gift when there is no moment of distress?

 

The bigger question to come out of this conversation, though, is if compassion just has to do with suffering.

Is compassion just having sympathy for another person’s distress and wanting to relieve it, or can compassion be felt in moments of another person’s excitement and joy?

Does the definition that the people who put together Webster’s dictionary use for compassion encompass everything that compassion truly is?

And, while we’re at it, where does compassion come from in the first place?

Is there a switch you can use to turn it off whenever something happens to turn it on?

If there is, why would you want to do it in the first place?

 

I have had a lot of time to think about these things – nearly a year now, when compassion was first spoken over me.

What I’m most interested in is finding some answers.

Traveling around the world hasn’t given them to me (not that I thought it would for sure).

But I’m hoping that somewhere in the place between my thoughts and the keyboard where God speaks, I will see some clarification.