When Your Hope Has Been Misplaced...
If ever there was a time when I wanted to give up on humanity and throw in the towel - this would be the day. I am very, very disheartened by the abandonment of self-restraint, civility and service to others.
This is not my first, nor will it be my last experience with losing hope. The temptation when I have misplaced my own sense of self (for me hope is a core value that has sustained me since I was a child) is to find someone to blame for my discomfort. Usually this involves picking on my husband or ruminating over almost anything I can think of that is unpleasant. This path always leads nowhere. However, because I am old and experienced in my own waywardness, I am able to recognize (eventually, usually with guidance) that all hope is not so much lost as it is misplaced. When I get lost, I ask for directions; I am careful who I ask.
Lately, I have been studying the words of Karen Armstrong, a British author and former Roman Catholic religious sister who moved from her conservative faith tradition to a more liberal and mystical Christian faith. She’s written more than 20 books and I particularly love her stance on compassion. In “Charter for Compassion”, Armstrong writes: “...the principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion implores us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the center of our world and put another there, and to honor the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.”
It is so easy to glide over these words without pausing to prepare. Listen. Repent. Change! Resist the urge to assume that we are the compassionate ones and “others” are not. Resist the natural but not necessarily true belief that we are working tirelessly to alleviate the suffering OF OTHERS. Resist the temptation to assume that we have the capacity to dethorne ourselves from our egocentric ways. This kind of resistance is not as obvious as tearing down statues; it is harder work. Much harder. And, I suspect, if we did more of this kind of work, there would be less to protest in our world.
