Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.
—Henri Nouwen
M
any of us think of compassionate care as somehow separate from the
ordinariness of our day-to-day routines and view it as something that
happens only in the end-stages of life. We have a vague notion that
compassionate care is about affirmation, love and respect toward the ill and
dying. And this is, of course, true.
But most of us have not taken the time to sort it out well enough to understand
compassionate care as a unifying spiritual principle that can support us and
even lift us up if we bring it front and center into our lives as part of the present
moment, long before we enter the last season of life. What happens if we try to
“live” in compassion? To bring it to the forefront of our lives?
Henri Nouwen, professor, theologian and writer, in his definition of compas-
sion, says:
Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places
of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish.
Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn
with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion
requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable,
and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion
in the condition of being human.
Compassionate
Care
Life
Way
as a
of
Parthenia Kavita Hicks
20
Enlightenment Journal | Summer 2017