Compassion Is
In Exile
by
Matthew Fox
Compassion
is everywhere. Compassion
is the world's richest energy source. Now that the world
is a global village we need compassion more than ever --
not for altruism's sake, nor for philosophy's sake or
theology's sake, but for survival's sake.
And yet,
in human history of late, compassion remains an energy
source that goes largely unexplored, untapped, and
unwanted. Compassion appears very far away and almost in
exile. Whatever propensities the human cave dweller once
had for violence instead of compassion seem to have
increased geometrically with the onslaught of industrial
society. The exile of compassion is evident everywhere
-- the oil globules piling up in our oceans and on the
fish who inhabit the oceans, the teeming masses of
persons pouring into already congested cities, the
twenty-six million persons who live poor in the midst of
affluent America, the 40% of the human race who go to
bed hungry each night, the maldistribution of food and
of research for energy, the mechanization of medicine
that has reduced the art of healing to the engineering
of elitist technologies, unemployment, overemployment,
violent employment, the trivialization of economics and
the proliferation of superfluous luxuries instead of
basic needs for the needy, the deadening
bureaucratization of our work, play, and educational
lives. The list goes on and on.
Rev.
Sterling Cary, former president of the National Council
of Churches, assesses the moral conscience of humanity
in our time in this way: "We are losing our
capacity to be human. Violence and oppression are
becoming so commonplace that the modem victims of
injustice are reduced to mere statistics."1
And Robert Coles, commenting on the state of humanity in
present-day Harlem, asks the question: "Does our
country, by virtue of what it permits, still, in such
places as Harlem, have a morally impoverished
culture?"2
What makes injustices so unacceptable in our time is the
fact that we now possess the know-how to feed the world
and provide basics for all its citizens. What is lacking
is the will and the way. What is lacking is compassion.
Compassion
in Exile
In
acquiescing in compassion's exile, we are surrendering
the fullness of nature and of human nature, for we, like
all creatures in the cosmos, are compassionate
creatures. All persons are compassionate at least
potentially. What we all share today is that we are
victims of compassion's exile. The difference between
persons and groups of persons is not that some are
victims and some are not: we are all victims and all
dying from lack of compassion; we are all surrendering
our humanity together. The difference is in how persons
react to this fact of compassion's exile and our
victimization.
Some
persons react by joining the forces that continue the
exile of compassion and joining them with a single
mindedness and tenacity that guarantees still more
violence, still more of compassion's exile; others react
by despair and cynicism -- drink, eat, and be happy for
tomorrow we exterminate ourselves; still others react
with what Ned O'Gorman calls the "abstract
calm" of intellectuals and other too-busy people
who want it both ways and advocate political change
while living high on the hog. Others are reacting by
fleeing to fundamentalist religions and spiritualisms.
Spiritualist and fundamentalist spiritualities that
forsake the tradition of imago dei and
humanity's deification in favor of the preaching of sin
and redemption will have virtually nothing to say about
compassion, for compassion is a divine attribute and a
creative energy force and will not be learned by a cheap
religious masochism.
As the
world becomes more of a global village and world
religions become better known in localities far from
their origins, the question arises as to what, if
anything, these religions do for the globe. It is more
and more certain to me that religion's purpose is to
preach a way of life or spirituality called compassion
and to preach it in season and out of season. This is
surely the case with Judaism and with Jesus Christ. It
also appears to be the case with Buddha, Muhammad, Lao
Tzu, Confucius, and Hinduism. People can indeed learn
compassion from religious traditions, provided those
traditions are in touch with their truest roots and have
not themselves fallen victim to ignorance regarding
their origins. Compassion will also be learned from
nature and the universe itself. Yet these two sources of
wisdom, faith, and nature, are intimately related, for
the God of one is the God of the other. As Simone Weil
has put it, "How can Christianity call itself
catholic if the universe itself is left out?"3
Much
healing is accomplished by removing pressures and
obstacles and letting nature itself do the healing. Our
ancestors called this kind of cause and effect removens
prohibens -- removing the obstacles. Getting out of
the way so that nature and the Creator of nature might
act.
I sense
a growing awareness among numerous alive and awake
persons today that something is wrong with the dualistic
mystical traditions that Christianity has so often
endorsed in our past. This tradition simply blocks out
too much -- it blocks out body, the body politic, the
ecstasies of nature and work and laughter and
celebration, the love of neighbor and the relieving of
the suffering of others, the wrestling with political
and economic evil spirits. In this tradition, compassion
is effectively exiled for the sake of contemplation. And
yet, strange to tell, Jesus never said to his followers:
"Be contemplative as your Father in heaven is
contemplative." He did say, however, "Be
compassionate as your Father in heaven is
compassionate." In doing so he was reiterating what
Rabbi Dressner calls the "cornerstone" of the
way of life or spirituality of Israel. For in Biblical
spirituality (as distinct from Neoplatonic spirituality)
believers are taught "that the holy and awesome
name of the Lord, YHWH, which remains secret and
unpronounced, signifies compassion."4
The Bible, unlike Neoplatonic spirituality, suggests it
is in compassion and not contemplation that the fullest
spiritual existence is to be lived, enjoyed and passed
on. What is at stake in recovering compassion as the
center of our spiritual existence is the remolding of
contemplation after compassion's image.
Major
Developments
In my
opinion there are three major developments in
spirituality today that are urging us all to deep
changes of heart, symbols, and structures. These are:
1) the
recovery of the Biblical, Jewish categories and
therefore our practice of detaching ourselves from
hellenistic ones.
2) The
feminist consciousness and movement among women and
men alike and its discovery of new images and symbols
for our shared, deep, common experience. A feminist
consciousness requires our detaching ourselves from
more one-sided and patriarchal symbols, images, and
structures.
3) The
emergence of critical, global thinking urged upon us
all by the brevity of time that our planet has
remaining if it is to survive beyond the twentieth
century.
There
are some today who say that it is in fact already too
late, that industrial society's greed and violence have
already polluted the global village beyond repair.
Others are not quite so pessimistic. What I am sure of
is this: that if it is not too late already, the only
energy and direction that we can take in the brief time
left is the way of life called compassion. Compassion
alone can save us and our planet. Provided it is not too
late. Compassion is our last great hope. If compassion
cannot be retrieved from its exile, there will be no
more books, no more smiles, no more babies, and no more
dances, at least of the human variety. In my opinion,
this might be a great loss to the universe. And to its
admittedly foolish Maker.
REFERENCES:
1. Rev. W.
Sterling Cary, "Why They Remember the
Holocaust," in Chicago Sun-Times, April 11,
1978, Section on "The Holocaust," p. 12.
2. Robert
Coles, "Lost Generation," The New York
Review of Books, September 28, 1978, p. 50. His
essay reviews Ned O'Gorman's book, The Children Are
Dying (NY: Signet, 1978).
3. Simone
Weil, Waiting
for God (London: Fontana, 1959),
p. 116.
4. Samuel H.
Dressner, Prayer,
Humility and Compassion (Philadelphia:
Jewish Publ. Society, 1957), pp. 236f. Abbreviated D
hereafter.
 This
article is excerpted from the book:
A
Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical
Awareness with Social Justice
by Matthew
Fox.
For
more info or to purchase this book
About The
Author
Matthew
Fox is a spiritual theologian who has been an ordained priest since
1967. A liberation theologian and progressive visionary, he was
silenced by the Vatican and later dismissed from the Dominican order.
Fox is the founder and president of the University Creation
Spirituality (UCS) located in Oakland, California. Fox is author of 24
books, including the best selling Original
Blessing; The
Reinvention of Work; Breakthrough: Meister Eckhart's
Creation Spirituality in New Translation; Natural
Grace (with scientist Rupert Sheldrake), and his
most recent, Sins
of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh.
| Comments () >> |
 |
 |
