Be Dangerously Compassionate

“I’d rather be loving than right.”

He said that to me almost ten years ago,
as we debated theology across the sticky coffee shop table.

“I’d rather be loving than right.”

There was no denying the cause and the effect of that sentence.

Like a nickle dropping into a jukebox,
just before the song comes.
Drop the cold, hard coin,
and the music flows.

Being right felt safe.
Buttoned up.
Self-Assured.

Loving, well, we all know love is a hot mess.

There was a song when I was younger, where the Christian Contemporary Artist warned us against being ”so open minded your brain popped out.”

That stopped me, for decades,
The silly line of a pop song.

Stopped me from being loving, because
I might love the wrong person in the wrong way.

My love might make their dysfunction last longer.
Might send the wrong message.
Might encourage the sin.

It was bullshit, that.

“I’d rather be loving than right.”

Maybe it’s a bad idea, to take advice from pop stars, given my previous experience. But now, when I hear another singer telling me he’s tried everything—every philosophy, every life approach—and he’s decided all that left is to be bold as love,
I give it a try.

I try to be bold in my loving,
to be generous with my approval,
to be, at my core, compassionate.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately,
about what it means to be compassionate—
to those who understand you (except when they don’t).
to the person who voted opposite of you.
to your own tender self.

Our world is more often about judgment than curiosity.
More about creating boundaries than studying inclusion.
More about self-criticism than self-love.

More and more, it seems to me that

Compassion is the art we most need to master,
and the skill we practice least.

Click to tweet the good word.

The tricky thing about compassion is that it’s a soft sounding word. All mmmm’s and ssss’s and that long, lingering hum of an ‘n’ at the end. But compassion, while gentle, is not tame. Compassion is dangerous.

Compassion opens up your heart to The Other.
Compassion asks you to forgive.
Compassion begs that you be kind.

Compassion is the fire that transforms.

I invite you today to be Dangerously Compassionate.

To stop in the middle of your annoyed huff, and be kind to the annoy-er instead.
To turn to your gremlin, and ask her to say that critical thing more nicely
To stand up for someone who is being overlooked.
To leave “right” sitting on the curbside and to hold hands with love instead.

My blessing for you today, my Magpie, is this:

May compassion begin its slow transformation within you,
May it paw at your heart, melting away the icy bits
clearing out the rubble.

May it breathe new warmth within you,
kindling a fire
that will beckon the hurting to come in, out of the cold.

And may you pass the flame along,
for another to hold in her hand,
until the warmth can travel all the way up,
and into her heart.

(Amen? Amen.)

***

More from the Suitcase Series:

I’m escaping to cabins to write a book called, Becoming Relig-ish, and I’m sharing previews with you along the way. I’d love your good advice. Do let me know what you think of the bits so far, and what you’d like to know more about. Thanks so much for being here today. -your magpie girl

Travel She Must
You Have Permission

Tagged as: dangerously compassionate, Relig-ish, the suitcase series