Unity of Walnut Creek
Two weeks ago Rev. Sheila taught us to live each day with a compassionate heart; not to climb into a friend’s pit of depression. Instead, hold the ladder to help them climb out. Last week Rev. David asked us to affirm for others and ourselves, “I hold you in the compassion of my heart.” I have the third week of speaking on compassion, and I ask you to say with me, “I am compassion.”
Charles Fillmore said compassion is “A characteristic of love and mercy prompted by an understanding heart. A compassionate mind sees the error, but does not condemn.” So when we are compassionate we are using the power of love. It is one of the 12 powers which are the expression of the divine spirit. Unity says compassion is the attracting, harmonizing power. When you feel love for anyone, even if they con’t give it back, there is still a peace within you.
There is someone in my life whose lifestyle had reached a point where I knew she had to change. Out of love I went to her to tell her she needed to change. I knew I was right, but she was really resistant. I saw I had to let go of my judgment of her, even though it was made out of love. I had to let go of being right. So I went to her in compassion, and she was then open to change. Now things are working out really well. Compassion is how we stay out of the pit and hold the ladder with love and spiritual wisdom.
You’ve heard that if you give a man a fish you feed him for a day, but if you teach him to fish you feed him for a lifetime. Stay in the power of love and SPIRITUAL judgment. When Jesus told those wishing to stone the adultress that he without sin cast the first stone they melted away. Then he told the adultress, “Neither do I condemn thee: go thy way; from henceforth sin no more” (John 8:11). His compassion saved her.
Love is the harmonizing and constructive power. During World War I, on Christmas night, in 1914, the German soldiers left their fox holes and began singing Silent Night. Allied soldiers joined them in the celebration. Gifts were exchanged. The war resumed the next day, but for one night their compassion brought peace.
Your responsibility is to express your own individual experience of the diviine spirit within you. Be yourself. Express your own experience of God and it helps others to do the same. That’s how WE ARE COMPASSION. Myrtle Fillmore: “As you do this, you will touch the reality of individuals, and you will invite only the best from them.”
It isn’t that we each have good in us, it is that all of us ARE good. If divine spirit is love, is compassion, and we are expressing the divine then: I am compassion. I am compassion. I am compassion. Thank you! Have a beautiful Sunday!