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“Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another.”  – Zechariah 7:9 

“The word compassion is derived from the Latin words pati and cum, which together mean ‘to suffer with,'” according to Henri Nouwen who many years ago co-authored a book by that very title, Compassion.  “Compassion asks us to go where it hurts,” he explains, “to enter into 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.”

Compassion, though, does not limit our “suffering with” only to those who we commonly identify as the downtrodden — the sick, lonely, grieving, broken, poor, weak, vulnerable or powerless — the obvious. We are also called at times to be compassionate toward the less obvious, the ones who appear to have it all together — self-confident, strong, intelligent and powerful, sometimes even the arrogant — who, buried beneath their facade of being in control, also suffer, and in need of compassion.

Charles Dickens’ classic story, A Christmas Carol, is a great illustration in which Ebenezer Scrooge is depicted as a heartless, self-centered old miser who has no interest in being bothered by the suffering of others — the poor, the widows and orphans, or even the plight of his overworked, underpaid clerk Bob Cratchit and his special needs son Tiny Tim, the obvious among the downtrodden.  But then Scrooge has an encounter with the ghost of his late business partner Jacob Marley, who in his earthly life had walked in Scrooge’s shoes as a heartless old miser.  Marley, bound for eternity in the chains of his transgressions, had come to warn Scrooge of his own similar destiny lest he repents.

It was not so much to condemn Scrooge that Jacob Marley appeared to him. Instead, his was a mercy mission to rescue Scrooge from the same fate.  Plus, knowing Scrooge better than anyone, and having walked in the same earthly shoes, that buried beneath the facade of being mean and controlling, he too was just a suffering, lonely, vulnerable, broken human being.  Yes, even old Scrooge needed some compassion.  Doesn’t everyone?

“Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up.  But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up.”  –  Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 

“For without friends,” Aristotle once said, “no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.”  In his writings known as the “Nicomachean Ethics” Aristotle identifies three kinds of friendship, the first based on the pleasure of another’s company, or “friendships of pleasure”.  The second has to do with usefulness in association, or “friendships of utility”.  And the third is about mutual admiration, what he refers to as “friendships in virtue”.  All are essential to the good life, according to his writings, and the best sorts of friends will not only admire each other’s excellence, but take pleasure in each other’s company and find their association of mutual advantage.

I am self-employed and work alone.  It has been my life’s dream to do this, to do my own thing, be my own boss.  It is a glorious way to live to be given the opportunity to make a living doing what one loves to do, where work does not feel like work.  I love it more than anything I can ever imagine.  But I must warn that in some ways working solo is a dangerous endeavor.  More than once I have learned of its hazards the hard way; for as with any occupation certain support functions are required in order that the primary purpose be pursued, not all of which are fun nor am I particularly good at them.  Example:  some time ago I received notice from a government agency that I had failed to file a certain form.  It was not intentional, of course, simply an oversight — ignorance more precisely.  It took at least a day in total to resolve the matter, time taken away from my primary purpose, which I found most aggravating.  Such administrative distractions are more common than I care to mention.

I am learning, however, to surround myself more and more with trusted friends and colleagues who help me in supporting my best efforts.  Even though I remain self-employed and work alone, I cannot do it by myself.  I need a team.  I need colleagues within my profession from whom I have much to learn.  I need others who are good at the things I am not.  And I need the company of family and friends who give me pleasure.  For as the wisdom of scripture reminds us: “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up.”

“This is what the Lord Almighty says: Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another.”  – Zechariah 7:9 

Despite being a conscientious objector who refused to carry a rifle, Desmond Doss bravely volunteered to be a combat medic during World War II, participating in, among others, the battle of Okinawa, considered to be the bloodiest battle of the Pacific theater, where he repeatedly ran alone into the kill zone facing heavy machine gun and artillery fire with nothing to protect himself except his Bible and his faith in God.  One by one he carried wounded soldiers to the edge of a 400-foot cliff where he singlehandedly lowered them down to safety.  It is estimated that in one night alone he saved between 75 to 100 lives.  For his valiant service President Harry S. Truman later presented Doss the Medal of Honor, the first conscientious objector ever to receive that honor.

The late Fred Rogers, longtime host of PBS’s children’s show, “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood”, once mused: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers.  You will always find people who are helping.'”

It was Desmond Doss’s story on which the 2016 Academy Award Nominee movie “Hacksaw Ridge” was based, which for me was the most gruelingly violent war movie I have ever seen; except for one thing, the bloody combat scenes were not the primary focus.  Instead they provided necessary background so that the spotlight could be shown on the faith and courage of Pvt. Desmond Doss — the “helper”.

Just recently my wife, out for her morning exercise, stubbed her toe and fell flat on her face causing enough damage to require a few stitches.  As she lay sprawled on the jogging path a stranger appeared who helped her up, cleaned her wounds as best she could, and gently walked her back to our home. .

“Look for the helpers.  You will always find people who are helping”, whether Desmond Doss, brave responders to disasters such as the 9/11 attack, or a kind stranger on a jogging path, they’re out there — everywhere.  “Pity weeps and turns away,” St. Francis of Assisi once noted, “but compassion weeps and puts out a hand to help.”

“. . . we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character hope.”  – Romans 5:3-4 

Once around age ten or eleven my boyhood best pal Steve and I had an idea that involved digging a deep hole on a nearby vacant lot.  But first, being the honest young citizens we were, we went to the property owner who very kindly granted us permission, provided we would fill it back in when we were finished with our fun.  Thus, with picks and shovels from our parents’ toolsheds we began our dig.  Now this was not to be some small shallow foxhole.  No, indeed, we had a grand plan, to create our own secret camouflaged underground hideout.  It took us weeks of grueling labor, but when completed it was over our heads in depth, and about four feet wide and six feet long.  Afterwards we found some old railroad ties and scrap sheet metal to lay across the top, then covered it with dirt so it was invisible, except for a small opening with a ladder that led down inside.

On a previous occasion and a different vacant lot the two of us had built a clubhouse, using wood from an old dilapidated barn, again with permission from the respective property owners.  It also took us several weeks to complete, the end result being probably the ugliest structure ever on the face of the earth.  But complete it we did, fully functional, with a wooden floor, door, window, trapdoor on top, two camping stools as furniture, and even a picture hanging on the wall.

Both these projects were not undertaken without full parental support.  One of my favorite memories, in fact, was Steve’s mother showing up at our worksite one day, Steve’s red Radio Flyer wagon in tow, containing delicious homecooked food served on dinner plates, plus dessert and iced tea in mason jars, all for two starving young lads.

While sharing lunch with my old friend recently, as we occasionally do, I marveled how we had both — miraculously! — grown up to become men of good character, deep faith, and full of hope and joy.  It brought to mind the hole and the clubhouse, long ago filled in and torn down, the perseverance each required, and the character that developed from those experiences.  I have to believe our parents in their wisdom must surely have seen this as an opportunity for us to learn a great lesson . . . “that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”

“I wanted to see what was worthwhile for men to do under heaven during the few days of their lives.”  — Ecclesiastes 2:3 

Several years ago, our family became acquainted with a man named Max who resided in the same care facility where my mother lived out the last few weeks of her life.  Max, who had at one time been a prominent banker, rancher and successful businessman, had at some point suffered a devastating stroke that rendered him mostly paralyzed and in need of full time care.  Yet always cheerful and outgoing Max would station himself in his motorized wheelchair near the front door where he greeted visitors as they came and went.  That’s how we became friends with this man who we grew to love and admire.  But there was one special thing Max did that I will never forget.  His departing words were always the same, to encourage us to go out and live our lives to the fullest — and with haste.  “Remember,” he would add, “this is not dress rehearsal.”

It seems to me we have but two choices when it comes to trying to live life to its fullest, either take all we can from the world, or give all we can to it.  As an obvious omission in Max’s advice, I’ve always been curious which he was referring to.  Having known the man as I did, however, I prefer to believe it was the latter.  But then, perhaps his omission was intentional so that we would have to figure that part out for ourselves.

King Solomon struggled with this issue of how to live life to its fullest most of his life, taking it on as sort of a research project, the results of which he summed up in an essay known as the Book of Ecclesiastes.  As he put it, “I wanted to see what was worthwhile for men to do under heaven during the few days of their lives.”  His conclusion?  Indulging in the world’s pleasures is ultimately meaningless.  There’s only one thing that really matters, he said, “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.”  Or as the great eighteenth century Anglican cleric and theologian John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, once said, “Do all you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as you can.”  But Max would insist that we also make haste in doing so.  “Remember,” as he so often reminded us, “this is not dress rehearsal.”