Did you know that the City of Tucson signed a Charter for Compassion proclaiming the ethics and practice of compassion as one of the intentions of our city and citizenry on April 7, 2015? Rev Teresa Cowan of Sacred Space led the effort creating opportunities for community-wide small group book studies using Karen Armstrong’s Twelve Steps of the Compassionate Life. CSLT participated in the initial wave of these book studies through the leadership of our own Keith Gorley, who facilitated one of the initial book groups at our Office and Education Center. Keith has facilitated a number of these books groups for us. Read about the Charter for Compassion at charterforcompassion.org

Compassion is a word that gets thrown around a lot. What does it mean, exactly? Concern for the suffering of the misfortunes of others might entail sympathy, empathy, understanding, care and concern; love for all sentient beings is part of it, too. At the heart of it is a desire to reduce the suffering of others. In Semitic languages, the word for compassion is related to the Arabic word for “womb”. The physiological connection with womb evokes the idea of maternal affection that, some hypothesize gave birth (pun intended) to our human capacity for unselfish, unconditional altruism. Some scientists have theorized that humans, born with our big brains, are more dependent on maternal attentiveness and care than any other species, and that the co-evolution of qualities of compassion with our big brains allowed us to flourish as a species.

An often-undervalued aspect of compassion is the practice of self-compassion. The biblical order of “love yourself as your neighbor” implies a love of self. If this seems a difficult idea to imagine, we can imagine what it feels like to feel compassion for ourselves by drawing on the warmth of friendship that we know exists between ourselves and those we love, and then direct it toward ourselves. Truthfully, we cannot give to others what we cannot embody ourselves.

The experience and expression of compassion exists, at least potentially, in every human being and can become a healing force in our own lives as well as our world.

Did you know that CSLT has a Compassionate Heart team?

Its members continue to make themselves available to provide such things as transportation to and from doctor’s appointments and grocery stores; they also often provide meals when needed, conduct hospital visits, send cards and sometimes flowers, and help fill out paperwork for assistance, as well as provide many other services. Mostly they gratefully provide helping hands and caring hearts. They do not replace the need for continuous care, regular medical transportation, or skilled nursing care.

We also have a small amount of donated monies available for urgent medical or personal needs, which can be requested by a congregant. The request form, and all instructions for its use and access, is available on our tucsoncsl.org website under Organizational Documents.

What a wonderful opportunity to join this team and be of service! Please contact Wendie Arison if you would like to become part of this great team, or make use of the services we provide.

As the Buddhist prayer puts it so simply:
May all beings be free from suffering, know peace, and be happy.

Namaste, Janie Hooper