This man beside us also has a hard fight with an unfavouring world, with strong temptations, with doubts and fears, with wounds of the past which have skinned over, but which smart when they are touched. It is a fact, however surprising. And when this occurs to us we are moved to deal kindly with him, to bid him be of good cheer, to let him understand that we are also fighting a battle; we are bound not to irritate him, nor press hardly upon him nor help his lower self. – John Watson

I had to write this post after watching this moving video:

To This Day from To This Day on Vimeo.

I have been thinking a lot about compassion lately, and my connection to those in the world around me- my neighbors. Reading Henri Nouwen’s The Wounded Healer last fall opened my eyes in a new way. It is easy to feel pity for others [wow, glad I’m not them], or sympathy [you’re my friend and so I feel bad for you], but rarer in this world is true compassion. In reading the text below, I came to a new conclusion: there is no “them,” only “us.”

Through compassion it is possible to recognize that the praying for love that people feel resides also in our own hearts, that the cruelty the world knows all too well is also rooted in our own impulses. Through compassion we also sens our hope for forgiveness in our friends’ eyes and our hatred in their bitter mouths. When they kill, we know that we could have done it; when they give life, we know that we can do the same. For a compassionate person nothing human is alien: no joy and no sorrow, no way of living and no way of dying. – Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer

This section crystallized for me that what that person is struggling with is also deep inside of me. That pain, that anger, that fear, I have felt before. That shame, that guilt, is all to common to me. We pretend as if it’s theirs, but it really belongs to us. We are the same. And in knowing we are the same, we can have compassion. We can love. We can forgive. Whether it’s an enemy, a friend, a child, a spouse, a co-worker: dig deep, Karen- and find the place inside of you that resonates with what’s inside of him.

There is no “them”- only “us.”