June 30: Learn another definition of compassion

June 30 Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace

Learn a different definition of compassion (and spirituality) from spiritual master Matthew Fox

"A Spirituality Named Compassion"

In his book by that title (Harper & Row, 1990), Matthew Fox, a Dominican scholar and educator, writes that recent translators of Matthew 5:48 re-word the familiar, "be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect" as "be compassionate as your heavenly Father is compassionate."

Compassion, Fox further points out, is not simply feeling sorry.  Rather it is a deep, gut-wrenching identification of another's feelings as our own.  (The Hebrew Scriptures refer to Yahweh's "bowels of compassion.")  This is no abstract idea we are invited to entertain, but a physical sensation of shared feeling.  We are asked to enter the emotions, joy, and pain of all human beings wherever they are; whatever their situation in life.

But what does compassion have to do with spirituality?

Spirituality, for Fox and for most of the great spiritual leaders of the world, is not how often we say our prayers or read the Bible.  Rather, it is the way we live our prayers; the way we act on what we have learned from scripture.  It is literally the embodiment of our vision of God.