A Powerful Vision for the New Year

 

“In compassion and grace,

be like the sun.”

                                      … Rumi

 

How Do We See One Another?

The way we view each other lays the foundation on which everything else is built

When we make a decision to live our lives with kindness, we are choosing to be a powerful force for good in the world. The foundation that we lay down – the way we see each person we encounter – creates a framework for all our thoughts and feelings and actions that follow.

For most of us, it is normal to see some people as friend or family, others as a stranger who seems like a nice person. It is easy to share a smile or a kind word with them.

Other people who show up in our lives trigger a different response. We may quickly have thoughts of judgment, which make it more difficult to feel moved to kindness

Living with Kindness means deciding to take the best part of us out into the world. As we expand how we express our kindness, more and more, we show up as a channel for love wherever we go, in every encounter with others, no matter how they are showing up.

It’s easy and rewarding to expand our kindness journey by joining a local organization as a volunteer. One advantage of this step into service to those in need is the opportunity it offers us for our own personal growth. Often, we are asked to step out of our comfort zone and expand our understanding of others less fortunate – perhaps some of whom we may have judged in the past.

Over time, we realize that we are on a journey of transformation.  We notice that we are bringing more love into the world, and it is enriching our lives as well as the lives of those we encounter.

 

Expanding Our Circle of Compassion

Nobody has taken the concept of love in action to a higher level than Father Gregory Boyle, whose work with former gang members and ex-offenders has brought him world-wide acclaim. He has had a deep impact on us, so we want to introduce you to him.

He shares with us an expanded vision of a compassionate society:

 

“Imagine a circle of compassion and imagine no one is standing outside that circle.

That is the goal, and to that end, we stand with the people who suffer,

with the poor and the powerless, the voiceless.

And to that end, we stand with the people whose dignity has been denied and

we stand with those whose burdens are more than they can bear.

And when you’re really lucky, you get to stand with the easily despised and the readily left out.

You get to stand with the demonized, so the demonizing will stop, and with the disposable,

so the day will come when we stop throwing people away.”

 

As a pastor in the poorest Catholic parish, with the highest concentration of gang activity in Los Angeles, Father Boyle sought a compassionate and effective approach to gang members. He eventually left his parish duties and helped found Homeboy Industries, which became the largest gang intervention, rehabilitation, and re-entry program in the world.

This not-for-profit organization serves high risk men and women by offering hope, training and job skills, with the goal of helping them redirect their lives and become contributing members of their families and their community.

Father Boyle says that this work arose, in part, from questions he lived with:

 

“There’s an idea that’s taken root in the world …  that there just might be lives out there

that matter less than other lives. How do we stand against that idea?"  

“How do we achieve a compassion that allows us to stand in awe of what the poor have to carry

rather than stand in judgment of how they carry it?”

 

By serving some of the most demonized people in our society, Father Boyle and his staff and volunteers show us the rewards of taking loving kindness into places that had been written off as untouchable. They created a truly safe and loving place where lives are transformed – the lives of those who are served and those who serve them, as well.

 

 “All of us are called to go the very edges of the circle of compassion with sure and certain hope that

if you stand there, the circle will widen. And people who are outside will be let in.”

 

That is an invitation to all of us to expand our own circle of compassion. When we do, we will be transformed in the process.

But we each get to choose the path that is right for us at this moment in our lives.  Every act of kindness makes a difference in the world. You are in charge of deciding how you share your love with others.

However you do it, you are a force for good and you do make a difference in the world.

Note:

See Father Gregory Boyle's TED Talk - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipR0kWt1Fkc)

 

What are your thoughts? Please share a comment below.

 

Help us spread the message of kindness.

If you know others who might appreciate these ideas, please share below.

 

We’re grateful that you are on this journey with us.

With love from our hearts to yours,

Pat and Larry