The Answer to the Question
“Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.” —1 PETER 3:8-9 (NIV)
Father Greg Boyle of Homeboy Industries wouldn’t like it very much if I called him a living saint (so I’ll just keep it between you and me). He thinks that makes the work he does in the world seem too unattainable for the rest of us to participate in. He works among gang members in Los Angeles to reconnect them to wholeness through the training, employment, and multiple supports that his world-wide rehabilitation program offers. “All we’re asked to do is to be in the world who God is,” wrote Father Boyle. “Certainly compassion was the wallpaper of Jesus’ soul, the contour of his heart, it was who he was. I heard someone say once, ‘Just assume the answer to every question is compassion.’”[Gregory Boyle. Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010). 62.]
It’s a fun game to take Father Boyle’s answer to every question seriously. Like “what’ll we do about so-and-so who’s been driving me crazy?” Answer: Compassion. “How’ll I get through this night with all the worries I’m carrying?” Answer: Compassion. But, like in Jesus’ and Father Boyle’s examples, compassion is not a surface gesture or a Hallmark emotion, but full-bodied empathy with arms and legs. Compassion doesn’t judge, but listens, and then gets busy meeting the need.
REFLECT
1. What question or worry is spinning around your mind right now? Imagine the answer is: compassion. How does that sit with you?
2. Where (or to whom) do you struggle to extend compassion? Why do you think that is?
RESPOND
Imagine you’re with your best friend or your favorite aunt or someone who fully believes in you. How do they extend compassion to you? How can you try this week to extend compassion like that to others?
A Blessing for Compassion for All
Blessed are we, God’s beloved. Whether we bask in happiness of a season of opportunities or find ourselves bracing against a fresh storm of hard things.
Blessed are you who are sad and sore, waiting for the next breath to come more easily. You are here, and you are loved.
Blessed are you who carry your joy openly, in the happiness of longings fulfilled. You are here, and you are loved.
Welcome all, look around! We might change places tomorrow, but for now, we are all together as those who are the beloved of God.
We have been looped together into the wideness of God’s compassion, into the kinship of the imperfect who are perfectly loved.
Blessed are we, eyes wide open to the fact that there’s nothing like it, this love that generates love exponentially: it doesn’t detract.
It only gives.
Here in Advent we see its coming gentle as the dawn, healing as sunlight.
Love that actively grows us into our truest selves.
People who can love just like that.
GOING DEEPER
There are some people who see need and, rather than feeling stuck by the magnitude of the world’s pain, they move toward it. Father Greg Boyle is one of those people. Listen as he and Kate make “A Case for Hope” (40 min).
To learn more about Father Boyle’s ministry and work, read his book Tattoos on the Heart or watch his TEDTalk on “Compassion and Kinship.”