PASTORAL REFLECTION
        Her name was Mrs. Thompson.  As she stood in front of her 5th grade class on the very first day of school, she told the children a lie.  Like most teachers, she looked at her students and said that she loved them all the same.  But that was impossible, because there in the front row, slumped in his seat, was a little boy named Teddy Stoddard.
      Mrs. Thompson had watched Teddy the year before and noticed that he didn’t play well with the other children, that his clothes were messy and that he constantly needed a bath.  And Teddy could be unpleasant.  It got to the point where Mrs. Thompson would actually take delight in marking his papers with a broad red pen, making bold X’s and then putting a big “F” at the top of his papers.
      At the school where Mrs. Thompson taught, she was required to review each child’s past records and she put Teddy’s off until last.  However, when she reviewed his file she was in for a surprise.
      Teddy’s first grade teacher wrote, “Teddy is a bright child with a ready laugh.  He does his work neatly and has good manners…he is a joy to be around.”
      His second grade teacher wrote, “Teddy is an excellent student, well-liked by his classmates, but he is troubled because his mother has a terminal illness and life at home must be a struggle.”
      His third grade teacher wrote, “His mother’s death had been hard on him.  He tries to do his best, but his father doesn’t show much interest and his home life will soon affect him if some steps aren’t taken.”
      Teddy’s fourth grade teacher wrote, “Teddy is withdrawn and doesn’t show much interest in school.  He doesn’t have many friends and he sometimes sleeps in class.”
      By now, Mrs. Thompson realized the problem and she was ashamed of herself.  She felt even worse when her students brought her Christmas presents, wrapped in beautiful ribbons and bright paper, except for Teddy’s.  His present was clumsily wrapped in the heavy brown paper that he got from a grocery bag.  Mrs. Thompson took pains to open it in the middle of the other presents.  Some of the children started to laugh when she found a rhinestone bracelet with some of the stones missing, and a bottle that was one quarter full of perfume.  But she stifled the children’s laughter when she exclaimed how pretty the bracelet was, putting it on, and dabbing some of the perfume on her wrist.  Teddy Stoddard stayed after school that day just long enough to say, “Mrs. Thompson, today you smelled just like my Mom used to.”
      After the children left she cried for at least an hour.  On that very day, she quit teaching reading, writing and arithmetic.  Instead, she began to teach children.  Mrs. Thompson paid particular attention to Teddy.  As she worked with him, his mind seemed to come alive.  The more she encouraged him, the faster he responded.  By the end of the year, Teddy had become one of the smartest children in the class and, despite her lie that she would love all the children the same, Teddy became one of her “teacher’s pets.”
      A year later, she found a note under her door, from Teddy, telling her that she was still the best teacher he ever had in his whole life.  Six years went by before she got another note from Teddy.  He then wrote that he had finished high school, third in his class, and she was still the best teacher he ever had in his whole life.  Four years after that, she got another letter, saying that while things had been tough at times, he’d stayed in school, had stuck with it, and would soon graduate from college with the highest of honors.  He assured Mrs. Thompson that she was still the best and favorite teacher he ever had in his whole life.  Then four more years passed and yet another letter came.  This time he explained that after he got his bachelor’s degree, he decided to go a little further.  The letter explained that she was still the best and favorite teacher he ever had.  But now his name was a little longer --the letter was signed, Theodore F. Stoddard, M.D.
      The story doesn’t end there.  You see, there was yet another letter that spring.  Teddy said he’d met his girl and was going to be married.  He explained that his father had died a couple of years ago and he was wondering if Mrs. Thompson might agree to sit in the place at the wedding that was usually reserved for the mother of the groom.  Of course, Mrs. Thompson did.  And guess what?  She wore that bracelet, the one with the several missing stones.  And she made sure she was wearing the perfume that Teddy remembered his mother wearing on their last Christmas together.  They hugged each other, and Dr. Stoddard whispered in Mrs. Thompson’s ear, “Thank you Mrs. Thompson for believing in me.  Thank you so much for making me feel important and showing me that I could make a difference.”
      Mrs. Thompson, with tears in her eyes, whispered back.  She said, “Teddy, you have it all wrong.  You were the one who taught me that I could make a difference.  I didn’t know how to teach until I met you.”
 

FIRST READING - Luke 6: 27-38

Thoughts on Love
 But I say to you that hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To him who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from him who takes away your cloak do not withhold your coat as well. Give to every one who begs from you; and of him who takes away your goods do not ask after them again. And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.
 If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them, And if you do good to those who do that to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return and your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for God is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish. Be merciful, even as your Heavenly Parent is merciful.

 Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For the measure you give will be the measure you get back.
 

SECOND READING - “Remembering Brother Bob”

Tell me, you years I had for my life,
tell me a day, that day it snowed
and I played hockey in the cold.
Bob was seven, then, and I was twelve,
and strong. The sun went down. I turned
and Bob was crying on the shore.

Do I remember kindness? Did I
shield my brother, comfort him?
Tell me, you years I had for my life.

Yes, I carried him. I took
him home. But I complained. I see
the darkness; it comes near: and Bob,
who is gone now, and the other kids.
I am the zero in the scene:
“You said you would be brave,” I chided
him. “I’ll not take you again.”
Years, I look at the white across
this page, and think: I never did.

               William Stafford
 
 
 

    William Stafford published the poem “Remembering Brother Bob” in 1982, when he was 68 years old. It is the work of an older man, the record of a moment of remembered moral failure, an incident in which he failed to be compassionate. "Do I remember kindness?  Did I shield my brother, comfort him?"  His little brother crying in the cold and he responds by chiding him and with anger.  And he cuts him off; never again does he take his little brother anywhere again.
     Don't we know this pain?  I should hope that most of us occasionally recall moments in which we cruel or heartless or callous.  I have some stories which seem to come and go in my memory, forgotten for years at a time, and then recalled, and then forgotten again.
     I chose this poem for a reading today as way to enter into a discussion of compassion, one of the essential spiritual practices.  Everyone is in favor of compassion, of trying to understand people from their point of view, in favor of walking a mile in their shoes before passing judgment.
     Everybody is in favor of compassion, but we always seem to fail the test, we accumulate incident and incident in our daily lives where we fail to see the other, judge and judge harshly, respond to someone's weakness or confusion with impatience and anger, and respond to others' anger with more anger.
     Why is compassion so hard for us, once we get beyond cute babies, kittens and puppies?
     Maybe it's not, after all, so hard for us. The Human animal is, on the biological level, an extremely social being.  We are extraordinarily tuned into to each other's emotional state and are constantly engaged in a rich stream of communication.  Mostly we communicate our affects to each other. Affects are bio-chemical, physical states of being.  When you look at someone who has a slightly furrowed brow, head up, eyes wide, mouth slightly open, you are aware of their interest and excitement.  This is communication at a completely non-cognitive level.  Babies communicate with us because their affects are completely visible to us.  We communicate to babies by exaggerating our affect display to them.  Human beings have a natural impulse to resonate to other's affect.  It is why music and theatre and public worship work.  It is also why mobs are dangerous, and why people will do things in crowds that they would never do alone.  It is why worshipping in this space is a different experience than worshipping in our sanctuary.  It is not simply that we are closer together; it is also that as we come into the room, and the choir is finishing up their rehearsal, and people are moving about greeting each other, with warm smiles and hugs, we all begin to share and resonate to each others' affect.  The space and time are more conducive to sharing the affects of joy and interest and happiness, and we say that the space is warmer and more friendly.
     What I am trying to say is this:  humans beings are naturally communicate their emotional states to each other; we read each other emotional states constantly and move to reinforce or resist each other's emotional states.
     What this has to do with compassion is this:  we start life as babies who communicate entirely by display of affect and in a state of, in which we are flooded and defenseless against the communication of other's affects to us.  Part of the development of ourselves as separate selves is that we build an "empathic wall" around us.  It is necessary that we learn how to filter out others' affect display to us; and that we learn how to moderate and filter our own affect display to others.  Inside that empathic wall, the self is given room to develop.  Sometimes we call this having "boundaries."
     Compassion starts with perception:  it is perceiving other people differently.  It is discerning their emotional state, what they are feeling, no matter what they are saying, and what they are doing.  In short, compassion is based on lowering that empathic wall that we have developed, so that we can, as the saying goes, "feel each others' pain", "feel each others' joy" and "feel each others' fear". Developing compassion is in some sense, deliberate regression.  It tries to lower the empathic wall which protects our selves, without losing our self-definition.
     But there is a deep irony here, an irony so deep that you just got to love God for setting it up this way.  You see, we start out building the empathic wall to make room for our precious tender selves to develop.  But eventually, we have to lower it in order for know our selves at all.   What starts out as a protection, ends up a prison.
     I want to go back to William Stafford's poem at this point.  There are two sentences in the poem that I want to look at it in this light. "I see the darkness; it comes near: and Bob, who is gone now, and the other kids. I am the zero in the scene:"  He remembers the scene so clearly, the darkness, his brother and his hockey friends, but he, himself, he does not see.  I am the zero in the scene.  And notice that throughout the poem, Stafford tells us what he did back then, but it is an external view.  He never tells us what he was thinking, or feeling at the time.  That part is gone.
     May I suggest that we have a clue here as to the mechanism by which we fail to be compassionate?  Our lack of compassion comes in those moments in which we are keeping at a distance what is being communicated to us by others.  We are splitting off a self from that self that is receiving the information about another.  We are creating a self that resists our very human impulse and ability to resonate to someone else's affect display.   We are creating a self which feels less.
     When I working in my business career before ministry, I had occasion to terminate people, to discharge them, to fire them.  I am sure that many of you have had similar experiences.  And I would become aware of a process that I would go through as I prepared for that face to face session in which I would give people news that often they did not want to hear.  Sometimes, I thought of it as "steeling myself", or "making myself like ice".  Now, I would call it "splitting myself", creating a self that is impervious to the expressions of another's pain.  The Ice Self.  Ice-Tom, or Ice-T for short.  And when Ice-Tom was in control, I could go into that little room and fire somebody.
     Now, I have become more aware of how this alternate self is one of the many selves that flicker through my physical body.  He is someone who is there when I need him.  If I am approached by a panhandler on the street, Ice-Tom pops to the fore.
     Now, Ice-Tom has no interior state.  He is all exterior, all action.  He is meant to be seen by others in a particular social interaction.  He is not reflective.  Later, when someone asks "well, how did you feel when you fired so and so?"  I look back and say, "honestly, I don't remember feeling anything at the time."   As William Stafford says, "I am the zero in the scene."
     Let's push a little further, beyond what is said in the poem, and ask ourselves what is going on when that non-responsive, ice-person is created -- the one we summon up when we are protecting ourselves from what we naturally feel -- the resonance with other's people's affects.
     William Stafford doesn't explain why he was so uncaring of his little brother, but it not hard to imagine.  This is a 12 year old boy, out playing hockey with another group of boys, but who also has a 7 year old little brother tagging along.  One does not need to be a family therapist to make a reasonable guess as to why he saw his brothers' discomfort as a bother and a pain.  In some way, the self that young Bill Stafford was being in relationship to his hockey playing buddies was threatened by his little brother.  Did it make him not one of the guys?  Did it betray a softness that he was trying to hide while playing hockey?  We don't exactly know because we don't know where the boy fit into that social group. But I am sure that his lack of compassion was in the situation, and it arose out of a need to protect himself with his chums.
     I have reflected on what I thought about when I would invoke Ice-Tom when I going to fire someone at work.  I was thinking about whether I would be seen by my superiors as a good manager.  Would I been seen as a good manager by the other people who reported to me?  In other words, duty was calling, with all of its fears and anxieties, and I had to protect myself.  So I would split myself and wall off that part of myself that could feel the pain of the one I was firing.  It was to protect me from feeling bad, while I did what I had to do to protect my job and my reputation and my own sense of competence.
     Becoming more compassionate begins with a process of letting our natural empathy to re-emerge.
     It starts by being aware of that moment in which you split yourself, project a false self, in order to block off the communication of affect from another.  It is being mindful of what is going on when you harden your heart.  It is being aware of what you are protecting and of whom you are afraid.  It is noticing who arouses your empathy when you watch the news and being aware of where you discount the suffering of people.
     To be more empathic, to perceive more deeply all that the people around you are feeling, this is only the beginning of compassion.  There is still a moral sense that we must bring to life, certain truths to which we must be obedient. There are times when we must resist the crowd, and not let ourselves been drawn into the mutual reinforcement of anger and hatred and violence. We are called to make moral judgements every day.  And we are called especially to hold ourselves accountable.  All of the world's religious traditions encode the accumulated wisdom of humanity's moral judgements.  There are many sources to turn to, to find out what is the moral act, the just thing to do, to help us make our judgements. .
     But as our litany says this morning, and as our first reading from Luke tells us, that while compassion starts in perception, it ultimately passes through judgment into forgiveness, including a spirit of forgiveness and generosity to ourselves and to those who have failed our judgements, our enemies.   We are called to forgive freely, including our selves, and to do good to those who have harmed us.

 Let me leave you this morning with this poem, many of you know it, from Thich Nhat Hanh -
 
 “Please Call Me by My True Names”

 Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow-
 even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.

The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his “debt of blood” to my people,
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.

My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.

 So the door of my heart can be left open!