Compassion

“Look out upon this nation and tell me what you see,” a friend once said to me. I told her I saw anger, hunger, poverty, senselessness, fear, sick and worried people, hatred twisting faces, greed stuffing overfull guts, ignorance regurgitating lies, well-intentioned impotence, self-centered passivity, and, beyond this roiling sea of humanity’s foibles, I saw my opponents lined up to massacre us all. “Until you look out and see yourself as that,” she answered, “your revolution is going to fail.” Nothing irks a young man’s temper than a dose of wisdom flying over his head. I retorted that loving my enemies was a good way to end up dead. “So is hating them,” she countered.