Contempt and compassion seem to live at opposite ends of the scale when it comes to how I live out the message of grace. Learning where contempt comes from, the pain and wounding that has been its living quarters, and wanting to live differently has prompted me to continue the hard work to exchange contempt for compassion, in the solitude of my own sacred space.
Coming face to face with contempt in another is like blearily looking in the mirror in the dark and someone turns on brutal fluorescent light – your own image is alarmingly reflected back.
On the one morning of sunshine in 28 days, sitting in a coffee shop looking out at the restless ocean, I pulled The Way of the Heart out of my bag, to digest some words of wisdom as I sipped on my steaming soy latte. Nouwen’s wealth of experience and his thoughts on compassion and solitude are worth sharing with you. These are words that beckon me to come and drink them in.
“Compassion is the fruit of solitude and the basis of all ministry. The purification and transformation that take place in solitude manifest themselves in compassion.”
“Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to the place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken. What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it. “
“In solitude we realize that nothing human is alien to us, that the roots of all conflict, war, injustice, cruelty, hatred, jealousy, and envy are deeply anchored in our own heart. In solitude our heart of stone can be turned into a heart of flesh, a rebellious heart into a contrite heart, and a closed heart into a heart that can open itself to all suffering people in a gesture of solidarity.”
pg 24/25 The Way of the Heart
Nouwen speaks of compassion that opens the heart, and how it comes when we look at the truth of who we are within. Perhaps the sadness about contempt that I am seeing today is that in effect contempt keeps us from acknowledging the depth of our own wounding. Contempt prevents us from holding the dark places open to the Light where the breath of the Almighty can bring the balm of healing life. Contempt keeps the heart in isolation, in darkness. I love the thought Nouwen shares of solitude yielding compassion.
That truth of solitude yielding compassion is a balm that heals the sting of contempt.