Compassion

Compassion is the capacity to recognize suffering and remain responsive to it without losing discernment.

It asks us to come close enough to care.

Not so close that we become unable to distinguish another person’s pain from our own.

Compassion may lead to comfort, practical action, advocacy or simply witnessing.

It may also require a boundary.

Understanding why someone behaves destructively does not require making ourselves available for the destruction.

Compassion becomes mature when care and clarity can exist in the same response.