Everyday Compassion

Andrew Cavanagh.

I am the woman I pass in the supermarket aisle. Her worries are my worries. Her frustration and irritation is mine.
We are one.
I am the man in the red four-wheel drive behind me in a rage honking his horn wildly and swearing abuse. His anger is mine. His overwhelming frustration is also inside me. It comes from me and to me it returns.
When I turn on the television I am the man looking down the barrel of a rifle at my sworn enemy, enveloped in hate. His hate is my hate. I created it, it belongs to me.
I am the man about to die from a bullet propelled with hatred borne from fear.
I am the victim. His suffering is my suffering. I know it, I feel it. Why do I kill myself?
I am the little girl who grows up fatherless. The void in her life filled only with confusion and longing is my void, my confusion, my longing.
Jesus said, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." I also say that my brother's sin is my sin. Can I not see that sin in myself? In some way do I not share his transgression, his weakness, his guilt?
There is an old American Indian saying "Walk a mile in my moccasins." I say that I have always walked in my brother's moccasins. They are my moccasins. I walk his path.
We are one.
The sun, the rain and the tears that fall on those moccasins come from the same sun that warms me, the same rain that drenches me and the same heart that suffers and through suffering softens and grows. Those moccasins are stained with my tears.
I am the woman I pass in the supermarket aisle.