Compassion is the only way forward if we are to be well. Compassion for those who do not know that they are beloved. Compassion for the children and creatures who are suffering today. Compassion even for the people and nations who wrong us. Revenge has no future, apart from bitterness and the multiplication of wrong. As Mahatma Gandhi taught his people in the midst of his nation’s struggle for justice and liberation, the philosophy of revenge, of an eye for an eye, will only make the whole world blind. If what we are committed to is transformation, then the only way forward is compassion, not revenge. A passion that is with and for the other as well as oneself, a passion that is with us and for the other as oneself.
There is a church in Umbria, Little Portion, already old eight hundred years ago. Abandoned and in disrepair, it was called St. Mary of the Angels, for it was known to be the haunt of angels. Often at night the country people could hear angels singing there.
What was it like, to listen to the angels, to hear those mountain-fresh, those simple voices, poured out of the bare stones of Little Portion in hymns of joy? No one has told us. Perhaps its needs another language that we have still to learn, an altogether different language.
