Compassion Starts Right Here, in the Heart

Steve Duin writes columns for The Oregonian, Portland’s newspaper. On November 24, he wrote a piece about an eighth-grade girl who was on a field trip and visited the central branch of the county library with her class.  She chose a book to read and went to the checkout desk. “You have some late fees to pay,” the librarian said. Fifty-four dollars worth. “The sum of her devotion to reading and her forgetfulness,” Duin commented.

She didn’t have any money, and “she stood there for a moment, not unnerved, exactly, just feeling a little foolish and very much alone.” At that moment, a man in a suit stepped out of the line behind her and offered to pay her fine. She was too surprised to answer. The man handed over a credit card. “She was still stammering out the thank-yous when he said, ‘I hope you enjoy your book,’ and disappeared.”

The rest of the column was about the effect that the man’s generosity had on the girl. She wrote in a paper about the field trip, “. . . I made a promise to myself. I would help others so they could feel the happiness that I felt when someone helped me.”

Nice column. Sweet. But I was hung up back in the moment before the good Samaritan in a suit showed up. I had without thinking adopted the attitude of the librarian: “Fifty-four dollars? What’s wrong with you, girl? Don’t you pay attention? Let this be a lesson to you.”

Wait. I thought that? That can’t be, I’m a teacher, I have compassion for children . . . don’t I? I’m a champion of kids reading, and I can remember how, as an eighth-grader, I would forget to do the most obvious things. I can relate … can’t I? Apparently not.

Would I have paid that girl’s fine? Fifty-four dollars? That’s a lot of money. Five dollars, sure. Ten, maybe. Actually, I have the money. I could pay it. But would I? My heart had contracted around the girl’s plight, not opened. I talk about compassion, but I don’t always walk it.

If I see something coming a mile off, I’ve got a better chance of making a measured decision. But if I’m surprised, I often go with my kneejerk reaction, and that reaction is usually judgmental and critical.

If we didn’t grow up learning loving-kindness in our home, as I did not, it can be tough to replace judgment/criticism with compassion. But I’m working at it, and you can, too. The first step is to catch ourselves having the judgmental thought. The second step is to be interested and curious about how our minds work, not to criticize ourselves for being critical (the place to start practicing loving-kindness is with ourselves–now that’s hard). The third step is then to make another choice.

And here’s a big payoff for ourselves—when we practice loving-kindness, we experience (wait for it) . . . playfulness. Oh, I’ll have a helping of that, please.