Compassionate Relationships

We live in a world of competition, comparison, and criticism. This world is antithetical to compassion. An authentic relationship is one in which there are no barriers. We feel free to be who we are with out feeling the need for control or power. When we are Centered and Open, then we can have these compassionate relationships. The following is a quote from one of my favorite spiritual writers, Henri Nouwen, from his book The Way of the Heart:

If you would ask the Desert Fathers why solitude gives birth to compassion, they would say, 'Because it makes us die to our neighbor.' At first the answer seems quite disturbing to the modern mind. But when we give to others we have to die to them: that is, we have to give up measuring our meaning and value with the yard stick of others. To die to our neighbors means to stop judging them, to stop evaluating them, and thus be free to be compassionate. Compassion can never coexist with judgment because judgment creates the distance, the distinction, which prevents us from really being with others.