The moment moral compass leads to moral compassion.

A lie of omission?

A sin of omission?

What is your mission?

The traveler who comes to the wounded man’s aid is the least likely to show sympathy.

How do you like them apples?

I, for one, go bananas.

At the thought.

Of another person struggling, their struggles.

Our neighbor is the one who needs the help that we can give him, whoever he may be. (wjb)

The idea of compassion is challenged in the story of “Echo and Narcissus” by Thomas Bulfinch. Self-absorption often makes compassion impossible, and vice verse. Is it a fear, a state of mind. When is the moment of “cross over”…….

Going bananas. Yes? No?

There is no such thing as a small act of kindness. True.

But (Don’t you sometimes hate that word, “But”…..)

Kindness is not immune to procrastination.

We need to guard against “slow compassion” as we tend to our affairs.

Agree.

With banana in hand. At the ready.

Mor-al-compass+ion= Moral Compassion.

With the “ion” in the equation it almost seems scientific, supernatural. Invisible. Impossible.

Sometimes it may be.

The beauty is we have been gracefully given a life, our own to use as we see fit. To help and serve another. With honest and patriotic intentions and motivations.

Simple.

But.🫤

Not easy.

”It isn’t the thing you do, dear,

It’s the thing you leave undone

That gives you a bit of heartache

At setting of the sun.

The tender word forgotten,

The letters you did not write,

The flowers you did not send dear,

Are your haunting ghosts at a night.

The stone you might have lifted

Out of a brother’s way;

The bit of heart some counsel

You were hurried too much to say;

The loving touch of a hand, dear,

The gentle, winning tone

Which you had no time or thought for

With troubles enough of your own.

Those little acts of kindness

So easily out of mind,

Those chances to be angels

Which we poor mortals find—

They come in night and silence,

Each sad, reproachful wraith,

When hope is faint and flagging,

And a chill has fallen on faith.

For life is all too short, dear,

And sorrow is all too great,

To suffer our slow compassion

That tarries until too late;

And it isn’t the thing you do, dear,

It’s the thing you leave undone

Which gives you a bit of heartache

At the setting of the sun.

(M.E.S.)

Dark.

Yep.

Bananas.

Sad.

Yep.

Bananas.

Tears.

Yep.

Bananas.

Kinda a fruit salad of over ripe emotions. Bitter. Sour. Sadness. Madness.

How it gets to a point where love turns sour. Turns bitter on one another is most assuredly a slow burn of time and circumstances. Ebbing and flowing with gripes, grimaces, shouts and tears. Going bananas.

Tough love?

Love should not have to be tough.

Although loving one another can bring out the best and the beast in all of us.

Never have been great with directions.

Of getting from here to there. On papery maps or digitized assistance.

Relied heavily on the compass of all compasses.

The moral one.

When I felt lost. I knew where to go. How to get there.

Jumped on in.

Looking foolish, I am most certain.

Less concerned with that, than what to do next.

Contradictions are a necessary part of, and a necessary evil of life.

I guess it is how we choose to “slay the beast” that determines our next steps. Our next path forward. No. Never leaving any one person in the dust. Always bringing them along. Time, tethers and the like will simply be,

Different.

Not better or worse.

Just different.

Change is a part of life.

Like death.🙏🏻

And taxes.🙃

None of us get out of “here” alive.

But we can get “up there” with our life.

Cost: A life well lived. A well lived life.

How we choose to spend it is the receipt we will be carrying with us at the gates……Hoping the bar code will ignite the key pad?

Not exactly.

The light up there is the light you carry with you.

By the time you reach the gates, chances are good your connections either have made or broke you.

Slow compassion has its price.

A heavy price.

But not a heavy burden.

Burdens teach us the way.

North south, east or west.

But.(🙂)

which is the best way to set our compass, our morals and move ourselves in that direction. Taking along with us those that desire to follow. Really desire to follow. Anything less will or can dis connect one other in a heart beat. A heartless heart beat.

And that may be one of the main reasons we are where we are now.

There is no manual.

To a life.

There is a book.

A good book.

Tattered pages, open for timeless, spiritual business, read and re-read for many a years. Eagerly awaiting that we lean on its words of wisdom in the darkest of times.

No abandon. No abandoning. Another. Others.

Just a simple belief there is a better way to be. A better way to set our moral compass. To one of compassion.

No selfless act is ever insignificant. It’s just that sometimes we miss the opportunity, because we focused on another, a different opportunity. That is ok. Decisions make us who we are. Where we are.

When the little voice in our head goes from a whisper to a scream though. You gotta,

STOP.

LOOK.

LISTEN.

To it.

In a puff of smoke, the guilty in and of us can go up in a puff of smoke. Sounds cruel. May be cruel. Or so we think in the moment. That is where true compassion takes over. The moral compass. Directs us where to go. Next.

How will we know?

True compassion runs deep.

”True compassion runs deeper than the kind of grief in which we know only our own pain from another’s death. True compassion seeks to understand, or at least recognize, the tragedy dealt to a life suddenly lost.” (WW).

Baby steps.

I think point forward, I will set my moral compass in that direction.

A life of hopes and dreams does not need to be discarded in one fell swoop. The lessons learned along the way, the good and bad both inform the next steps.

Guarded.

Shielded.

By Him.

Baby Steps.