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The Compassionate Life: The Book and the Website Readers who regularly follow my column know that I’m getting my Ph.D. in theology with a research focus on compassionate love and work closely with Stephen Post’s Institute for Research on Unlimited Love at Case Western Reserve Medical School in Cleveland. As much as I’ve read and studied, there is always more to learn—and others to learn from. Where have I been, I have to ask myself, after discovering Marc Ian Barasch, author of Field Notes on the Compassionate Life: A Search for the Soul of Kindness (Rodale, April 2005), and his website, www.compassionatelife.com. But, better late than never ... A book signing and Q&A session with Marc is scheduled for 7 p.m. on May 16, 2005, at Transitions Bookplace, 1000 W. North Ave. in Chicago (www.transitionsbookplace.com). I plan to be there. In the meantime, I discovered that a great place to get to know both Marc and his book better is at his website. The homepage sets the stage by explaining in a nutshell the focus of Marc’s book: “With a keen balance of hope and skepticism, Marc Barasch sets out on a journey to the heart of compassion, discovering its power to change who we are and the society we have become. He describes encounters with empathetic apes, and with Buddhist monks whose brain scans prove the power of compassion practice; with a man who donated a kidney to a stranger and another who forgave his daughter’s murderer; with teenage Palestinian and Israeli girls trying to wage peace; even with astronomers trying to send a missive to E.T. that we’re not only clever, but kind.” The Bio section reveals that Marc is an award-winning writer, editor, and television producer, author of several books like Healing Dreams and The Healing Path, a classic that has been praised by Dr. Larry Dossey and Dr. Rachel Remen. He was also the writer and co-producer of the Emmy-nominated “One Child, One Voice,” an international TV special for the Turner Broadcasting System (TBS), which aired in 150 countries (www.earthsecure.org). TBS received over a million pieces of mail from around the world in response to this show’s call for global solutions to ecological and social problems. In the Excerpt section, you get a glimpse of the pearls that form the necklace of chapters that make up the book: Chapter One: I dropped in on a new-age workshop recently. Plenty of talk about self-empowerment and self-realization, self-efficacy and peak performance, but compassion didn’t rate second billing on the marquee. It made me wonder what sort of selfhood we’re after: the self which “gets its needs met” but is never fulfilled? Or the self that abundantly gives yet is never emptied? Instead of self-discovery, what about other-discovery, our real terra incognita? Chapter Two: Sometimes when the world seems a lovelorn place, I contemplate a picture over my desk of two bonobo apes hugging and kissing with lush abandon, and I perk right up. I’m inspired by this species of primate whose social life, in the words of one zoologist, is “ruled by compassion,” and whose method of solving conflict could be fairly said to be, Make Love, Not War. They are not just a reminder of where we come from, but of what sort of creature we are, at heart. Chapter Four: I got an email the other day whose title line read: “Affirm Everything About Anyone.” Yes, exactly, I thought: unconditional positive regard. It turned out to be an offer to spy on people via the Web, but no matter. Why not just affirm everything, about everyone; accept each person in as-is condition and love them for who they are? Chapter Seven: We each know ourselves to be capable of selflessness. We’ll lay aside our needs—even lay down our lives—for our nearest and dearest. But beyond the charmed circle, we tend to parcel love out, weighing who deserves what (while placing a subtle thumb on the scale: what’s in it for me?). Altruists seem instead to have inscribed in their very bones the great writ of all faiths: Love the stranger. They don’t just give themselves to family and very best friends; they give themselves to pretty much anyone who asks, sometimes till it hurts. Chapter Twelve: If we really want to heal our world, we’d better find an antidote beyond the topical remedies of truces and treaties. If war is an infection in the human system, its cure must lie in strengthening what it most directly attacks: our capacity for compassion. The website’s Blog section gives you a chance to share your own stories of compassion and, just maybe, get a personal response from Marc. For example, Lee Pope sent in this share on March 19th: “I have just read an advance copy of your book given to me by my daughter who works in a bookstore. ‘This is right up your alley, Mom, all about how everyone really has a deep need to be living a life of service and compassion.’ Thank you for this—I could hardly put it down. Are you familiar with an astonishing true story from the ’90s about a cantor from Lincoln, Nebraska who reached out the Grand Dragon of the local Ku Klux Clan and transformed him almost overnight into a real human? This amazing story has been written about in a book called Not By The Sword, by Katherine Watterson.” And Marc’s April 1st reply was: “This is, I think, one of the best books I came across on the subject of forgiveness. I very nearly cited it in the book, but decided in the end it had been so well portrayed that I wouldn’t be adding anything to this astonishing story of true moral courage. Not only was the Klansman/Neo-Nazi a dangerous character involved with explosives; not only did the Cantor catalyze a profound change in his “enemy,” to the point that this former racist became a public advocate for, not to be too treacly, love and harmony; but the Cantor and his family took the man into their home when he had cancer and nursed him through is dying. It illustrates what is considered the highest form of forgiveness—one which leads not only to a metanoia, a change of heart—but also gives an unwarranted gift to the wrongdoer (think of the famous story of the silver candlestick holder in Les Miserables.” My advice: Get a preview of Field Notes on the Compassionate Life at the website—don’t be shy about sharing your own stories of compassion on the blog. Then buy the book and attend the book signing. Here’s hoping that I see you there. Mary Montgomery-Clifford is a certified web author and developer. Her company, Montgomery Media Enterprises ("Freelancing with Finesse!"), specializes in public relations, events, promotions, writing project and web authoring, development and publicity. Ms. Montgomery-Clifford has a Master's Degree in religious studies from Chicago Theological Seminary (CTS) in June 2002 and is working on a Ph.D. with a focus on the new scholarship of Unlimited Love and the Other Regarding Virtues in the Fall of 2002. She is also in the process of completing the Morris Pratt Institute Course on Modern Spiritualism. Contact her via e-mail at Monty764@aol.com, by phone at 773-235-8821 or at her web site at www.montymedia.com. |
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