During a PaB meeting I told this story:
It may take some persistance to meet and understand that favorite grandma. When i was very little..i hated one of mine. It took my whole life so far to get to know her..but about 10 years ago..at about 30...i learned who she was as a human being..she has fed me as a human being since then. Our compassion for each other has grown and grown..and both our souls are lighter for it.
We just became entangled for no apparant reason and leaned to hear each
other for what we were.
What was important to me in the story was that it wasn't a story of either of us changing to become someone different. She was still pretty much the same woman, and I was pretty much the same, too. She still yelled, complained about people and thought women had specific roles they should fill. I was still an ardent feminist of the kind that thinks women and men can choose their roles; still a lesbian; and still self rightous about both things.
As a result of our compassion for each other both of us HAVE changed. I'm not so self rightous about my beliefs. She has invited my partner to come stay at her house with me. She respects my opinion and I hers. From dislike and disinterest we have moved to a deep love. She is the same; I am the same. We know each other for what we are, "good" and "bad", "socially acceptable" and not. What seems to have happened, is that we learned to listen instead of trying to change the other..just to see clearly.
I believe that Love and compassion are NOT about looking for the good in others. It's about looking carefully, closely at what the other is, seeing it clearly, accepting it as it is.
I know..you're thinking..what if it is EVIL! I don't have an answer. I really don't. Still, I think compassion doesn't exactly ask us to decide if something is evil or not, wrong or not. That's a different kind of knowing, a different kind of choosing to accept or not.
