On Sunday, April 25, I led the Unitarian Universalist Community of Frankfort in a Circle Worship service entitled, Compassion: The Charter & the Principles. In the previous post, I gave the Compassionate Quotes that were read in its worship circle. In this post, I give the main substance, the background material, if you will, for that service.
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A special woman of and for our time, a woman named Karen Armstrong, has a special project/initiative.
An Englishwoman, Karen Armstrong describes herself as a religious historian. She has a degree in English literature from Oxford, but has become known as a self-taught scholar of comparative religion. A former Roman Catholic nun, she has also referred to herself as a free-lance monotheist and is the author of twenty-two books. The four that I have read and found quite meaningful are A History of God, Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths, The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam and The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions. Her latest book is called, The Case for God (2009). She has also written a book on Buddha, one on Mohammed, and one on the Crusades. There is an entry about her in Wikipedia Encyclopedia.
In her study, Armstrong found, as she put it, that her work had continually brought her back to the notion of compassion. "Whichever religious tradition I study," she said, "I find I find that the heart of it is the idea of feeling with the other, experiencing with the other, compassion. And every single one of the major world religions has developed its own version of the Golden Rule: Don't do to others what you would not like them to do to you." She has said that Confucius was the first sage to state this rule and that Jesus was the one who, many centuries later, put it in its positive form: Do to others what you would have them do to you.
In 2008, Karen Armstrong was awarded the $100,000 TED prize to fulfill her wish to change the world based on her giving the talk of her life. TED, a small nonprofit, helped with the launch of a Charter for Compassion. A website was set up to begin developing a Charter for anyone, anywhere, online to contribute ideas. Eventually, these submissions were whittled and honed by a Council of Conscience consisting of eighteen high-level religious leaders and thinkers. The Charter itself was formally launched on November 12, 2009. The online Charter is open to affirming signatures by the general public. The website also consists of submissions of original, individual acts of compassion. There is also a Facebook page. The Charter has partner organizations and faith communities, including the Unitarian Universalist Association. There is even a Compassionate Action Network. (On Saturday, April 24, organized by that Network, Seattle, WA signed the Charter and became the first Compassionate City. There was a day of events centering around the Charter and compassion. Karen Armstrong even gave a talk.) Armstrong who would like the Charter for Compassion to be the basis for a movement has said that she wants to make compassion "cool." I put it as compassion being "in" rather than "out." I firmly believe that compassion needs to be both widely practiced, furthered, and promoted especially in our world today.
The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.
It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism, or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others—even our enemies—is a denial of our common humanity. We acknowledge that we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion.
We therefore call upon all men and women ~ to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion ~ to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate ~ to ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures ~ to encourage a positive appreciation of cultural and religious diversity ~ to cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings—even those regarded as enemies.
We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensible to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community.
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Karen Armstrong's book, The Great Transformation; The Beginning of our Religious Traditions of 2006, was about what is called, The Axial Age, the period from about 900 to 200 BCE, when Confucianism and Daoism in China; Hinduism and Buddhism in India; monotheism in Israel; and philosophical rationalism in Greece, all came into being.
In the concluding chapter of The Great Transformation called, "The Way Forward," Armstrong wrote:
We are living in a period of great fear and pain. The Axial Age taught us to face up to the suffering that is an inescapable fact of human life. Only by admitting our own pain can we learn to empathize with others. Today we are deluged with more images of suffering than any previous generation: war, natural disasters, famine, poverty, and disease are beamed nightly into our living rooms. Life is indeed dukkha [suffering, out of kilter]. It is tempting to retreat from this ubiquitous horror, to deny that it has anything to do with us, and to cultivate a deliberately "positive" attitude that excluded anybody's pain but our own. But the Axial sages insisted that this was not an option. People who deny the suffering of life and stick their heads in the sand are "false prophets." Unless we allow the sorrow that presses in on all sides to invade our consciousness, we cannot begin our spiritual quest. In our era of international terrorism, it is hard for any of us to imagine that we can live in the Buddha's pleasure park. Suffering will sooner or later impinge upon all our lives, even in the protected societies of the first world. Instead of resenting this, the Axial sages would tell us; we should treat it as a religious opportunity.
We must continually remind ourselves that the Axial sages developed their compassionate ethic in horrible and terrifying circumstances. They were not meditating in ivory towers but were living in frightening war-torn societies, where the old values were disappearing. Like us, they were conscious of the void and the abyss. The sages were not utopian dreamers but practical men; many were preoccupied with politics and government. They were convinced that empathy did not just sound edifying, but actually worked. Compassion and concern for everybody was the best policy. We should take their insights seriously, because they were the experts. They devoted a great deal of time and energy to thinking about the nature of goodness. They spent as much creative energy seeking a cure for the spiritual malaise of humanity as scientists today spend trying to find a cure for cancer. We have different preoccupations. The Axial Age was a time of spiritual genius; we live in an age of scientific and technological genius, and our spiritual education is often undeveloped.
... We now have to develop a global consciousness, because,whether we like it or not, we live in one world. Even though our problem is different from that of the Axial sages, they can still help us. They did not jettison the insight of the old religion, but deepened and extended them. In the same way, we should develop the insights of the Axial Age.
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I believe the Charter of Compassion closely aligns with both the principles adhered to by Unitarian Universalists and the sources of faith of Unitarian Universalism.
UU Principles and Sources of Faith
There are seven principles which Unitarian Universalist congregations affirm and promote:
- The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
- Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
- Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
- A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
- The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
- The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
- Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
Unitarian Universalism (UU) draws from many sources:
- Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life;
- Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love;
- Wisdom from the world's religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life;
- Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbors as ourselves;
- Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit.
- Spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.
These principles and sources of faith are the backbone of our religious community.
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During the sharing time, someone asked me why I thought the Charter for Compassion was so important. Since I have trouble thinking on my feet, I had trouble answering that question. I since have pondered some and am trying to express it. I could probably use a complete blog post to answer the question, but, instead, will try to do so here.
As someone said on the Charter's Facebook page, the Charter for Compassion is very close to my heart. I was a member of the Christian church most of my life and I believe the Charter speaks to Christianity's deepest affirmations and mission, especially that of Jesus himself. I have always been a strong believer in the Golden Rule. While still having a strong religious impulse and trying to follow Jesus, I have come to see the unity of the religions at their core. I believe that the Charter for Compassion is an answer for today's religious strife. I also believe it is an antidote to the mean-spirited and and hard-line approach that seems to have been so in vogue recently.
Not believing that war is the answer, I believe that compassion is. I have never agreed with the War of Terror on Terror. I have always believed that 9-11 was, in the larger sense, a wake-up call for the United States and its foreign policy and relations. Revenge and killing were not and are not answering that call. I have believed that the United States was called to change its ways. To treat others in the world as we would wish to be treated. Every person is important. Every culture is also important. I look to the line in our Declaration of Independence about all being created equal and endowed with certain unalienable rights among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I have never believed that all this was to be just for Americans. I believe we need to put on different glasses.
By extension, I also believe that especially in this time of the earth's fragility and climate change, we need to have compassion for all the earth and its beings and creatures.
As people have said, we are all one. We are all connected.
I have been a big believer in the efficacy of and need for consciousness-raising or awareness-raising, as one might say. I also believe in putting my name one the line and standing up for for what I believe in. I see the Charter as a tool for the endeavor that peace may prevail on earth.
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