Compassion can never coexist with judgement because judgement creates the distance, the distinction, which prevents us from really being with the other.

You have to dare to live through the pain and struggle. Acknowledge your anguish but do not let it pull you out of yourself. Hold on to your chosen direction, your discipline, your prayer, your work, your guides, and trust that one day love will have conquered enough of you that even the most fearful part will allow love to cast out all fear.

That's prayer to let God's Word speak deep within you and tell you, "You are my beloved. You don't have to take an eye for an eye. No, no you're too rich for that."

Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.

The mystery of ministry is that we have been chosen to make our own limited and very conditional love the gateway for the unlimited and unconditional love of God.

When we become aware that we do not have to escape our pains, but that we can mobilize them into a common search for life, those very pains are transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope.

The friend who cares makes it clear that whatever happens in the external world, being present to each other is what really matters. In fact, it matters more than pain, illness, or even death.