Shed a Little Light
Compassion is not a switch we can turn off and on when it is convenient. Feeling something deep in our gut when we encounter hurting people is not as simple as deciding that this time we will care. Compassion is a muscle, and this muscle grows by being exercised. We become more compassionate by practicing compassion. We practice compassion by allowing ourselves to see and feel the pain of others. By refusing to choose numbness when we’re uncomfortable with hard truths. –Chris Field, A Billion Hours of Good: Changing the World 14 Minutes at a Time
I have referenced the Mercy Project before, the nonprofit work that Chris Field and his wife started in 2009.
Not until I read Field’s book, however, did I have a word to describe this thing in myself that I first sensed in grade school that the writer references as splagchnizomai, phonetic spelling splank-kneeza- my.
A Greek word, it literally means “to be moved to one’s bowels or innards.” As Field writes, “It is referring to a compassion so fierce and intense that you can literally feel it in your gut.”
Splagchnizomai swelled up inside me in the second grade when a classmate put her head down on her desk, sobbed quietly, and then had to go home. She had visibly soiled her clothes. My instinct was to protect her from ridicule, not to laugh or shun or turn away in disgust. Those reactions are still a dominant part of my nature.
Field calls these reactions running “towards the heartache of others instead of turning from it.” I am here to tell you that sometimes I wish I were numb or detached. We live in a time of much suffering, and it weighs heavily on me—from a child’s illness to a social injustice to unfair practices.
So how do we respond to suffering or injustice? In Field’s book, the formula is simple. Dedicate fourteen minutes a day every day to intentional compassion. It is, as renowned speaker and author Josh Linkner writes, “….a brilliant roadmap to make our biggest possible impact.”
“Impact” is such a fluid word. Our compassionate impact can manifest itself in monumental ways or in quiet, subtle actions or words.
The author and his wife have dedicated themselves to Mercy Project, whose impact has helped save nearly three hundred children who were trafficked to work in the fishing industry on Lake Volta in Ghana, Africa. The trained native staff now sustain their endeavor. In December 2023, the first rescued child from a decade earlier was accepted into university.
All because Field listened to that intense feeling in his gut and did something about it.
Monumental or miniscule, we can impact the lives of others when we are intentional with the fine art of caring. If you are not naturally an empathetic person, you can exercise this part of your soul and evolve into a person who does act out of genuine concern.
“If I look back at some of the most extraordinary and meaningful moments of my life, the majority are marked with one common thread that runs through them: I made a conscious decision to show up.”
Wouldn’t the world change for the better if we all just showed up in ways we can?
Snyder, Texas, native Sue Jane Sullivan is a retired schoolteacher whose thought-provoking commentary appears occasionally in several West Texas newspapers, including The Texas Spur and The Caprock Courier.
