KS&L 405 Compassion Fatigue by Tina Erwin

       A bridges collapse, trains collide, planes crash, there is an earthquake, a tidal wave, a hurricane, a bus crash, a person goes crazy and kills many people and the list of calamities continues. Then there are friends and family members who develop cancer, a terrible illness, a debilitating fall, a car accident, someone’s child has leukemia. People are dying in a war somewhere. 22 military people commit suicide a day.

       It is difficult to remember a time in history when there have been so many constant demands on our compassionate hearts. How can we hope to offer constant solace, endless care and the volume of prayers required to send help to all who so desperately need it?

       I know I am not alone in feeling the emotional and spiritual weight of so much tremendous need.

       At some point, it becomes important to recognize that conceivably the best you can do is to send healing to the world every day.

       Many people do something as simple as say The Lord’s Prayer and send the wonderful energy of this prayer to the whole world, to all of nature for the benefit of everyone and everything. Perhaps it is the energy of these and other powerful prayers that keep most of going day to day.

       We do not have to know all the people we are praying for nor do we know whom to thank for the prayers that benefit each of us. Suffice it to say that without prayer we would probably descend into barbarism.

       If you make a practice, a spiritual practice of sending whatever modest prayers you can say and send them to the entire world, and then let go you can do tremendous service.    Perhaps that is the best that any of us can do in a world of often staggering grief. We are often left in disbelief at the sadly carved paths that occur daily into the emotion soul for so many people. Conceivably prayers are the way stations along the way for all of us so that this journey of healing isn’t so difficult.

       This isn’t a very glamorous plan is it, saying a prayer every day? It feels like you’re trying to empty the Pacific with a teaspoon doesn’t it? But what if we all try this? What if we all do this, every single day, 365 days a year?

       Maybe, just maybe, we can change the world.