From time to time I get a little frustrated sitting behind the desk at the province centre, trying to get to grips with the mountain of paper, emails, letters and other communications that come across my desk without fail every day whether I am there or not. Lesley does a great job trying to keep the stacks in an order that confines them and I manfully bash one lot into shape before the next lot arrives hoping that the inwards and outwards stuff might somehow balance so that the overall effect is of a constant diet rather than a feast.
Paper and computers each have their own personality. No matter how few pieces of paper strew my desk the very one I want has a mind of its own and invariably finds itself in the pile it is not meant to be in and what is more at the bottom of that pile. Computers (related to photocopiers) know exactly when the pressure is on and manage to make a glitch happen just at the precise moment you figure that the newsletter is ready to go and nothing can get into the machine to halt its progress to NZ Post.
Yes I have a mind for computers and technology—I find that people often start their conversations with me with questions about technical matters or small problems that they figure I can solve. My father is similar and while he is certainly a Mr Fixit—I know he prefers that people don’t automatically label him that way—as if he is better with things rather than people.
For me the most telling virtue a Marist requires is compassion. Compassion is that virtue by which we see and know the plight of another and have enough insight and love to do whatever it is that we can to assist. It is not just empathy which requires, I think, seeing the difficulty of another and being able to in some way even experience (share in?) that pain. No it goes further than that—it moves us towards doing something, however inadequate, however feeble, that might in some way show the face of God to another. Compassion encompasses for me then, several other virtues— it contains empathy sure, and charity and a sense of justice and certainly (for men) a certain brotherliness and then generosity, mercy and even selflessness. It comes about because of the movement inside the heart to know and love and then to produce some action.
I wonder whether you remember your days of philosophy—mine taught by great men like Kevin Bonisch and Pat Bearsley. When trying to wrestle with the idea of knowledge, learning that in some way the knower takes in the known and becomes one with it. Similarly for me—compassion does that same thing—I am moved to take you into my care—into my heart, into my space. You become my concern.
In the years (too many) that I have sat in this office I am aware that compassion is required even in the desk jobs of Marist Life. And I certainly need a fair amount of it at times from the others here—Brian and Phil.
Even in administration compassion is the lead virtue—when something goes wrong in the life of one of the confreres I do my best to take the first step from that position. Even when things go badly wrong—even in the worst of all possible situations I need to keep the first movement one of compassion.
The older I get—and I am overjoyed to be in the Society where even in your 50s people still think of you as one of the young ones—the older I get— the more I realise that for the vast majority of people life is really pretty difficult. And that, too, even in our country we call God’s own! I am not a great believer in the Golden Rule—the do unto others thing. It seems to me to come out somewhat self focussed.
Marist compassion is for me the virtue that makes my ministry bearable—it makes doing the bits with paper seem something that might even have value. I always love Mary of the Scriptures that in each situation shows to her sons what it means to be compassionate.