Compassion

Today I have been reading some of the early writings of some of the Friends (Quakers), particularly surrounding alcohol use but other issues as well. They obviously judged other people harshly and attempted to coerce them away from their use of intoxicants, distractions and frivolities. I also find fulfillment in a monastic lifestyle, largely without those intoxicants, distractions and frivolities but I also view others with compassion, realizing that we are all connected. I model myself according to the beautiful comments from Knowing Woman by Irene Claremont deCastillejo, many years ago; "In those rare moments when all the opposites meet within a man, good and also evil, light and also darkness, spirit and also body, brain and also heart, masculine focused consciousness and at the same time feminine diffuse awareness, wisdom of maturity and childlike wonder; when all are allowed and none displaces any other in the mind of a man, then that man, though he may utter no word is in an attitude of prayer. Whether he knows it or not his own receptive allowing will affect all those around him; rain will fall on the parched fields, and tears will turn bitter grief to flowering sorrow, while stricken children dry their eyes and laugh." Coercion and judgment do not fall within love.