Under Pressure - Chaos and Compassion

Compassion isn’t easy. It takes work to tune out the noise of the world and re-find that place in ourselves that feels soft and giving and strong.

There is an increasingly chaotic nature of the news that I read – war, hate, profit before ecology, and denigrating the views of others are now my regular morning catch-up. I don’t think it used to be this bad. And just yesterday I heard the song Under Pressure (Queen & David Bowie). It seemed apt:

Pressure
Pushing down on me
Pressing down on you
No man ask for
Under pressure
That burns a building down
Splits a family in two
Puts people on streets…

 'Cause love's such an old-fashioned word
And love dares you to care for
The people on the edge of the night
And love dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves
This is our last dance
This is our last dance
This is ourselves

 I have over the past couple of days wondered if we are heading towards our last dance, our last chance. And, also, at the same time, the world is a wonderfully beautiful precious place – “love dares you to care for the people on the edge of the night/ And love dares you to change our way of caring about ourselves”. I think part of moving in a direction so that the dance goes on is us individually and collectively making the radical move towards finding the happiness around us. The quiet beauty of a tree, the sky, a smile, an act of kindness or forgiveness, a piece of music. And then to move from and act from the place in ourselves where we feel this quietness. Quoting from another song, “From little things, big things grow…”

I’m going outside to look at the sky.