SPIRITUAL PERSPECTIVES
  • Home
  • Lets Listen
    • Daily Lift
    • Radio Feature
    • Podcasts
    • For Kids
  • Lets talk
    • ...about healing prayer >
      • 7 Things I Wish Everyone knew...
    • ...about Christian Science
    • ...about Science
    • ...about Mary Baker Eddy
    • ...about Martin Luther King
  • Lets read
    • Lets read: TAKE 5!
    • Publications >
      • Articles
      • Poems
      • Healings
      • Sentinel Watch
      • Audio Podcasts
      • Religious Articles
      • For Children
      • Publications-German >
        • Artikel und Texte
        • Gedichte
        • Audio Podcasts
        • Für Kinder!
        • Heilungen
    • Posters
    • Lets be >
      • Lets be
      • Good Morning!
  • Lets connect
    • Annette
    • Annette's Practice
    • Practice Fees
    • Pay a bill
    • Contact
    • Site notice
  • Ideas
    • My favorite day
    • How are you?
    • Volunteering
    • Show Up - Every Day
    • How unrest ends
    • Know the image
    • Right Thinking
    • Spiritual practices
    • A word-A world
  • German Website
    • German Audio

       
Ideas



Overcoming compassion fatigue

7/9/2016

 
Picture
Christian quarter of Aleppo, before the civil war.
I have not been to Syria - but I love this country, I spoke a few times to Syrian refugees and we are friends with a Syrian restaurant owner here in Berlin. I also do follow the regular blog of the journalist Zouhir al-Shimale, who is writing since February from Aleppo, a northern Syrian city. He describes the fate of hundreds of thousands of people who are bottled up. Aleppo is under siege. Since 2012 this city has been site of the most fierce civil war in the region. Most inhabitants could flee, but hundreds of thousands are still there. Every day houses are bombarded, the latest news included an attack with chlorine gas, the infrastructure already mostly in ruins - the city has no more drinking water, electricity, food or medical supplies. The desperate report by the Syrian journalist sounds utterly hopeless - as all his previous posts.

There are days when I feel I cannot take one more news. This was one day like this. So the question posed recently by The Christian Science Monitor was my question: "How do you keep your sense of empathy in the face of compassion fatigue?" A different question from my question: "When will this end - when will those people be free?"

I prayed and listened deeply for an answer. Compassion fatigue. The answer was already present in the way I tried to come up with an answer: Prayer. I really don't know any other way that is effective, reaches wirelessly every corner on the globe - and is unselfish enough to break the spell of compassion fatigue. So I admitted that there are spiritual solutions at hand, God-given solutions. Solutions that are real, accessible, and at hand. This conviction stems directly from the fact that God maintains His own creation - even if the physical picture, the news say something different. In the Bible I find this: "... we are looking forward to the new heaven and new earth he has promised, a world filled with God's righteousness." (2 Pet 2: 13, NLT) This world is at hand - God didn't disappear from His/Her spiritual creation. A change of perspective.

My resolve was back and I listened more deeply, longing to love everyone on the planet with a love directly from God, yearning to see Aleppo and its inhabitants from God's point of view. Instead of just buying a desperate report. I was determined to see the truth of God's righteousness right there, as much as spiritually minded individuals in the Bible could see more and help better. They are our distant allies. The Bible is the ultimate "how to help others" book.

So in my prayer about Aleppo under siege I realized how the law of good really empowers us to affirm in prayer the opposite of what a material picture presents to us. And a very powerful truth unfolded itself in my thought: "You know that there are people. Is it truly possible that somewhere a man is - and God is not? Where man is, God is. If there are people, there is God present. Right there. It is impossible to consider man without his source, without his Creator." 

So now I had overcome the compassion fatigue. Instead of mentally agreeing with hopelessness and frustration I switched sides and gratefully honored Life as an everpresent resource of health and goodness. Right where destruction, desaster and a deadlock undermine the peace-building and humanitarian efforts, God, Mind, is present and upholds hope, peace-building and humanitarian efforts and the spirit to persevere. Right where senseless violence seems to rule I could see the constructive forces of divine Love at work. I could see the unbreakable link between God and man, and I continue to cherish this specific message: God is where man is. Period. God being Life, Spirit, Love, the reason for existing, the very reason for hope and faith. Psalm 24 has this inspiration for us - a deep insight into the nature of Life, a realistic perspective in our world:

"The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it. The world and all its people belong to him."

Everyone has the same dignity, relevance, greatness - everyone is worthy, important and loved. This insight has its roots in a spiritual perspective, it doesn't play favorites and it shows how and where progress is going to happen. Humility and a quiet stand for what is right is a good start. This is the opposite of being naïve: It is spiritual realism.

Today the only thing I can do for this pressing problem is to see that God is right there. And that He/She has solutions and constructive strength at His/Her disposal that are for real. Man is where God is - God is where man is. No more compassion fatigue.

Picture
Library in Aleppo - still intact, in an undestroyed part of town.
Lynne
8/9/2016 06:34:37 pm

Lovely pointed and perfect illustrations

Ruth Anderson Donovan link
8/9/2016 08:15:15 pm

Thank you for your recent posts Annette- I found the following lines your shared particularly helpful with respect to thinking about the situations in news from other countries needing prayer:

" And a very powerful truth unfolded itself in my thought: Where man is, God is. If there are people, there is God. It is impossible to consider man without his source, without his Creator.

So now I had overcome the compassion fatigue. Instead of mentally agreeing with hopelessness and frustration I switched sides and honored Life as an everpresent resource of health and goodness."

When praying for a friend's family, and, later, needing to offer support and compassion to a newcomer who said he was homeless, and had come to the reading room to pray (the friend he had been staying with took his own life) - the thought came : "we cannot fall out of God's care" - see also Hymn #85 (" God of Truth, eternal good- lift our hearts to revelation...") . It is so important in daily prayerful practice to begin rightly, and to let go of any false sense of personal responsibility, by affirming God's All-ness and ever-presence, and responding to it. and out from it. My teacher told us to look prayerfully to the weekly Bible lesson for answers to whatever came our way in need of healing. In this week's Christian Science Quarterly Bible lesson, for September 11, Marker 7 in the Bible ( Psalm 73:25, 26) and Marker 11,15, and 20 in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, open out the idea of starting with God as our source of strength and compassion, and of our identity (and everyone elses' too). An experienced practitioner also told me she is knowing the Truth, and mentally refuting claims of error when anyone calls needing help, even as they speak together - we can do this with the news too - not taking in mortal mind arguments, but reversing them and lifting thought higher, affirming, maintaining, and reflecting on God, Mind's, spiritual state of consciousness and harmony. As a musician, you know that perfect models, held in thought, refine and purify our practice. Thank you for your blog and for continuing in the practice of Christian Science, Annette. Mary Baker Eddy liked the quote that includes: "...comforters are needed much, of Christ-like touch".


Ruth Anderson Donovan
8/9/2016 08:18:39 pm

I appreciate the picture of the library, still intact, in the city of Allepo, and will add my prayers to your own in support of the journalist reaching out for help for his community.

Ruth Anderson Donovan
8/9/2016 08:22:39 pm

Aleppo, not Alleppo. I cannot read German, but prayer speaks all languages, and Christ speaks to every consciousness appealing for Truth to be made apparent.

.


Comments are closed.
    Picture

    Who is writing?

    ​Dr. Annette Kreutziger-Herr

    In my work as Christian Science practitioner and writer I draw on listening to God and listening to people.
    I strive to love deeper and work better,
    every day. Here I share ideas as occasion demands.
    ​

    Picture
    Picture
    I support the UN Refuge Agency. Want to join me?
    Picture
    ​​​I support
    "Sunrise of Africa".
    Want to join me?​

    Categories

    All
    Abundant
    Advent
    Affection
    Afghanistan
    Akhil Sharma
    Animals
    Apartheid
    Apples
    Atmosphere
    Beauty
    Bible
    Book
    Bread
    Children
    Christmas
    Competition
    Complaining
    Cows
    CS Monitor
    Daily
    Danger Zone
    Darkness
    Day
    Death
    Depression
    Discovery
    Dislike
    Doctrine
    Do It
    Doubt
    Dualism
    Effort
    Endeavor
    Envy
    Evidence
    Expectancy Of Good
    Fear
    Feeling
    Follow
    Forgiveness
    Forgiving
    Foxes
    Freedom
    Freshness
    Freshness Redemption Progress Movement
    Friendship
    Fruit
    Fruits
    Gentleness
    Getting Along
    Gift
    Ginger Rogers
    Global
    God
    Golden Rule
    Graduation
    Gratitude
    Happiness
    Harmony
    Healing
    Health
    Heart
    Help
    Home
    Humanity
    Humility
    Image
    Imperfection
    Intelligence
    Joy
    Justin Timberlake
    Kind
    Kindness
    Knowledge
    Landscape
    Learning
    Library
    Life
    Light
    Like
    Listening
    Local
    Long Time Exposure
    Love
    Man
    Martin-luther
    Mary Baker Eddy
    Maya Angelou
    Mentoring
    Mercy
    Mind
    Modesty
    Morning
    Music
    Negativity
    Nelson Mandela
    New
    One
    Oneness
    Opinions
    Overcoming-judgment
    Pain
    Panic
    Past
    Paul
    Peace
    Perfection
    Persistence
    Plants
    Platinum
    Pneuma
    Politics
    Postmodernism
    Prayer
    Psalms
    Public
    Purity
    Purpose
    Reflection
    Respect
    River
    Roger McGowen
    Ron Radford
    Rules
    Salt
    Sea
    Stars
    Still
    Study
    Substance
    Success
    Sunshine
    Supply
    Surface
    Tears
    Truth
    Unity
    Universe
    University
    Unselfishness
    Usefulness
    Visibility
    Who
    Wholeness
    Work
    Worry
    Yes

     My Archive

    November 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014

    Picture
© Copyright 2023. All rights reserved. Content may not be used except by permission. Annette Kreutziger-Herr, CS
Artwork by Anna-Zoë Herr. Photography by Annette Kreutziger-Herr, Martin Speer, Anna-Zoë Herr.
  • Home
  • Lets Listen
    • Daily Lift
    • Radio Feature
    • Podcasts
    • For Kids
  • Lets talk
    • ...about healing prayer >
      • 7 Things I Wish Everyone knew...
    • ...about Christian Science
    • ...about Science
    • ...about Mary Baker Eddy
    • ...about Martin Luther King
  • Lets read
    • Lets read: TAKE 5!
    • Publications >
      • Articles
      • Poems
      • Healings
      • Sentinel Watch
      • Audio Podcasts
      • Religious Articles
      • For Children
      • Publications-German >
        • Artikel und Texte
        • Gedichte
        • Audio Podcasts
        • Für Kinder!
        • Heilungen
    • Posters
    • Lets be >
      • Lets be
      • Good Morning!
  • Lets connect
    • Annette
    • Annette's Practice
    • Practice Fees
    • Pay a bill
    • Contact
    • Site notice
  • Ideas
    • My favorite day
    • How are you?
    • Volunteering
    • Show Up - Every Day
    • How unrest ends
    • Know the image
    • Right Thinking
    • Spiritual practices
    • A word-A world
  • German Website
    • German Audio