Compassion is not a social facade. Compassion is not a sham designed to mask our essential self–centeredness. Compassion is the emotion that links us to those outside ourselves. It is the capacity for outreach. It enables us, it drives us, to go beyond ourselves to the beating pulse of the rest of the world. Compassion, then, is a dimension of what it means to be fully human.
I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany,but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.