Source: Paulo Philippidis, Creative Commons
Compassion brings us to a stop, and for a moment we rise above ourselves.
—Mason Cooley, City Aphorisms, Twelfth Selection
Dr. Albert Schweitzer was already an old man when Andrew C. Davison paid a visit to Schweitzer’s jungle hospital in Lambaréné, on the banks of the Ogowe River in Gabon, Africa. The three-day visit had a deep and profound effect on Davison, who later wrote of one event during the trip that impressed him in a special way:
It was about eleven in the morning. The equatorial sun was beating down mercilessly, and we were walking up a hill with Dr. Schweitzer. Suddenly he left us and strode across the slope of the hill to a place where an African woman was struggling upward with a huge armload of wood for the cookfires. I watched with both admiration and concern as the eighty-five-year-old man took the entire load of wood and carried it on up the hill for the relieved woman. When we all reached the top of the hill, one of the members of our group asked Dr. Schweitzer why he did things like that, implying that in that heat and at his age he should not.
Albert Schweitzer, looking right at all of us and pointing to the woman, said simply, “No one should ever have to carry a burden like that alone.”
Schweitzer obviously understood compassion. As a leader he decided to care for someone else, to fully understand the woman’s burden and seek to relieve it. In doing this he was supporting ideas taught by a compassionate Jesus who urged his followers to care for those who were hungry, sick, unclothed, in prison, and burdened with other problems—“Whatever you did for one of the least of these…you did for me.”
Compassion, as we define it here, involves two primary ideas: First is the ability to see people from their perspective, their level of interest, and their need. Coupled with that other-focused vision, though, is the deep internal craving to help them gain their full potential.
J. Oswald Sanders wrote,
The true leader regards the welfare of others rather than his own comfort and prestige as of primary concern. He manifests sympathy and concern for those under him in their problems, difficulties, and cares, but it is a sympathy that fortifies and stimulates, not that softens and weakens.
Compassion is a strong character quality that seeks to both understand people and motivate them to great personal and professional achievement. Compassion should not be confused with weak sentimentality. Instead, compassion involves caring strength, a selfless desire, and energy that elevates others to first place in all human affairs.