What is Compassion?

It's about 11pm at night, I'm driving my dad home from the casino. If this doesn't scream father/daughter moment, I'm not sure what does.

My dad is possibly one of the most unique people I know. Doesn't matter what is going on in the world, I don't think my dad would care unless it was some event that effected one of us in the family. Some may call my dad an asshole because of his harsh demeanor but I would call him, Dad. He's technically my step-dad but technicalities aside, he's the greatest dad alive. Robby and me both got treated our whole life as though he was our biological father. People are typically surprised when they find out that Robby and me aren't Rick's full-blooded kids. My dad had so much love for me and my brothers that I would say he was a greatest example of compassion.

Well, back to our perfect father/daughter moment... we are on the way home, when we pass a billboard about giving to your fellow men. This billboard is lit up like a forth of July parade. There was no way of not noticing it. My dad makes mention to the brightness of the sign. I, of course, go all analytical when I see the sign and ask my dad about compassion. What did he think compassion was? Did he think it was something that every man had or was it more of a degree of putting up with people's shit? My dad laughed at me because only I would want to have a conversation of such depth this late at night and with him being a little tipsy. ;-)

Then my dad gave me an answer that was a little perplexing and confusing. He told me it was more of people's way of handling things that surprise their idea of normalities of poverty and distress. He then went into telling me a story that he heard just last year that still tugged at his heart strings.

Last year, a family of four were hit by a Genie that fell off the bed of an 18 wheeler because a driver wasn't safe with making sure his load was secure. The father in the car, was thrown out and his legs were crushed. This made it impossible for him to do anything for his family that was burning to death in their smashed up car.

As my dad tells me this story, my eyes fill up with tears. I try not to put myself in this man's shoes but I can't. I don't know how I would be able to deal with such loss but then my dad stops my tears with reality. This happens everywhere in the world. Maybe not with a Genie but people are killed daily from other people's hatred, laziness and/or bad judgement. My dad asks me why I feel the need to cry over this man's loss, when in fact this man's loss is the fact of life. At first, I'm a little shocked at my dad's harsh words but the more I think about them, I start to understand what my dad is saying about my compassion.

Compassion, depending on how you look at it.. biblically, webster dictionary-ly (realize that's not a word, but this is my blog ;-) and/or common sense-ly.... it's the idea of showing love through empathy and sympathetic ways toward another's hardship in life. My dad was telling me that even though I might consider myself a very compassionate person, he was challenging my true essence of where my compassion came from. Was I really feeling empathy for this man because I heard story for the first time? Would my empathy for this man change, if I heard this story all the time? What if his story was never told to me, would I still have compassion for him? Yes, I realize that I'm going a little deep with this but the question is this... the compassion we all have, is it true compassion like Jesus Christ had for us all when he died on the cross? Can a human being actually possess that true idea of compassion or is that why Jesus' story is something that we all celebrate because it was unman-like?