I remember hearing her knock on the downstairs door first, then, when the person knocking received no answer, I heard footsteps head up the winding staircase to the second floor apartment we rented,a frantic rushing, scrabbling up the wide wooden boards. I opened the door just as she knocked. “Hes taken my baby. You have to go get him back please. We had a fight...” Her boyfriend, after a searing argument witht he woman, had taken their 6 month old and fled their apartment next door. She was afraid for the babys life. I looked at her frantic, fear-distorted her face, and said a quick good-bye to my own wife and baby and headed out the door. The woman pointed down the street and and I could just see the man, two blocks away, getting ready to turn the corner, hugging the baby to his chest. I was volunteering at the time at the Womens Center and Shelter of Pittsburgh, also guiding writing groups with abused women and even one with abusive men. Id had some training in crisis intervention techniques, plus, truthfully, I was so oblivious, or arrogant, that I thought I could talk to anyone. So I ran after him and caught up to him after he turned the next two corners and was heading back in the direction of his apartment, but on a parallel street. I pulled up alongside, matching my stride to his. He didnt slow or speed up, just continued apace, holding the baby tight. I checked to see if the baby was all right – he seemed content against the mans chest, showed no signs of distress. It wasnt the same with the man. His face looked as distraught as his girlfriends. “So, whats going on? Why are you out here with the baby? Its chilly out.” He adjusted his arms as if he could widen them and provide more warmth for the baby. “She thinks she can just leave me and take my baby with her,” the man started. I listened and nodded as we strolled down the street. It was a typical story of love fading, one partner in a couple wanting to move on, the other taken by surprise, surprise turning to anger which led to a battle over the one thing that mattered most to both of them. The man maybe willing to give up the girl, but not his child. Before we reached the end of the block we could hear the sirens, still distant. I had my own first baby then, and I could understand this mans anguish at the thought he would lose his child. I remembered the way it felt like chambers of my heart had opened when my son was born. I could see why both of them wanted to keep the child. I told him this, then we talked about being fathers, the burden of that. I started to think about how the baby would deal with what happened here, when he got older, and someone told him his father had kidnapped him and run away. “Is this the type of man you want to be? Do you want your child to grow up and hear about a father who took him from his mother and ran down the street with him?” I asked the man. I think I actually even used the words role model – God forgive me – and got away with it. The man thought about it and I said nothing. But he turned towards his apartment, having decided to give the baby back to its mother. I quickly took her and the child to her parents house and gave her the phone number for the shelter if she needed a place to stay, or counselling. So whats the point of this story? Well, Ive been spending time the last week preparing a presentation on Compassion and the Arts, trying to understand what compassion is, exactly, how it differs from empathy, and what, if anything the Arts have to do with it. It seems to me empathy comes when you can understand how another is feeling. Compassion comes when you want to do something about the empathy you feel. In the situation I wrote about, I could understand how the mother, the father, even the child would feel about different aspects of the situation. I couldve sat in my apartment with my empathy and simply felt pity for everyone, maybe called the police, but I felt compelled to do something, to try to find a point of resolution. Why? I think because I was able to go beyond understanding to experiencing a resonance of the emotions others were feeling, and that resonance is what required resolution. Luckily, I had a background and some training that allowed me to work towards that, just as someone with training in cpr could help a swimmer regain breath after drowning. But isnt it that need to resolve the chord of emotion which spurs one to action? Isnt that what defines compassion? And what about those who dont seem to have compassion? Are there people for whom there isnt an urge for resolution? And if not, what is there for them? Are those the ones who go around bitter, angry, or maybe just in a state of perpetual dissatisfaction or grievance? There are certainly forces that work against compassion. Capitalism has long trafficked in pitting workers and ethnic groups against each other, blurring their ability to recognize the commonalities that would generate compassion for others in similar circumstances. Fox News shrieks a perpetual siren of grievance and blame, demonizes some group of others and makes people, unthinking people, believe it would make them unhappy to care about others and their needs - just take care of yourself. But what of Art? A paradox isnt it? To function at your highest level as a writer, dancer, musician, painter, actress etc. you have to spend so much time alone developing your craft. Write for yourself, write to please yourself – thats the advice we all get, isnt it? How can an Artist turn such a self-oriented engagement into a creation that engenders compassion? Is the political poem art or polemic? Does Picassos Guernica become a creative act of compassion if it moves viewers to recognize the horrors of war? What of something like Beethovens Ninth Symphony? Does his exploration of sophisticated emotional states in and of itself become an act of compassion because it might spur listeners to develop their own sophisticated emotional responses? Are the novels of Toni Morrison acts of compassion? If so, how? Why? I dont know. Do you?
Posted on: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 14:10:14 +0000
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