God's Guide for Grandparents. Susan M. Erschen

       Compassion

      We were laying on our bellies under the Christmas tree. Our heads brushed the lower branches of the tree and our faces were close together as we inspected the manger scene. We were discussing each figure. Mary, the mother. The shepherd, who brought a baby lamb. The angel who came to adore the new baby. Then my two-year-old grandson touched the tiny figure of Jesus with his tiny, bare arms and legs stretching out from the straw-filled crib. My grandson said, “He cold.”

      I wasn’t sure I understood him, so I asked him to tell me again. Grabbing the soft polka-dot blanket he always had beside him, my grandson said: “He cold. Need blanket.”

      I clarified: “You think baby Jesus is cold and needs a blanket?”

      My grandson nodded enthusiastically, popping his thumb in his mouth and rubbing his own blanket against his face.

      I was amazed. This little boy, who was just learning to talk, felt compassion for a ceramic figure of Jesus. I could have told him that the real Jesus was fine. Jesus was warm in heaven with his daddy. Yet, I knew all across our city on this cold December day Jesus really was cold. I did not want to discourage my grandson’s budding compassion. For years, my four children made a soft bed for baby Jesus every Advent by adding pieces of gold yarn to a wooden crib when they did something nice for someone else. And every Christmas morning we carried the statue, wrapped only in its ceramic swaddling, down to the manger and placed it there before any presents could be opened. Yet never once did any of them worry if the little figure of Jesus was cold. We never wrapped the small statue in a piece of cloth. But here was my grandson full of concern for the tiny image of Jesus.

      “Should we make baby Jesus a blanket?” I asked.

      My grandson nodded happily, pointing now to the white felt tree skirt that wrapped around the base of the tree. I got a scissors, pulled a back corner of the skirt away from the tree and cut a small square. “Does this look good?”

      He smiled, took the square of felt and laid it carefully on baby Jesus. Now, every year our Nativity scene has a square of white felt tucked around the baby Jesus. A notch is cut out of the back of the Christmas tree skirt. It is a reminder of the compassion my grandchildren are capable of showing.

      Feeling Another’s Pain

      Perhaps I was so touched by my grandson’s concern for the cold baby Jesus because I was seeing the dawning of empathy and compassion in him. Infants and small children are typically not much concerned with the feelings of others. They survive and thrive because they are self-centered. They do not care who they awaken in the middle of the night when they are hungry or uncomfortable. They are not worried about hurting someone’s feelings by declaring they do not like something. They think only of what they want when they grab for a toy or a breakable knickknack.

      Those who study early childhood development say it is around the age of eighteen months when a toddler can begin to understand feelings. I have seen that with my grandchildren. They have a set of shape and color matching eggs. Each egg has a different facial expression. By the time she was two years old, my granddaughter could tell me which egg was happy, sad, sleepy, or angry. She liked to point to pictures in the books we read and tell me, based on the facial expressions, whether the character was angry, scared, or worried.

      When we see these tender shoots of empathy sprouting in our grandchildren, it is time for us to begin to teach them compassion. We can teach our grandchildren about empathy and compassion by talking with them about feelings. We can be sensitive to their feelings and encourage them to think about other people’s feelings. We can model compassion for them by treating them and others with kindness and gentleness. We can ask them to consider what they might do to help a person who is feeling bad.

      Empathy and compassion are not the same. Empathy is the ability to imagine how another person might feel in a particular situation. Compassion is feeling so strongly for what another person is going through that we feel called to action. Compassion does not mean we know or understand their feelings. We can have empathy without compassion or compassion without empathy. Or we can have them both. My grandson felt empathy for baby Jesus when he imagined he was cold. My grandson showed compassion when he wanted to make a blanket for him.

      We may think our grandchildren are too young for compassion. We may want to protect them from the pain of the world. We may want to tell them not to worry about the cold infant Jesus, the homeless man on the street, or the victims of disasters flashed on television screens. Our grandchildren, however, are quite capable of understanding and caring.

      Child psychologists also say that most four-year-old children are able to realize the impact their actions have on other people. They know their kindness will make someone happy; their selfishness will make someone sad; their screaming will scare a baby; their friendliness can make someone feel welcomed.

      I have seen this to be true as well. One day, when we were all together for a family vacation on the lake, my son walked into the condo waving a wire-mesh container. “I’ve got crickets!” he announced. “Who wants to go fishing?”

      My granddaughter was the first one to run to his side. He has taught her to be quite a little fisherman. She knew you almost always caught a fish with a cricket on your line. Within seconds everyone but me was heading out the door for some fishing. As they were piling into cars, my five-year-old granddaughter turned around and saw me waving by the door. “Grandma, aren’t you coming?” she asked.

      “No,” I replied. “Grandma, doesn’t like fishing.”

      “But you will be lonely,” she cried and came running back to me. “I will stay here with you.”

      Here again was empathy combined with compassion. This little preschooler was quickly able to imagine what my emotions might be and to think that her leaving could be the cause of it. She compassionately wanted to do something to make me feel better and was willing to give up her own fun to make sure I was okay. Even though she was the first one who wanted to go fishing, she was willing to stay with me so I would not be sad. Only after we all convinced her Grandma had some work to do and would not be lonely did she regain her enthusiasm for the adventure.

      So, if we had that understanding of feelings and emotions when we were mere toddlers, and if we could see how our actions might hurt someone else by the time we were four, what went wrong? Why isn’t our world full of wonderful people who hate the thought of someone else being sad, lonely, hungry, or hurting? The answer quite simply is ego. As we get older, our capacity for empathy grows, but our motivation to “take care of number one” does too.

      Putting on Compassion

      If during our life journey we paid close attention to the Gospels, perhaps we could set aside our ego and wrap ourselves in compassion. Saint Paul describes compassion as a cloak or a jacket we can wear. “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt