{"id":2740,"date":"2014-08-27T08:14:24","date_gmt":"2014-08-27T12:14:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/?p=2740"},"modified":"2016-10-19T09:16:49","modified_gmt":"2016-10-19T13:16:49","slug":"a-mask-of-compassion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/2014\/08\/a-mask-of-compassion.html","title":{"rendered":"A mask of compassion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In my observance of life, I\u2019ve noticed a human trait that can get out of hand.<\/p>\n<p>We humor ourselves or others.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not talking about humor, hahaha. Wittiness and fun lay low when we want to humor someone.<\/p>\n<p>To humor someone is to indulge them, to give them slack, or comply with what they are saying or doing.<\/p>\n<p>If we pick this apart, humoring someone can be a form of compromise.<\/p>\n<p>Spouses humor one another so as to get along. For example, my husband listens to my ranting and nods as if I\u2019m interesting.<\/p>\n<p>Parents humor their children to keep them quiet or content. They let them watch too much TV or do what they want.<\/p>\n<p>And, a pattern materializes. Things become unreasonable. Decisions become inconclusive.<\/p>\n<p>Quite often, humoring others then gets confused with compassion, and it appears unloving to contradict the process of indulging myopic views, opinions, traditions, laziness and bad habits.<\/p>\n<p>Although it takes effort to remove the mask of compassion from humoring the human egos, it\u2019s worth the effort.<\/p>\n<p>From <em>21<sup>st<\/sup> Century Science and Health, <\/em>\u201cIt is important to examine our inclinations and intentions. Mental examination is the way we learn what we honestly are. If a friend informs us of a fault, do we listen patiently to the criticism and reconsider our attitude? Or, do we react by giving thanks that we are \u201cnot like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector\u201d?<strong>[1]<\/strong> During many years, I have been most grateful for constructive criticism. The misdeed is destructive careless criticism, which does no one any good.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>[1]<\/strong> Luke 18:11 (NRSV)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In my observance of life, I\u2019ve noticed a human trait that can get out of hand. We humor ourselves or others. I\u2019m not talking about humor, hahaha. Wittiness and fun lay low when we want to humor someone. To humor someone is to indulge them, to give them slack, or comply with what they are&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":429,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,3],"tags":[208,1468,1466,1467],"class_list":["post-2740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community_world","category-home-life","tag-how-to-get-along","tag-how-to-love","tag-humor-me","tag-what-unconditional-love-is-not"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A mask of compassion - Everyday Spirituality<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/2014\/08\/a-mask-of-compassion.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A mask of compassion - Everyday Spirituality\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In my observance of life, I\u2019ve noticed a human trait that can get out of hand. 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