The return

Compassion is not in an orphanage in India or in the halls of a broken down school. Compassion is an action that shines from the very depths of our hearts. This summer, I found that our most tender service to the world occurs in the places closest to us.

The scene was set amongst the webs and weeds of my fathers home. Set in the very darkness of his battle with schizophrenia. I walked into the old house and felt it haunted by his profound struggle with God. The stale darkness suspending in the air, never to be recovered by the grace of morning. Caught in the tangle, were his paintings barely clinging to the tar stained walls, unsent letters like artifacts hidden beneath the layers, mathematical theories crumpled in corners. His house was a labyrinth laced with madness, and yet faintly pulsing with his passion for beauty.

As we stumbled upon poetry and sweet apple trees, astounded, my siblings and I put our hands in the cold soil and created gardens. Every morning I watched my father wake with the sun and water the young sprouting seeds.

For so long I felt abandoned by my father’s absence, and my heart heavy with resentment. That summer, however, I finally understood the immensity of his struggle, as I realized the power of our disillusioned perceptions.

Through my fathers sharp blue eyes, I came alive to madness, beauty and the subtle release of sincere compassion from the depths of my heart.