It takes a certain kind of seasoned compassion to be involved in a kind of restoration over the long haul. The rather odd thing about working on ecological or biocultural restoration is that I (and many others) have realized through such work that we are NOT in charge–in a command and control position as tinkerers–but we must instead humbly acknowledge that we are equals with all the other people, animals, plants and microbes in …the process of healing.
Father Gregory Boyle says it so well in his astounding book Tattoos on the Heart: “Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a covenant between equals…. Compassion is always, at its most authentic, about a shift from the cramped world of self-preoccupation into a more expansive place of fellowship, or true kinship.”
Brother Coyote, OEF
