Compassion: Seeing Through New Eyes

This piece follows the June 3 father reflection and explores compassion through two stories: Nelson Mandela and Bainbridge Island grocer Ed Loverich.

Given the recent Eagle Harbor launch and the participation of several Town & Country leaders there, it feels like a natural continuation of the conversation about Sacred Listening, compassion, and seeing through another person’s eyes.

May these next two stories serve as an entrance into living with, and living through, compassion.

In my June 3 post about my father, I found myself entering his life in a way I never had before.

For perhaps the first time, I saw the world through his eyes.

I understood something of the burdens he carried, the choices he made, the limitations he inherited, and the suffering he lived with.

Compassion often begins there: not in agreement, not in approval, but in seeing.

Truly seeing.

Getting into another person’s shoes.

Seeing through their eyes.

Experiencing, if only for a moment, what it is like to be them.

It is a deeply needed and deeply missing practice in today’s world.

I. Nelson Mandela

There is a story about Nelson Mandela that beautifully illustrates this.

After his inauguration as President of South Africa, Mandela attended a formal banquet. At one point during the evening, he invited two men to leave their seats and sit beside him.

The men had been prison guards.

For many years, they had helped oversee the prison where Mandela spent twenty-seven years of his life.

Mandela later said that while in prison he came to realize that hatred was poisoning him. He also realized that he could never free his people if he did not also free his oppressors.

So he began learning about the guards.

Their families.

Their struggles.

Their humanity.

That evening, seated beside them, Mandela introduced the men to the guests and then said:

“Please forgive me for my years of hatred toward you.”

The two men broke down in tears and asked Mandela to forgive them for what they had done.

Rather than using that historic moment to celebrate victory or vengeance, Mandela chose compassion.

In doing so, he began to heal a nation.

II. Ed Loverich

The second story is much closer to home.

My home.

Bainbridge Island.

When I first moved here, my dear friend Ruth, who was helping my husband and me settle in, asked, “Have you been to T&C yet?”

I had no idea what she was talking about. “No,” I replied. “What’s T&C?”

She looked astonished.

“You mean you haven’t been to T&C? Why, T&C is the spiritual center of Bainbridge Island!”

I assumed she meant a church.

She didn’t.

She meant a grocery store.

And, in a way, she was right.

Town & Country Market’s mission is simple: “Nourishing the quality of life.”

And that can only happen through the heart.

Recently, someone who works at T&C now, Shawn Stark, shared an early story about one of the founders, Ed Loverich.

Shawn told it this way:

“I was working one day when a guest came through my line, admiring the pictures that are displayed from our Grand Opening. He told me that his first job was at this market as a teenager.

While we were talking, he asked if I wanted to hear a story about Ed.

“Absolutely,” I said.

He began to tell me a story about a special project that Ed gave him anytime a certain guest came into the store.

Ed told the young man that whenever he noticed this local lady come in, it was his job to make sure that when she was in a certain grocery aisle, he would distract any guests who might want to shop in that same aisle, leaving the lady to have the aisle to herself.

The young man did what was requested of him.

Until one day, he approached Ed and said, “Ed, I think this lady is stealing from us.”

Ed responded to the young man, “I know she is stealing from us, and I also know that her husband died last year, and she does not have any other family on the island.”

Ed explained to the young man that he was also aware that the local lady did not have money to buy food.

So she steals cat food to eat and survive.

The young man realized that he was not just providing a service to his community; he was helping Ed preserve this lady’s dignity.

The gentleman said that he believed the lady never knew what Ed was doing for her.

But he saw the incredible way that you can impact a person’s whole life with empathy.

The person to whom this story was told said:

“I will never forget this story.”

Nor will I.

Because now I have no choice but to see through her eyes—to imagine her loneliness, her hunger, her grief, and her fear.

Perhaps that is where compassion begins: not with judgment, not with fixing, but with the willingness to enter another person’s life long enough to see the world through their eyes.

Like I did with my father.

The Greek poet Yannis Ritsos wrote:

“Now I have no choice but to see with your eyes.

So I am not alone.

So you are not alone.”

An Invitation: Who in your life are you being invited to see through new eyes?

I invite you to take a few moments now and think of someone you disagree with.

Someone you have given up on.

Someone you do not understand.

Perhaps close your eyes.

See through theirs.

What has their life taught them?

What burdens have they carried?

What losses have shaped them?

What dreams do they still hold?

Who are they, really?

Allow them to enter your heart.

What do you see?

What happens next?

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