October 5, 2025.
Dear Friends,
We will gather together remotely for our Badaliya and Peace Islands Institute faith sharing on Sunday, October 5, 2025 from 3:00 pm to 4:30 pm. Please join us on Zoom, or in spirit, as we encourage Inter-faith relations and pray together for an end to the destruction of Gaza, the displacement and killing of Palestinians and an end to the Israeli occupation in the Palestinian territories that will also bring an end to the suffering of the remaining hostages and their families. Our hearts continue to be broken by the images of children dying of starvation in Gaza, the Sudan and Afghanistan and the many humanitarian crises in our world. May there be an end to all International complicity to war in the Middle East, an end to war in the Ukraine and the civil war in the Sudan where an earthquake has caused devastating loss of homes and lives. We wait with hope for a peaceful transition to democracy in Syria as they negotiate with the diverse factions throughout the country after a long civil war. Our prayers are on-going for all the victims of human-created violence and for the many courageous first responders and humanitarian aid workers who seek to help them. May the hearts and minds of those perpetrators of violence be transformed from revenge-seeking to peace-seeking. May we turn our prayers into action as the increase of natural disasters due to human caused climate change all over the world is destroying too many lives, along with the earth we are privileged to share with them.
The ancient texts that make up our Christian scripture readings today remind us all too graphically that we are not the first to cry out against the abuses of power and violence in our world. Thus, we read from the Book of the Prophet Habakkuk (1:2-3; 2:2-4):
"How long. O Lord? I cry for help, but you do not listen! I cry out to you, 'Violence!', but you do not intervene. Why do you let me see ruin; why must I look at misery? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife and clamorous discord."
Yet, that is not the end of this passage, for the prophet continues with
"Then the Lord answered me and said: Write down the vision clearly upon the tablets, so that one can read it readily. For the vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint; If it delays, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late. The rash one has no integrity; but the just one, because of his faith shall live."
There is an invitation here to turn our prayer into action, because all Christians baptized into the Life of Christ are called to bring about the reign of Divine Love on the earth right now. And it is not in rash reaction to the events of our time, but rather in letting our faith in the movements of the Holy Spirit of Divine Love dwelling within each of us guide our actions with compassion and love.
Thus, given this moment in time, as our basic values as human beings and religious believers are being profoundly challenged by current events, we come together as Christians and Muslims at the start of this academic year by turning to the founder of the Badaliya to focus on one of the key themes in Louis Massignon's rich legacy: Compassion. If any human capacity seems to be missing today in the rash cycle of revenge and violence that only serves to perpetuate hatred and more vengeance, it is the lack of compassion in our world.
Louis Massignon wrote that compassion toward the Other is not necessarily "natural" for human beings, but rather an "angelic visitation, a sacred wound in the heart; which feels obliged to bear witness to this mysterious shock, that stopped the Good Samaritan in front of a passerby, lying, covered in wounds across his path on the road that descends from Jerusalem to Jericho." He makes clear that initially compassionate response is not an intellectual response but rather more like "a deep psycho-somatic shock that tears us away from ourselves without explanation.... Empathy, compassion, is the interior source of hospitality, of the right to asylum: this work of mercy that is the synthesis of all the others and consumes all the Beatitudes, pierces within us the human condition, beyond the judgement of condemnation, pushing us to find for the Other suffering in front of us, the Water of Immortality, a Resurrection together, beyond."
In Islam, Compassion is one of the Divine names. Allah breathes compassion into human life. Muslims are to be sensitive to all forms of human and animal suffering that extends to the environment as well. As a reflection of the All Merciful and Compassion attributed to Allah, Muslim believers are called to show mercy for the oppressed and feel real empathy for the needs of other human beings. Their model is the Prophet Muhammad who is said to have great empathy for the poor, the weak, orphans and women and even showed mercy to his enemies. The Qur'an suggests that the Prophet's empathy was to extend to the whole Universe: "And We have not sent you (O Muhammad) except as a mercy to the worlds." (21:107)
Christians may recognize one of our most well-known and revered Saints who is remembered this week-end: St. Francis of Assisi, the "poverello", whose vow of poverty and total dependence on the Divine caused him to see that Divine image in all creatures and in creation itself. He wrote exquisite verses to his experience of "Sister Moon" and "Brother Sun" even embracing "Sister Death" as an integral dimension of Life itself. Legend has wild birds and animals tamed by his love and recognition of them.
The Dutch priest and spiritual guide, Henri Nouwen is another source of inspiration for our reflections today. He wrote:
"Compassion includes various moments: In the first place, it shows you that your neighbor is a person who shares humanity with you. This partnership cuts through all the walls which might have kept you separate. Across all barriers of land and language, wealth and poverty, knowledge and ignorance, we are still one, created from dust, subject to the same laws and destined for the same end. With this compassion you can say, 'In the expression of the oppressed I recognize my own face and in the hands of the oppressed, I recognize my own hands which speak of powerlessness and helplessness. His flesh is my flesh, her blood is my blood, his pain is my pain and her smile is my smile. There is nothing in me that she would find strange, and there is nothing in him that I would not recognize. In my heart I know his yearning for love, and down to my entrails I can feel his cruelty. In her eyes, I see my plea for forgiveness and in his hardened frown, I see my refusal. When he murders, I know that I too could have done that, and when she gives birth, I know that I am capable of that as well. In the depths of my being. I have met my fellow human being for whom nothing is strange, neither love nor hate, nor life nor death. Compassion is daring to acknowledge our mutual destiny so that we might move forward all together into the land that God is showing us."
May we recognize these passages as the ground of the Badaliya prayer movement as well as the source of the Peace Islands Institute. May they encourage us to be courageous enough to extend our helping hands to as many friends and strangers as we can who are suffering in our world right now.
Peace to you,
Dorothy
See www.dcbuck.com for all past letters to the Badaliya and Peace Islands