We are not yet what we shall be,
but we are growing toward it;
the process is not yet finished,
but it is going on;
this is not the end,
but it is the road.
~ Martin Luther with thanks to Bob Hamlyn
Compassion is not a social facade. Compassion is not a sham designed to mask our essential self–centeredness. Compassion is the emotion that links us to those outside ourselves. It is the capacity for outreach. It enables us, it drives us, to go beyond ourselves to the beating pulse of the rest of the world. Compassion, then, is a dimension of what it means to be fully human.