When I was a child my mother quoted to me this verse from the Bible. It was a brief, quiet moment among a great many moments we had together, and yet I never forgot it. It kept gnawing at me, asking me, "What does this mean? Why did she say that at that moment?"
My mother is dead now almost 30 years and 40 years after she said it to me I have discovered its meaning. In that one moment, about which we never spoke again, she gave me a lifetime of searching, inquiry, understanding and meaning.
There is no death. There is only the transformation of life from one person to the next. We cannot be sure what will come of it, but we can be sure that when we touch another they will carry that moment with them throughout life and pass it to many, many others, in their own way. Touch lightly, touch often and touch well.
We examine the meaning of Compassion and find that:
The need for a complete understanding of compassion arises out of the following facts. People are mostly very indifferent to the plight of animals. But some are not. What is the difference between these two classes of people. It is that the indifferent people lack compassion for animals and the others have compassion for animals. Animal exploitation will persist until the balance shifts and compassion comes to predominate.