In our last issue, our International Secretary, Diana Dunningham Chapotin shared an insight that has influenced her service work.

Now Cynthia Trasi, Secretary of the TOS in England, shares her insight into the small experiences in her childhood that sowed the seeds of compassion and their importance to her in putting theosophy into action.

I had my first memorable lesson about the importance of the small things in life when I was very young.  My mother told me that some elderly ladies had said how much it cheered them when I smiled at them in the village.  To this day, I don’t know if I really was smiling at them, because I am blessed with a mouth that naturally smiles almost irrespective of my mood.  However, after that I made a point of smiling at people, not realising of course that it was an act of giving.

Later, whilst in Junior School, my sister, a friend and I must have expressed a wish to do something kind, because my mother suggested we save some pennies and take something to someone in need.  We bought a small spray of freesias and went to the little bungalow Mum told us about.  The door was opened by a small, frail, elderly lady who had part of her arm missing.  We gave her the flowers and she cried.  We left and were so upset that we didn’t carry on with our scheme.  But the seed of compassion was sown within me, although I cannot claim to have always been the sort of person who knows when someone needs help.

It seemed to me as I grew up that the people I found interesting, even fascinating, were those I would be told were ‘eccentric’.  I decided that I would like to be eccentric one day.  An eccentric is usually someone who does not conform to the norm.  Now, years later I am a Vegan, teetotal (how can I possibly enjoy life?) and what’s more a Theosophist!  At choir I seem to have a certain reputation amongst friends as someone who always tries to find something good in everybody.  If I fail and say something critical, I hear, “Cynthia, that’s not like you.” – a good put down; must try harder!

A couple of years ago I did jury service.  At the end of the case I said to a fellow juror, who had been adamant from the start that the defendant was guilty, that I felt compassion for the man we found guilty. I found it difficult to put my feelings into words my fellow juror might understand.  Eventually, he astounded me by saying, “You mean because he is a fellow human?”  “Yes,” I said. “…A fellow pilgrim,” I thought.

There are so many little ways of helping others – humans, animals, plants and even minerals – and it is worth being thought a little odd, eccentric even, when we do.