The first gaze is seldom compassionate. It’s too busy weighing and feeling itself: “How will this affect me?” or “What reaction does my self-image demand now?” or “How can I regain control of this situation?” Let’s admit that we all start there. Only after God has taught us how to live “undefended” can we immediately stand with and for others, and for the moment.
It has taken me much of my life to begin to have the second gaze. By nature I have a critical mind and a demanding heart, and I am so impatient. These are both my gifts and my curses, yet it seems I cannot have one without the other. They are both good teachers. A life of solitude and silence allows them both, and invariably leads me to the second gaze. The gaze of compassion, looking out at life from the place of Divine Intimacy, is really all I have, and all I have to give, although I don’t always do it.
By my late 50s I had plenty of opportunities to see my own failures, shadow, and sin. The first gaze at myself was critical, negative, and demanding, not at all helpful to me or to others. I am convinced that such guilt and shame are never from God. They are merely protestations of the false self when shocked by its own poverty.