"A Time for Compassion" with Cynthia Tootle and Kwan Yin
Mary Hunt
Follow-Up to WATER Meditation May 11, 2026
“A Time for Compassion” with Cynthia Tootle
WATER thanks Cynthia Tootle for once again bringing us a powerful and profound meditation. The video of the session can be found at https://www.waterwomensalliance.org/may-2026-a-time-for-compassion/.
WATER thanks Jeanne Christensen for last month’s very welcome invitation to “Rest in a Time of Chaos: It’s Mine and You Can’t Have It or Me!” How little we do of that! This is the link to the video https://www.waterwomensalliance.org/april-2026-rest-in-the-time-of-chaos/. Feel free to share with friends.
This month we began with the customary land acknowledgement and our rejection of war. Thus WATER situates itself in justice movements.
Mary E. Hunt introduced our leader, Cynthia Tootle:
The Rev. Cynthia Tootle is WATER’s nearest neighbor, living just three blocks from the office. Cynthia is an engineer by training and vocation. She had a long career with the federal government when it was a challenging and reliable place to work. Now, in retirement, she has embraced her calling to ministry at the Takoma Metaphysical Chapel where she often presents popular programs and brings her considerable and pastoral skills to bear.
Cynthia is an expert on Goddesses. She picks one each month and studies, focuses on, and sometimes channels the messages of the Goddess. In January 2025, she brought us a meditation on Kwan Yin, and tonight she brings Kwan Yin back to us with a message of compassion.
Welcome, Cynthia. We need Kwan Yin’s compassion and your wisdom.
Cynthia Tootle offered the following moving words to ground our meditation at a time of wars and other injustices.
On Feb 28, 2026, a U.S. ship launched American made Tomahawk missiles at targets in Iran.
While politicians may still be debating the results, it has been confirmed that one or more of those missiles hit and destroyed an elementary school killing many schoolgirls and teachers and staff.
The number of schoolgirls has been reported as 150, or later as 60 to 80 girls killed.
Whatever the number, I found this news profoundly painful and unsettling.
After struggling, I turned to Kwan Yin and She led me to the following prayer exercise to help me heal.
An exercise in compassion
Dear Mother God,
We open our hearts to you now.
Fill us with your pure, infinite love and compassion for all beings.
Fill us to overflowing that we might serve as channels of your love and compassion.
We affirm that each little girl who passed on Feb 28 is greeted by Allah with the greatest love and joy as she passes through the veil and into His Presence.
We ask you Mother God to send your love and compassion through us to comfort and hold each girl’s mother in her grief.
We send your love and compassion to each girl’s father in his anger, powerlessness, and grief.
We send your love and compassion to each girl’s brothers and sisters in their loss and confusion.
We send your love and compassion to each girl’s grandparents, aunts and uncles in their grief.
We channel your love and compassion to the teachers and staff who lost their lives but face Allah knowing they had not protected their precious students.
We channel your love and compassion to their families and friends.
We channel your love and compassion to the teachers and staff who survived the attack and must live knowing they had not protected their precious students.
We channel your love and compassion to the U.S. sailors who pushed the buttons that launched the missile at what they thought were righteous targets but killed 150 schoolgirls and must live with that knowledge for the rest of their lives.
We channel your love and compassion to the U.S. sailors who loaded the missiles to launch that killed the schoolgirls.
We channel your love and compassion to all the U.S. sailors who were on the ship that launched the missiles that killed the schoolgirls.
We channel your love and compassion to the intelligence agents who gave the targets that ended up killing 150 schoolgirls and must live with that the rest of their lives.
We channel your love and compassion to the officers in the entire chain of command, from the U.S. President down, that ordered the launch that killed the schoolgirls and must live with that for the rest of their lives.
We send your love and compassion to the people in Tucson AZ who made the Tomahawk missile that killed the schoolgirls in Iran.
We send love and compassion to all the people who designed the Tomahawk missile that killed the 150 schoolgirls in Iran.
We send love and compassion to all the citizens in the USA whose tax dollars were used to build and launch the missile that killed 150 schoolgirls in Iran and must live with that for the rest of their lives.
Mother God, we pray that your love and compassion release all from feelings of guilt and pain, and power our resolve that humanity should be and can be better than this.
This violence may have been unintended by everyone for whom we prayed but world structures in which we live caused and allowed it to happen.
Let each and all of us commit to choosing love and courageously face the changes needed to disassemble the current structure and create a world safe for every little girl in every class room.
Thank you, Mother God, for hearing our prayer.
Our hearts are open for your answer.
Amen.
A short discussion followed. Among the comments were:
1. The Moderator observed that it makes so much sense to love and forgive and be compassionate toward everyone including those who have perpetrated horrible things in this world. Holding on to outrage helps no one and letting go helps everyone. It is not easy.
2. A colleague in ministry commented on how so many people were touched and pained by the loss of the Iranian schoolgirls. We can pray for compassion for all of them.
3. A Sister of Mercy spoke of the two images of Kwan Yin she has in her room. In one, Kwan Yin is holding a jar which is an endless source of Mercy. The other is Kwan Yin sitting in a prayer position, touching the earth. Cynthia Tootle clarified that the vase is said to contain “the Dew of Heaven” which can be translated as Mercy. The hand touching the ground is a symbol of achieving enlightenment.
4. Another colleague shared how hard it is to stir up compassion though it is a grace.
5. Someone else was moved in toward compassion after simmering in rage. The cruelty of humans to others and the guises under which they do it is an eternal reality. But she wants to move herself to the change that Cynthia outlined so as not to contribute to the bitterness and rage. It was observed that there is a lightness when one lets go and enters into compassion.
6. The word ‘container’ came to another colleague in the silence. That ocean of divine mercy is something to taste if not get a whole drink of at the moment.
7. A Catholic priest from Philadelphia spoke of the horrors of war and the fact that we in the U.S. are perpetrators of these horrors. We not only used nuclear weapons against others, but we test them to the detriment of our own people.
8. The term “Mother God” delighted one person.
Cynthia Tootle concluded the conversation saying that this was hard for her as well. She quoted Martin Luther King, Jr. saying one can’t overcome hate with hate. She was glad that Kwan Yin did not ask her, Cynthia, to have compassion for all which she did not think she could do. She only asked her to channel Kwan Yin’s energy over the long decades of her relationship with the Goddess.
WATER thanks Cynthia Tootle and Kwan Yin for insight and challenge. We thank Cheryl Nichols for tech help.
RESOURCES
1. An article entitled “Nuns join calls for renewed support for anti-nuclear treaty” by Chris Herlinger https://www.globalsistersreport.org/social-justice/nuns-join-calls-renewed-support-anti-nuclear-treaty?utm_source=Global+Sisters+Report&utm_campaign=5b1e87b4b1-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2026_05_12_01_19&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_86a1a9af1b-5b1e87b4b1-230473394
2. This is the image we used for our period of silence (no source found):
3. This is a prayer, a modern writing not from Buddhist scriptures, that captures the compassion of Kwan Yin even for perpetrators. There is no attribution in any of the many places where it is shared.
Kwan Yin’s Prayer for the Abusers
To those who withhold refuge,
I cradle you in safety at the core of my Being.
To those that cause a child to cry out,
I grant you the freedom to express your own choked agony.
To those that inflict terror,
I remind you that you shine with the purity of a thousand suns.
To those who would confine, suppress, or deny,
I offer the limitless expanse of the sky.
To those who need to cut, slash, or burn,
I remind you of the invincibility of Spring.
To those who cling and grasp,
I promise more abundance than you could ever hold onto.
To those who vent their rage on small children,
I return to you your deepest innocence.
To those who must frighten into submission,
I hold you in the bosom of your original mother.
To those who cause agony to others,
I give the gift of free flowing tears.
To those that deny another's right to be,
I remind you that the angels sang in celebration of you on the day of your birth.
To those who see only division and separateness,
I remind you that a part is born only by bisecting a whole.
For those who have forgotten the tender mercy of a mother's embrace,
I send a gentle breeze to caress your brow.
To those who still feel somehow incomplete,
I offer the perfect sanctity of this very moment.
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We still need someone to lead our session on Monday, June 8, 2026. Please advise mh...@hers.com if you can step up and lead. Thank you.