THE OTHER DAY, the teasing at our dinner table went just a bit too far. Three brothers (and their father) piled on at the fourth's expense, and, though the moment passed quickly, it left a little residue.

As all parents know, teachable moments come at odd times. Later that night I found myself in the wee hours, standing at the top of the stairs having a tete-a-tete with one of the teasers, who had just come home. I told him that, though I know him to be a kind person, he hadn't acted like one at dinner. He agreed, and then I took the opportunity to deliver a little life lecture. I told him that I believe all the suffering and catastrophe surrounding us offer only one possible survival route: humans evolving to become a species that thinks and acts from the heart. Free will simply means we have the consciousness to choose love or hate, moment by moment. Whether we as a species ultimately manage to make a shift is immaterial -- acting out of compassion is still the best game in town because, win or lose, we'll have a better time along the way. And all that, I concluded, is why it's important to be loving to your brother. To my surprise and delight, he thanked me.

Since then, I've realized I was talking to myself at least as much as to him. And I've been thinking a lot about the outpouring of compassion to the victims of the tsunami. It's such a relief to feel generous and openhearted, to be taken out of our worries about war and terrorism and the direction of our country, to be able to focus on a catastrophe that we don't feel responsible for.

Why does compassion flows so easily in some circumstances and not in others equally dire? Marianne Williamson wrote recently, 'The hard and painful truth is this: For millions of people living on this planet, every day is a catastrophe. From AIDS victims in Africa, to citizens of the Sudan caught in the struggle of their civil war -- and, yes, to both soldiers and civilians in Iraq -- life itself has become catastrophic. Where is our concerted knowing, our collective response, our deep grief for those who suffer through experiences that are just as catastrophic as the tsunami yet more convenient to ignore?'