Is Compassion Enough?

 Is it enough to be compassionate, or must we also have faith that the universe itself is compassionate in some way? I was thinking along these lines while walking home from work tonight. In some sense, the question reminds me of my readings of Albert Camus, who in the Plague seems to lay out an ethical vision in which human beings struggle to bring about their values in an otherwise "uncaring" or indifferent universe. This often amounts to saying that people must take responsibility in order to bring about their sense of meaning in life.
   I sense that the problem is that there are times when people lack the inner confidence that things will go smoothly in their life, or that they will be able to surmount every difficulty. It is then that faith becomes such an important part of the spiritual journey. Such a faith often requires envisioning that the universe is full of protective and benevolent beings who are able to help us as needed. In Buddhism, these might be thought of as transformation beings, or benevolent bodhisattvas who take are of others. In other traditions, there might be angels, deities and so on.
   There is something in all this that is simply not knowable, and I seem to have reached a point in my life where I don't have a lot of faith in some external projection that is created in the mind. In the face of the unknown, the only thing I can do is choose to soften up a bit and allow feelings of confusion and bewilderment to surface, rather than chasing them off with a kind of faith construct. Too many times, I have found that having faith in one method, one way of being, or one "technique" leaves me feeling inadequate to face every situation: there is no one single prayer that is going to fit every occasion. For this reason, I tend to be leaning toward a method of gently beholding whatever comes to me and being more secure in the unknown itself, rather than looking for some kind of secure, all knowing being. In fact, learning to relax with uncertainty seems to be my present spiritual practice!