Archive for the ‘Compassion’ Category

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Call Me When I Care

July 20, 2015

In Memory Of

When I Cared

He needed to pass German to complete his BA and officially get the job waiting for him. The professor recommended he get me to tutor him. Why? I’ll never know.

He passed German. But that’s not the story. This was the beginning years of defining the Baby Boomers as the “Me Generation.” I remarked about having some empathy for the German professor who left Vienna and wound up in Ada, Ohio.

“I don’t care. I don’t have time to think about others,” he replied.

That conversation returns to me at times.

It does seem to mark the majority of Boomers (fortunately not all).

But the remark popped back into my consciousness when I saw a middle-aged woman entering Tim Horton’s the other day with a T-shirt with the phrase printed above.

I’m affected deeply by such lost people who don’t care—and are proud of it. How can you go through life so self-centered that caring is hard work? I have trouble understanding. When I care about spiritual formation and see such void, I’m sad.

But Jesus understood.

He told the story of four men. One man was robbed and beaten and left bleeding by the side of the road. Two religious men walked by (even worse than driving by protected by the steel shell of a car). And they kept on walking.

The fourth man walked the road. He stopped. We know nothing about his spiritual life. We do know that he was not part of the “official” religion of the area. Regardless, he stopped and helped. In a word, he cared.

I am saddened by seeing so many people who do not care. But then I meet or read about people who do and see the difference that they make in the world around them—and I still hope.

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Where There Is Hatred, Let Me Sow Love

June 22, 2015

Make me a channel of your peace…where there is hatred let me sow love… –prayer of St. Francis

Sometimes it seems we are living in the old Wild West. Everybody is carrying weapons. It feels as if violence exists everywhere.

Part of the reason is that we get news from all over the world, now. Once news was mostly local with a smattering of regional, national, and international news. TV now brings us, indeed floods us, with instantaneous news produced and directed for maximum emotional impact.

Still, how could a young man sit in a Bible study for an hour with a peaceful group of spiritual seekers, then coolly pull out a handgun and kill nine people. A quote I saw had him saying that they were such nice people he almost hated to do it.

All because they were born with a different color skin than his.

Yes, there is evil in the world. I had a deeply spiritual conversation with a friend a couple of weeks ago who denied the existence of evil. But, it exists. Where else would someone learn to hate?

I had hoped that the civil rights work of the 60s would have yielded much more progress. I went to graduate school in the south in the early 70s. My Southern classmates all thought that with the new generation racial relations would be improved.

Overall, we treat people of other races, religions, and nationalities much better than we used to.

When it comes to healing the hearts of humans, though, sometimes it looks as if we’ve made no progress from the earliest times written in the Bible.

But we have. Despite all the fear-mongers and incessant media attention we are much safer in much of the world than we used to be. There are substantial places where peace needs to come.

Mostly we need to work and pray to heal people’s hearts.

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Let Your Light Shine-Why?

May 7, 2015

I’m up early and in the breakfast area of my hotel in Seattle. They have not one but three TVs all turned to one of those TV talk shows that are designed to heighten fear and anger in the hearts of the sympathizers. It’s hard to concentrate and meditate in such an environment.

I wondered, is that how I would like my light to shine? That I spend so much time being cynical and negative that my face sets permanently in that attitude?

Jesus said, “You are the light of the world.” Then he went on to state why, “Let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give praise to your Father in heaven.”

These talk show people–they make a large income. They have influence over millions of souls. Their legacy, raise fear and anger in people so that they will continue to watch so that advertisers will pay high rates to present their products to the many.

How does this relate to church, you may wonder? Rightly so.

We have churches that operate the same way. They emphasize fear and anger so that people will come and obey.

Jon Swason started me thinking with his article comparing and contrasting evangelism and customer service in business and in church. Many (probably not enough) can do evangelism. But how do we rate in customer service? Do we just give them some words to memorize and tell them to go on their way?

Dallas Willard once said that church was the worst place to come to share your hurts and failures in order to find comfort and healing.

Jesus said let your light shine so that our Father is glorified. Part of that light is to fellow travellers on the way who need help. By so doing, you show people outside the fellowship the joy of becoming a Jesus-follower and joining the fellowship.

Good works, not sowing fear, uncertainty and doubt. What a thought!

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Being the Church Not Necessarily Being At Church

February 24, 2015

For those of my readers who belong to a church, do you know the people who seem to always be in the building whenever the doors are open?

Some people have been so dedicated, or something, to their church that they feel they must be involved in everything. Committee meetings, choir practice, kitchen duty, fold bulletins.

There is a value to some of that. But, at some point you have to pause and ask why you feel the need to be away from the family that much. Or, maybe like me, you just feel a need to serve. That makes it difficult for me to say the “N” word–NO. I’m learning. I’ve been pushing things off on others in one form or another for years. I call it developing leaders.

When we were called to be the church, we were not called to be at the church at all times. The spiritual discipline of service should not be skewed into service within the four walls of your building. In fact, it’s hard to be the church when you are at the church building.

Being the church calls outside. To meet with those along the way. Heal, teach, help, listen. Do as Jesus did as he walked the land. He is master; we are disciple. We are called to practice as the master practiced.

Our congregation offers many ways for people to be the church locally, regionally, internationally. But even that should not be a limit. Wherever we go, there  we are the church.

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We’re Talking People Here

January 29, 2015

The conversation eventually got around to those people. You know, those people that the Bible says are sinners. Except that, those in the group expressing that dislike of the group of those people didn’t stop to consider that they are also “those people”–people who sin.

They don’t recognize that “those people” is actually just a label used to refer to people sharing a trait of some sort.

Those people, that group, is actually composed of individual people. Struggling individual people. Each with their own story. Each with their own needs.

Marketing people have found it useful to group people with similar interests in order to target a message promoting their product or service.

But followers of Jesus? Indeed, Jesus himself? He didn’t group people. He dealt with individual people, people who were hurting, people who needed the encouragement to live a fulfilled life, people who needed healing.

Maybe a Samaritan woman. Maybe a Roman army officer. Maybe even a Pharisee or two.

And I? I remained silent. Allowing the stereotype of a group of “those people” to go unchallenged. Rather than pointing out that I have friends and relatives among “those people”. Friends and relatives who need someone to reach out with friendship, understanding, yes, even love.

They do not need the accusing finger pointed at them by a self-righteous, if well-meaning, person.

Love your neighbor, Jesus said. Who is our neighbor? Our neighbor is that individual person we meet along the way.

Make this also a lesson for me to take care about grouping people. Each is an individual.

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Love Language of Receiving

January 20, 2015

He then realized that his wife’s “love language” was receiving. So he decided to give her something every day for a week, and then to give her something every week for a year.

John Ortberg mentioned as an example this story from a book called “Five Love Languages” or something like that. Disclaimer: I have not read the book.

But that example really threw me. A love language of receiving? I suppose that everyone likes to receive a gift. Even me, although I have few wants or needs. But, as a way of life?!

I have another word or two for that “language” or life attitude. Spoiled. Self-centered. Self-absorbed.

Maybe I’ve taken the illustration too far. Maybe there is a nuance I missed or that Ortberg didn’t mention.

It seems to me through observation and reading that one of the major problems of our times–and this isn’t only America–is just that self-absorption or self-centeredness. I’m amazed at the number of times in a day I can observe examples of people thoughtlessly unaware of others around them. (Oh, and you can tell a self-centered person by asking them–they’ll think that there is nothing wrong in the example I just cited.)

But there is a spiritual gift, agape, that entails giving. I don’t know what we learned about the wife, really, from Ortberg’s example. It is obvious that at least one person made the leap from self-centered to thinking of someone else.

For that, the apostle Paul would rejoice. He taught that many times.

Receive as a blessing; give to be a blessing.

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Don’t Turn a Spiritual Problem into a Political One

December 2, 2014

My heart continues to break over the fallout of the Ferguson, MO events.

One thing that really affects me is the number of posts on Facebook from my “Christian friends” that perpetuate a meme making the situation a political one. It goes something like this, “If you are a true Conservative, then you will back the police officer. Only the nasty liberals back the black man.”

The situation is far more complex than that.

Sunday I worshipped at Willow Creek Community church. Senior Pastor Bill Hybels read a carefully composed statement about the situation. He noted that there are stories. These stories may not contain all the facts of the situation (many of which may never be known). But the stories are different for each of the actors in the drama.

He was correct. People tend to believe a story. Trouble is, there are usually many stories. Each person believes his or her own story.

It takes vast amounts of courage to step back and look at other people’s stories. See how they believe them. And then start the work of reconciliation of the various stories into a common one.

That is part of the work of the Spirit. Politics only constructs sides to an issue so that everyone can complain about the other. The Spirit draws together so that one side of the many can begin to at least see the other sides. And then see that they need not be enemies. They could be co-workers for good and growth in the community.

Those of us who want to politicize the issue should just stay out of it. If you don’t have a solution, you’re part of the problem.

For those of us far away, prayer is a powerful part of the solution.

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Practicing Compassion

July 17, 2014

Conditions at home have reached an unbearable point. “I’ve got to get out of here,” they think. Someone says, there’s hope in America. The word spreads. Groups start the long and treacherous journey. Groups become thousands.

For the past five weeks I’ve either been traveling or deep into a research project. I get very little news in those times. But I know there’s something terrible going on at our border with Mexico.

After writing about gratitude and humility, compassion seemed to be the next logical topic.

Compassion is not feeling sorry for, it is feeling with. I have great compassion for those children seeking a better life. Every one of my American readers came from such stock–people seeking a better life by coming to America. Most of them found it. Our nation was built on that. It is somewhat unique in the world in that way.

Sometime we turn to politics to solve the problem. But most problems are not political, they are human. In politics, lines are drawn, people become things. We construct evil sounding labels for those we oppose. It’s easier to deal with people that way.

My dad would have never had a Japanese friend–not that he ever had the opportunity. There were no Japanese people within 50 miles of where he lived his life. The end of World War II found him on a ship in the Pacific. He was trained to think of Japanese people as less than human so that he could go over there and kill them.

I don’t speak German as a native because of two world wars fought against Germany. People stopped speaking German out of patriotism for America (or out of fear of being called a traitor).

My formative years intellectually came during the Civil Rights Era. I was moved by the treatment of black people–who were usually called names that made them less than human in the mind.

Let’s work to develop and practice our compassion “gene” and let it overcome our “fear” and “anger” genes. I do not know what I can do about that situation right now. But as the opportunities present themselves, I’ll jump on something. I know how easy it is to label people and write them off as less than human. It is a terrible thing.

Someone said in a situation, “Just pray.” But it’s not “just” pray. Prayer is a powerful tool of action. Pray with intention. Pray with expectation. Pray with compassion. That is one thing we can do–now.

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