Monday, September 17, 2007

thoughts on compassion

This topic deserves an eloquent post, but more likely, it will just be my thoughts dumped out. Sorry about that.

I've been thinking lately about compassion. Mikkee was telling me last night about her trip to Peru. She spent 10 days with abandoned children who are now being raised in a group home, and she came home changed. She can't stop talking about the 26 boys living in the jungle that she quickly grew to love. (Mikkee, do you mind me sharing this? Mikkee is one of my favorite people, and Asher's godmother, and I've promised an Ode to her soon, but it's been hard to write. The people closest to me always are. But I digress.) She cried as she said, "Those boys need a mother." They will not be adopted; they're too old, have been through too much. But Christian Peruvians have given them a home, an education, a future. And, under Mikkee's leadership, a church in Nashville is helping fund their efforts. It's not a perfect solution, but where would those boys be without it? On the streets of Lima, where they would most likely die trying to survive.

This conversation came on the heels of toddler church yesterday morning. Out of six children in the room, four of them have been foster children (two have been adopted out of the system, the other two are still in foster families). I was talking to one of the little boys, an 8-year-old helper who was adopted out of foster care two years ago. He's a sweet, average kid. He's the kind of little boy who doesn't usually get noticed, because he follows the rules and blends into the crowd. And he likes being a helper in toddler church. He stays with his two-year-old foster brother and plays trucks and pours juice. He was talking to me this week and I remembered that he was six when he was adopted - old enough to remember life before adoption. I kept thinking, I don't even know what has happened to this kid. I don't know what he knows. Foster care is messy, adopting an older child is messier. But this kid has a life now. He has parents and brothers and sisters and grandparents that love him. Where would he be if he hadn't been adopted? Not in toddler church, pouring juice. That much is certain.

Compassion. It's the word that kept coming up for me on our retreat. We talked about the story where Jesus feeds the five thousand. Jesus had just found out his cousin had been brutally and unjustly murdered. He wanted to be alone, but people kept following him. In that moment - in the middle of his own grief - he looked at the crowds and had compassion on them, "because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." It's easy to be compassionate when I feel good, when life is going the way I want. But to care about another's need out of a poverty of spirit, not an abundance - that can only come from God. There's nothing natural about that.

God is challenging me to be compassionate consistently, out of my poverty and out of my abundance. Once again I am reminded, as Valerie says, that Jesus came to turn the world on its ear. Not just the world - me. Thanks be to God.

4 comments:

Heather said...

I blogged about turning anger to compassion recently. I know what you mean, about how it is easier to have compassion from abundance than poverty. One of my favorite mantras is, "If there is something you need, give it away." If I need to be loved, I should love someone. If I need a smile, I smile at people around me. If I need money, I give away the little bit I have. Oddly, this upside down paradox of a system works for me.

Anonymous said...

If you think about it, Jesus himself was adopted in a sense, by his desciples, who loved and cared for him as if he were a brother, and by his followers, the majority of whom were not of his own nationality, but those considered a barbarian race.
Adoption is messy, under any circimstanes. I was an adopted older child, at age 12 - very much old enough to remember life before adoption and the horrors that went with it. And well old enough to cause many problems from confusion shortly after the adoption. I read somewhere that compassion breeds empathy - empathy breeds action - action breeds change. All it takes is one person changing their point of view. Thank you for sharing this.

Liz said...

I love your thoughts on compassion Stephanie - and I have seen you so many times give of yourself, even when you felt there was nothing left to give. And how true it is that only God can help us give out of the poverty of spirit - and when we do, abundance follows! strange, huh? Thank you for sharing this - it was just what I needed to start my day off right. :)

Anonymous said...

This is a topic so close to my heart. I want very badly to be a foster parent -- perhaps when my biological kids are grown and I can focus on more kids. But, my husband really is not even remotely interested. He has completely closed his mind to it, but I hope when the time comes I can change it.

You show so much compassion for others. It is clear in everything you write.