dancing through life

Working at a church and studying theology there’s a few things I get to think and ask questions about.  One of them are compassion… What is compassion, what does it mean if you say someone is a compassionate person and of course what does it mean to be a compassionate church?

 Well the word compassion (on my computers dictionary) gives the following synonyms: Sympathy,empathy,consideration,kindness,concern. And the following meaning:showing feelings of sympathy for the suffering of others, often with a desire to help. 

 Well if compassion means to care enough to have the desire to help, to be concerned about others what does it mean to be a compassionate church?  Does it mean that our church cares about the community that they get envolved and help where they can to help these strangers, does it mean that our pastors care enough for their congregation that they always have time for us, always help where they can ect. or does it mean that our church/congragation cares for each other, help each other, really listen to each other and the community or is it all the above?

Why is compassion such a hard thing (not just to understand but to actually have) Are humans just so selfcenterd that things like compassion you have to learn and work hard on.  That people make millions of dollars writing about it so that we can really understand it. Or is the problem really that we got hurt so many times before that it is just easier not to care any more.

Being a compassionate church is one of the hardest things to do, because you have so many different people all with their own history’s, their own thoughts,feelings and way of doing stuff.  Once again I don’t have the answer just the question, and my own thoughts…

I see people hurting each other every day in church, brothers and sisters in Christ fighting, not caring and most of all not LISTENING to each other.  Is the problem compassion or lack there of or really the not listening.  I don’t know maybe both…

 What I do think is that compassion in a church starts in the church, this may sound harsh and maybe I’m wrong but sometimes I think that it is easier to feel sorry,care for and help someone you don’t know (a total stranger) than someone you do know, someone in your church.  If we don’t care for each other how do we want to work together as the one body of Christ in the world out there?

Sorry if this is total chaos, I wrote as fast as my brain was working… I would like to hear your thoughts on this…

Well the long and the short is that the murderer of Little steven was convicted and found guilty of first degree murder he was sentenced to life imprisonment… This time justice prevailed lets just hope that it stays that way and that he and others like him don’t get another chance to hurt others aspecially our children…