What kind of compassion?

Allison W. Phinney, Jr.

If you were asked in a public-opinion poll to describe yourself, would you select the word compassionate? Most of us might hesitate for a moment and then concur. After all, how many people want to think of themselves as uncompassionate!

But even when we make occasional contributions to worthy causes, volunteer our services in the community, and work in church, we may still lack an outgoing heart, which is what compassion is really all about.

Compassion, or our lack of it, continually influences us for better or worse. With compassion we gain perspective. We can see, even in the midst of sad, tangled human stories, the outlines of God's man and gleams of spiritual individuality. Compassion dissolves hate before this plague can develop, and it stops us from fixedly seeing nothing but the dark side of human beings. It is a fundamental step toward more conviction about the reality and the actual presence of the man whom God has created in His image.

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