I don’t mean to be reckless with what God has entrusted to me, but I think compassionate generosity is a good guide. As much as I admire David Brooks for the experience and insights he can bring to his commentaries, I think he misses that real people are, for example, drinking healthy water because of these compassionate endeavors.

In fact, jesus showed us how appropriate this was when he fed the crowds. He did not feed the world, nor even all Israel; he didn’t change the government, nor society. He fed the large crowd one meal.

Tim

It seems to me that there is largely a difference between visceral compassion and sentimental compassion. The latter is a disconnected sentiment for wanting social justice for others but not wanting to get your hands dirty and do the real intimate, and physically present work of compassion. What’s more, to me this sentimental compassion is often accompanied by the mindset of “I/we know what is good or best for you so here’s what you need,” which is an externally imposed and presumptuous imposition of one’s own value system. It’s working from the outside in rather than the inside out. An inside-out approach consists of letting those whom your helping identify their ow needs, desires, passions and coming alongside those and helping them accomplish those things.

I think we can agree that it is very apparent at how pervasive this disconnected, social consciousness is and how numbing and even destructive it can be. And to your point, real compassion doesn’t start until you meet people face to face and identify with them and begin to share their burdens and their plight.

Oh and thanks for your blog, I enjoy it! Keep it up!