8 posts tagged “compassion”

Hast thou no scar?
No hidden scar on foot, or side, or hand?
I hear thee sung as mighty in the land;
I hear them hail thy bright, ascendant star.
Hast thou no scar?

Hast thou no wound?
Yet I was wounded by the archers; spent,
Leaned Me against a tree to die; and rent
By ravening beasts that compassed Me, I swooned.
Hast thou no wound?

No wound? No scar?
Yet, as the Master shall the servant be,
And piercèd are the feet that follow Me.
But thine are whole; can he have followed far
Who hast no wound or scar?

 

BY AMY CARMICHAEL

"Supterstars strive for approbation; heroes walk alone. Superstars crave consensus; heroes define themselves by the judgment of a future they see it as their task to bring about. Superstars seek success in a technique for eliciting support; heroes pursue success as the outgrowth of their inner values." -Henry Kissinger

 

There are few heroes in the world.  This organizaiton is one of them.  I don't know if very many people know about them which is why I have their link posted to my blog.  In a nutshell, these people take expired patents on various drugs and make them available to third world countries.  The drugs take care of many of the simple diseases that kill so many in the world.  Better still, they are a nonproft organization.

Here's what they are about:

 

 

Consider this an invitation to get to know them and share in their work.

 

Yours for the reign of God,

 

Ron

 

Compassion...there are so many needs in this big old world that all one really has to do is choose and go.  One of the concerns that is growing out of St. Clare's is compassion towards those persons known as "The Lost Boys of Sudan."  This book "God Grew Tired of Us" is one of a few ("What is the What" being another).  I put this book out as an offering primarily because we intend not only to show the movie this summer, but also send some of our people to aid in helping the people of Sudan.

Think you've had a bad day?  Well sit right down my friend, have I got sobering news for you!  The next time you feel terrible I'd like you to consider the following stats.  Please note that I didn't make these up...in fact, I list where I got the figures from.  There is much we need to do in this world and it begins with compassion on a grand scale.  Read it and weep.

 

Here are some find-a-need-and-fill-it statistics on poverty:

100,000,000 people have no shelter whatsoever.
770,000,000 do not get enough food for an active working life.
500,000,000 suffer from iron-deflciency anemia.
1,300,000,000 do not have safe water to drink.
800,000,000 live in 'absolute poverty,' unable to meet minimal demands.
880,000,000 adults cannot read and write.
10,000,000 babies are born malnourished every year.
14,000,000 children die of hunger related causes every year.

--Gerald W. Schlabach,
"And Who Is My Neighbor? Poverty, Privilege, and the Gospel of Christ" (Scottdale, Pa.: 1990), 24,
quoting Ruth Leger Sivard's World Military and Social Expenditures, 1987-88 (Washington, D.C.: World Priorities, 1987), 25.

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As we enter the season of Lent, St. Clare's Episcopal Church offers this class as a way of entering into the great mystery of the season.  For those who are local (Pleasanton, CA) you can pick up the book at Towne Center Books.  Otherwise, follow the link in my book section and order it through Amazon.  The following blog is a detailed description of my upcoming class.

 

“Love all God’s creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand.  Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light!  Love the animals, love the plants, love everything.  If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things.  And once you have perceived it, you will begin to comprehend it ceaselessly, more and more every day.  And you will at last come to love the whole world with an abiding, universal love.” –Fydor Mikhail Dostoevsky

 

Not enough time? Money? Peace? Can less really be more?  What really matters to you?  In a society where “I shop, therefore I am” results in a deep spiritual poverty, this class, Simpler Living: Compassionate Life provides a gospel-based antidote. 

On this four session journey, participants will:

 

·        Make connections between faith and simplicity.

·        Build a sense of community and support within the group.

·        Understand connections between consumption, global economics and increasing inequity between rich and poor;

·        Be encouraged towards actions and lifestyles which more deeply reflect our core Christian values and result in more meaningful, joyful living.

 

Our class runs as follows:

 

1.     Week one (March 7, 2007): Storytelling: Listening to our lives.

2.     Week two (March 14, 2007): Theology for the Practice of Simplicity.

3.     Week three (March 21, 2007): Your Money or Your Life: The Place of Money in Modern Life.

4.     Week four (March 28, 2007): Broader Impacts of Our Everyday Food Choices.

The following blog is not of my own writing. Rather it comes from a member of St. Clare's, Ms. Patricia Haller.  The article strikes at the core of one of the tenants of faithful Chrisitan living: It is not enough to mouth the words...we must actively live what we believe.  Along with a few picutres on this blog (more to come) is one story of how we try to live our faith at St. Clare's.

 

I pray that you enjoy it.

 

Written by Patricia Haller

From the Pacific Church News

It was dark when I flew into, so it was hard to tell whether the expanses of blackness below were water or former neighborhoods without power. It wasn’t until the next morning that I learned just how bad the situation remains over a year after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the city.

Shortly after the 2005 hurricanes, Father Ron Culmer urged our parish (St. Clare’s, ) to respond with more than just money. “One act of compassion has the power to transform the world,” he said. “I felt that we at St. Clare’s needed to share our time, our talent and our selves to help transform the suffering into hope and joy.”

So in October 2006, Fr. Culmer, Hardy Lipscomb, Brian Clay, Dan Grahn, and I went to to work with The Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana’s office of disaster response. I also invited my father and members of his parish in (Church of the Resurrection, Nicholasville) to meet us there.

We spent four days working with the gutting ministry, led by a group of committed college students who help homeowners strip devastated homes down to the studs. The city is setting deadlines, threatening to bulldoze homes that aren’t gutted –– at the homeowner’s expense –– and families that lost everything are afraid of losing even the hope of rebuilding.

Before the storm, the neat rows of single-story homes in New Orlean’s neighborhoods probably looked like many in the . Now, some are simply gone. Some are being repaired while the family lives in a trailer in the front yard. Many more remain untouched. All have a spray-painted cross with the date it was searched by the National Guard Unit and an ominous number – how many bodies were found inside.

In the Lower Ninth Ward, a huge breach in the levees sent a wall of water up to 30 feet high smashing into the two-story brick home of retired school teacher Patricia Speares. The family across the street drowned, and the house next door was swept off its slab and dropped just six inches from her back room. The water stood 10 feet deep for weeks. Here there are no trailers, because there are no services. The neighborhood only got potable water in mid October 2006, and portable toilets dropped off by FEMA a year ago have never been cleaned out.

Tears rolled down Miss Patricia’s thin dark face as we pulled on our work gloves and donned protective masks to keep us safe from mold. I took the kitchen, where cabinets sagged off the walls, dumping muddy china and broken glassware onto the floor. My kitchen is the heart of my home, and that mess of memories was almost more than I could bear. Worse still were the rusty canned goods, which shattered as I shoveled them out, releasing the nauseating smell of spoiled food and a scattering of giant cockroaches.

I found some dishes and crystal that were intact, and someone else brought out a brass clock that Miss Patricia lovingly swabbed clean with clumps of grass. But most of her former life was shoveled into wheelbarrows and dumped on the curb. And when we were done, Miss Patricia and Miss Vanessa – her friend and former neighbor, who lost four family members in the flood – prayed for us and joined us in singing ‘Amazing Grace.’

“Never forget,” Miss Vanessa told me, “God is good, so good.”

A banner at St. Clare’s in proclaims our mission:  “To know Christ; to grow in Christ; to serve Christ; and to share Christ.”In , I learned that no part of that mission stands alone. In serving Christ and sharing Christ with the people there, I have grown in Christ and come to know Him better.

Any parish, group, or individual interested in volunteering or donating to help in should contact Holly Heine in the Diocese of Louisiana's Office of Disaster Response at 504.895.4303 or hheine@edola.org.