Compassion

I am thinking about a few of my friends who left a few days ago to travel to the Philippines on a service trip.


I am thinking it's the first few days of uncertainty, wondering if there may be another typhoon coming there way, wondering what the hell they got themselves into, wondering if at the end of the month, their lives will actually be changed.



And then I am thinking, these kids are fucking great.

Because, they are getting on a plane, traveling twenty four hours away, to help children, they have never met.


And these same kids, my friends, are the types of people who question compassion on a daily basis: not whether or not they should give it, but why more people are not?


Have we begun to live our lives afraid to reach out to the people right next to us, let alone, half way across the world?

Has being nice become creepy, or annoying?

It takes .7777 seconds to look someone in the eyes when you address them. to acknowledge their hummanity.

it takes but a few moments to remember someone's name.

these things REALLY MATTER.

At the end of our lives we will not be remembered by what we did, or what we said, but rather, how we made others feel.

When I say things like that, people tell me I am crazy, impractical, and full of nonsense.

I do not think that treating others with dignity and patience and love is nonsense.

I think this is the only way to exist.