COMPASSION

Compassion is the church's job.
And the government's job.
And your job.
And my job.


So Christmas is over and the silliness that is new year has passed. We are nearly 2 weeks into 2016 so we've all broken any resolutions we made and all the residual niceness from the holidays has gone.

Road rage has started again - I hadn't seen any for about a month, everyone was polite and letting people merge in and waving and stuff but not today. On my 13km drive this morning I saw 4 incidents - 2 bird fingers, one raised fist and one lean out of the window and hurl abuse. None of it was aimed at me I hasten to add! But the Christmas spirit has well and truly gone.

Which is sad. I saw this on Facebook last week and this morning's drive made me think of it again -

The work of Christmas never ends, in essence the Christmas spirit should always be with us - not the party hats and silly jokes nor the plates of food and the mountains of sweets but the idea that, as Dickens puts it, there is a time when we think of other people as "fellow-travellers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys."

This idea, lets call it compassion, is not a job we can do alone, its a job that we all need to do and each little bit has an effect in the world around us. It makes it a slightly better place - and if enough of us do that all those slightlys become a lot of difference and suddenly the world where we are is brighter.

It doesn't have to be big things. Most of us don't have the power to bring world peace or stop hunger but we do have the power to love a little more and share a bit of what we have with the people we see. 

The government (in fact most of the world's governments of whatever stripe or leaning) aren't really doing their job when it comes to compassion. In Australia billions has been cut from both foreign and national aid budgets, I know the same is true in the U.K. 

People who rely on government aid can't get it anymore. A recent survey should that over a third of Australian pensioners are living below the poverty line. So this isn't just about those 'homeless drug users' as one person said to me last week.

So it's down to us - the yous and the mes of the world. Compassion is so desperately needed in our world, my prayer this week is that we will all do a little more good around us and brighten up our little corner just a bit. After all it's what Jesus would do!!