I visited the House of Compassion which is facility in Marshalltown, IA. House of Compassion is a non-profit organization that opened twenty years ago. They are a place of hospitality for those that our hungry, homeless, or in need of medical assistance. The services they have include a supply closet, soup kitchen, emergency shelter, and a Medical Assistance Program. The supply closet enables them to supply personal hygiene products for families in need, diapers is a common need that is often forgotten by the public. The soup kitchen provides food for those that our hungry, and recently the House of Compassion as started a Garden of Compassion which they use to grow food to continue to feed and inform those that our in need. The Emergency Shelter is available for those that have no where to go. They have many beds for people to sleep in, and they are encouraged and supported while they are staying there. This is a common place for people to come in transition, in refuge, and most that come of a sense of hopelessness. Reversing this hopelessness is what the House of Compassion is hoping to do. They want to provide basic needs and help people back on their feet and experience again the hope that we have in Christ.
The official mission statement for the House of Compassion is “Called by our faith in Jesus Christ to act in love, the House of Compassion responds to the needs of our neighbors and advocates justice and dignity for all” (Frohwein, 2013). While on earth so much of Jesus ministry was focused on healing, feeding, clothing, and lifting up the marginalized. He feed and healed people before he professed to them that he was the Bread of Life and the Messiah. This is way it is important that we too are willing to feed and clot...
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...ter to those who thirst, cloth the naked, welcome people in and visit the orphans and widows, for this is what scripture describes as true religion and service to Christ and His Kingdom(Matthew25: 35-40 & James 1:27). Even though some much oppression and marginalization is present in Marshalltown, I was encouraged to see The House of Compassion doing many of these things and being faithful to this commandment.
Works Cited
Frohwein, K. (2013). House of compassion. Retrived from http://rhurd1960.wix.com/house-of- compassion. Pohl, C. D. (1999). Hospitality, dignity, and the power of recognition. In Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition. (61-84) Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
Volf, M. (1996). Oppression and justice. In Exclusion and Embrace: A theological exploration of Identity, otherness, and Reconciliation. (193-231). Abingdon Press: Nashville.
Drawing a distinction between being for someone and being with someone, Father Boyle writes: “Jesus was not a man for others. He was one with others. Jesus didn’t seek the rights of lepers. He touched the leper even before he got around to curing him. He didn’t champion the cause of the outcast. He was the outcast.” Such a distinction has significant implications for understanding ourselves in relation to others. While being for someone implies a separateness, a distinction between “them” and “us”, being with someone requires the recognition of a oneness with another, a unity that eradicates differences and binds people together. “’Be compassionate as God is compassionate’, means the dismantling of barriers that exclude,” writes Father Boyle. Accordingly, true compassion is not only recognizing the pain and suffering of others – it is not just advocating for those in need. It is being with others in their pain and suffering – and “bringing them in toward yourself.” Indeed, scripture scholars connect the word compassion to the “deepest part of the person,” showing that when Jesus was “moved with pity”, he was moved “from the entirety of his
“I looked anxiously. I didn’t see anybody… I’d keep my head up and my eyes open-‘You got a smoke to spare?’” (Walters 3). In Shattered, Eric Walters hauls the reader through the life of Ian, the protagonist who experiences the joy of helping others. Throughout this white pine award novel, Ian continually offers help to people around him reflecting to them that their lives are not perfect and they ought to alter it somewhat. Furthermore, the author effectively compares the significance of family and the importance of acquiring a dream in life. Through the book, Eric Walters demonstrates the theme of compassion through the incidents of Ian helping Jack to overcome his drinking problems, showing Berta the value of patriot and always there for the less fortunate.
In Dorothy Day’s article, Room for Christ, she presents making room for Christ as always seeking ways to repay Christ through good deeds committed in the present. These good deeds are deeds that do not necessarily benefit ourselves, but the lives of the people around us. It is the people who suffer in our time that are now Christ. How we act upon these suffering people, is how we act upon Christ. In Room for Christ, Dorothy says, “He made heaven hinge on the way we act towards Him in his disguise of commonplace, frail and ordinary human beings” (3).
"…admitting what is called philanthropy, when adopted as a profession, to be often useful by its energetic impulse to society at large, it is perilous to the individual whose ruling passion, in one exclusive channel, it thus becomes. It ruins, or is fearfully apt to ruin, the heart, the rich juices of which God never meant should be pressed violently out and distilled into alcoholic liquor by an unnatural process, but should render life sweet, bland, and gently beneficent, and insensibly influence over other hearts and other lives to the same blessed end." (348)
While sitting in my dorm room watching a DVD, I looked around and suddenly realized how lucky I was. I lived in a decent sized room with lighting and air conditioning that I could adjust to make myself comfortable. Then I thought how even more lucky I was to be able to go home too yet a nicer living facility at my own house that I have to share with nobody but my immediate family. It made me begin to wonder how many people there are that do not possess this luxury. That is when I thought of Habitat for Humanity. The only thing that I knew about it was that they built homes for underprivileged families with inadequate shelter. I wanted to see though exactly how this specific organization made a difference in peoples lives. Hopefully my research will enlighten my readers of the living situations of many families around the world, maybe even convincing some to volunteer themselves.
As many people will agree, Christ can be referred to, as Kierkegaard’s states it, “the prototype” (239). In other words, Christ lived in such an ethical and loving way that many people admire. Therefore, we can safely say that in following Christ’s “footprints” (238), we are closer to being more ethical and loving individuals. Consequently, in becoming involved with this service-learning project, I have come to realize that I, and everyone in general, do hold a moral responsibility towards complete strangers. This is most evident when regarding our religious background since I, and anyone else for that matter, cannot truly claim to being an ethical individual if we are stuck being admirers and do not alter in becoming imitators.
...g the hungry, giving a drink to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, and visiting the prisoner. Also in the New Testament, James admonishes believers to examine themselves in this area when he asks, "If one of you says to [a needy person], `Go and I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,' but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?" (James 2:16) In today's society where so many have so little, we who have been entrusted with much should care for those less fortunate. Compassion without action is not enough. We must stand up and defend the cause of those who cannot stand for themselves: the unborn, the poverty-stricken, the elderly, the widows and orphans of war and disease. This is what it means to be a part of the Kingdom of God...to know Him. Israel learned that lesson a little too late. Will we?
Homelessness around the world has risen. An abundance of men, women, and even children are homeless and sleeping on the streets. Citizens often feel sorry for these people and want to help them out and put them into a community shelter so they can be safe but couldn’t because of the lack of shelters nearby. Let’s say that you went to work one day to find that the company you are working for is shutting down. You lost your job and you are losing money and is forced to sell your home. You and your family are living in an alleyway and is salvaging any food and money you can from strangers. You then heard about a community shelter but it is seven miles away from your location. You want your family to go there and be safe but it is such a long walk. This is why cities around the world should open more community shelters. This will help the homeless feel safe and secure that they won’t have to struggle with the weather conditions, lack of food or money, and the insecurity of living alone on the streets.
On 1/13/16, I watched the TED Talk of Gregory Boyle, “Compassion and Kinship,” a founder and executive director of Homeboy Industries. He explained how we should form a relationship with others so that we can come together as one rather than being enemies towards each other. Specifically he claimed that having kinship and compassion breaks down barriers it allows people who don’t fit society’s standards know that their life has value, meaning, and worth. As he said, “How can we achieve a certain kind of compassion that stands in awe at what the poor have to carry rather than stand in judgement at how they carry it, for the measure of our compassion lies not in our service of those on the margins but in our willingness to see ourselves and kinship with them and mutuality.” Although some people believe that once they choose to make bad decisions, they have
As a Christian organization, Habitat for Humanity seeks to put “God’s love” into action. With a focus on shelter as the means of manifesting God’s love, they seeks to alleviate the pain felt by the nearly 2 billion people living in slums, and nearly 100 million more who are without a home altogether. Habitat for Humanity believes that every man, woman...
Christianity propagated charity as one of the necessary acts that a good Christian should follow. Graham Gordon believes that in Christianity, "Charity is considered chief of the Christian virtues," and that "Charity is commended by St. Paul for being the true way to the end which religious practices seek"(10). We can see that in being a chief virtue, charity is highly encouraged in the sense that helping others is considered to be a great deed of good doing. Therefore, we can draw the notion that those who wish to follow the "true way to the end," are those that contribute the most to the poor, as opposed to those mentioned by Walsh who see themselves as "not responsible for the welfare of human beings.
In my opinion the most meaningful Christian value is compassion because it encourages us to sympathize with others. As human beings this can be challenging since we often only think about ourselves and fail to consider the way other people feel. However, if we lived in a world where everyone was compassionate towards one another, there would be a greater sense of love and peace instead of the violence, neglect and hate that we see so often in the world today. Just by tuning into the news or even looking at my own community, I notice many ways in which the value of compassion is being violated. On a global scale, American and Canadian troops have killed thousands of civilians in countries such as Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan. Rather than promoting peace, our own
In Luke 10:30-35, Jesus described how a good Samaritan helped a Jewish man who was robbed, beaten, and left half dead while on his way to Jericho from Jerusalem. Although the Samaritan did not have any responsibility to stop and help the Jewish man--as the Samaritans were the enemies of Jew--he stopped and risked his own life to help him. He even helped the Jew at a level beyond anything that might have been considered usual care. The Samaritan brought the Jewish man to an inn and asked the inn keeper to take care of the Jew. Furthermore, he promised the inn keeper to pay all of his treatment costs. The story shows the meaning of loving others as ourselves. The Samaritan man demonstrated agape love. He loved the Jewish man as if he would want to be treated in the same circumstance; he loved the Jewish man as if he was part of his own
People’s lives are changed every day by their actions and experiences. This past summer, I participated in a community service project, an experience that opened my eyes in many ways. I was a volunteer at the County Memorial Hospital. In my time as a volunteer at the hospital, I was able to meet patients and staff members from all over the world and learn about their life experiences. Listening to all of their stories has made me truly appreciate everything which I have.
In conclusion, silence is just as dangerous as speaking out, and inaction and the absence of compassion is catastrophic. They Jews did not take any action to prevent them from death and stood in silence. They had not revolted against the officers for they knew that death would come. But as they stayed silent and took no action, they are killed. To add to this, God's compassion to the Jews is absent, and they are losing faith. No pity can be felt for one another, for it is a battle of every man for themselves. Given these points, the inaction and absence of compassion leads them to their death because their inactions weakened them and the Jews are killed, and compassion removes their faith and hope which leads them to giving up. The Jews did