Man, one chapter is full of so much... The first chapter was on compassion. It is broken into four sections.l Smile, suffering, actions, and love.
Smile is about spreading the love of and peace of God through smiles. She says to smile five times a day at people we don't feel like smiling at to sow the peace of God.
Suffering is about how so many people are suffering, and suffering from hunger, and homelessness, but that the worst suffering is the suffering of the unwanted. That people are suffering from loneliness because the world runs at such a fast pace that their are people who can't keep up, who fall down and get left behind. These are the people we must love. She says we have to have the courage to accept people as they are, even when they can't keep up, because "the life-giving sap that flows from the vine to each of the branches is the same."
Actions is about loving people through our actions. It sites the story in the Bible where Jesus feeds the multitude with the fish and the loaves. She talks about how God filled their physical needs before he tried teaching them and filling their spiritual needs. He cared about both, not just about preaching to people.
The final section is one sentence long: "In loving one another through our works, we bring an increase of grace and a growth in divine love."
I think this chapter spoke to me in a couple of ways:
1. I already smile at people a lot, and often I smile at people I don't feel like smiling at, but I could do that more. Sometimes I get frustrated at people, but often it is when I am in a hurry and forget that other people have places to be and things to do as well. Most of the time my uncharitable thoughts stem from a selfish impatience with others. I can work on that...
2. Some people are lonely. MT says that she believes that the greatest suffering is loneliness, feeling unloved and just having no one. Sometimes I feel lonely, but there is a difference. Some people are really, truly, alone, and if I know that, if I believe it, that changes my lonely, but it also spurs me, in my own ministry, to teach kids to embrace those who have no one else. To teach kids to love those who are different and don't have the same things in common with them. I need to teach these kids how to truly love.
3. Sometimes it is hard for me when people talk about their ministries, because it often makes me feel like I am not doing anything with my life to serve God. I don't go to soup kitchens or give out blankets to the homeless, I don't go to other countries, and I don't give to tons of charities. I am a teacher, and sometimes I feel like my occupation just isn't enough. But, then I remember that my act of service doesn't HAVE to look like everyone else's, it just has to be service, and that is enough for God
and in the end, it is what He thinks that matters.
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