Compassion is not Dead

We hear so many terrible things happening in the world today—mass shootings, wars, discrimination, hate crimes, racism, sexual exploitation. We sometimes feel very afraid and unsafe and hesitate to even venture out of our homes. Yet we cannot live our lives in fear. We must look for reasons to hope.  

 There is still much kindness in our world that sometimes we are not aware of. I was struck with a front-page story in the Kansas City Star recently that warmed my heart. It told about a man who was out jogging and collapsed on the street with a heart attack. One woman stopped to assist, then called two more women who performed CPR. A cardiologist driving by in his car also stopped  to help. They were able to save his life because they stopped to care. The jogger is very grateful and is trying to find the first woman who called for assistance to thank her.

I also read about two teenagers in Australia who saved two younger girls caught in an ocean rip tide. When the little girls’ mother called frantically for help (she couldn’t swim), the teenagers swam out with an Esky board and were able to tow them in. They might have thought it was too dangerous to make the attempt, but they did not hesitate to swim out to save them.

Those were truly life and death situations, but there are small acts of compassion people show every day.  It might be taking time to visit with an elderly person in a nursing home, offering to run an errand for a neighbor who is disabled, reading to someone who has limited vision, or  writing a letter to someone in prison.

Someone started a Random Acts of Kindness Day to encourage people to do something kind for another person in secret. It would be nice to do that throughout the year and try to surround the world with love instead of fear.