The Other Shoe Dropped: Compassion with Connections

I’ve been thinking a lot about the importance of preemptive connections over the last few weeks. I’ve been privileged to be able to help out in some small ways, but more than that, I’m realizing for the first time in my life that the work that I’ve been doing to build connections, while enriching and bolstering in good times, is absolutely essential in bad times.

I’ve been going on this journey myself, figuring things out as I go and just trusting that my choices to turn towards other people will eventually have a positive effect. At the same time, I’ve gotten discouraged more than once, as Forrest will tell you since he’s the one reminding me that this work is good and it’s worthy. Because to tell you the truth, people are very often messy and I am often the messiest of them all. It can get me down.

But then the way we lived started to change and fast. We were asked to adapt and adjust and fill in the cracks that our system doesn’t care to look at. And all that messiness is still there. I’m still losing my temper at my kids and grumping about the rain and not wearing real pants most of the time. But in a time when caring for our neighbors has become a life or death issue, building the habits of connection has served me well. I already know who to call for this thing or that, who to check in on because their kid is tough, and who might need a break.

That’s the difference between compassion and charity.  The connections between us. It would be simple in this time to just throw money at these difficulties. To write a check or say a prayer and call it good. But when we have true, deep connections, we’ve done the work of vulnerability, appreciation, and generosity. Our compassion is full and rich and actually helpful. Without that groundwork, we’ll get burned out and turn to indifference, or worse, offer half-baked help that wastes our time and helps no one.

Compassion is the most visible sign of our connections. I could list off the beautiful things that I’ve seen neighbors doing for each other this last month. It would bring tears to your eyes. But it isn’t the whole of those connections and it certainly isn’t the beginning.

How have you seen connections make compassion more effective? When has a lack of connections emptied compassion of its power?