Compassion

I am required to do some reading before I go to Romania. There are a handful of books that my team and I will read and write reflections on to help prepare us for lies ahead for us in Romania. I am for this because I'm a reader and it feels a little like school, which I miss sometimes. (I know that makes me kind of a dork, but what can you do?)

The 5 books I have to read are:

From Brokenness to Community by Jean Vanier
Compassion by Henri Nouwen
The City of Joy by Dominique Lapierre
The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne
The Way of the Heart by Henri Nouwen

Amazon was nice enough to send me 4 of the 5 books last week and I decided to start with Compassion. And let me tell you, so far it is amazing.

The book starts by giving me a new definition for compassion: To suffer with. I will admit, my vocabulary isn't all that large, but I had always thought compassion and sympathy were synonyms. They both resided in the emotional realm but didn't necessarily call me to action. Compassion calls me to action.

I came across this quote a couple days ago and it pretty much sums up my prayer for what I hope my attitude in Romania will be.

"[In Christ] we see what compassion means.  It is not a bending toward the underprivileged from a privileged position; it is not a reaching out from on high to those who are less fortunate below; it is not a gesture of sympathy or pity for those who fail to make it in the upward pull.  On the contrary, compassion means going directly to those people and places where suffering is most acute and building a home there."

When I think about going to Romania it makes me nervous to think of all the things I will be doing without.  I am a clothes horse, for those of you that don't know, and thinking about doing with only 4 pairs of pants for 4 months is a big deal. And even more than what I have, I have come to realize that I have an attitude that everything is available to me.  If I don't like what I have at my house for dinner, I can go out.  If I think my cat "needs" a purple wig because I think it would be hilarious (which it was) I will buy it for him.  

In going to Romania I hope to abandon this attitude completely.  I don't want to be rich American girl going for a visit, hoping to do some good in a small country.  I want to live the life that the people I am serving live.  I want to identify with them where they are.  I want to "build my home there".  I know that won't be 100% possible because I know that I will be returning to America.  But I pray daily that this journey will be life changing.  That I will come back changed, never again to be the person who I am now.  Which is terrifying. But awesome.