The Hospice Society of the Windermere Valley (where I live) has gathered a number of local people to serve on an ad hoc committee in order to create a more compassionate community for those nearing the end of life. I am glad to be a part of this committee and to meet the thoughtful people I am meeting. It is always good and noble when any of us, all of us, seek to make a more compassionate community, however we can.
I am struck, though, when I compare the difference between us seeking to build a more compassionate community locally with what is “officially” happening on a national level in the United States.
Watching scenes of masked, unidentified quasi-military men capturing vulnerable people, putting them in unmarked vehicles, detaining them without allowing them to contact loved ones or lawyers, and shipping them to prisons in foreign countries is strikingly inhumane. Regardless of one’s views on illegal immigration, it is wrong to treat people like this. I can’t imagine what it is like in that environment to have a loved one not come home on time or to not be reachable by phone. There is no justifiable end that warrants such terrible means.
The ending of aid to the poor and sick around the world. The ending of programs that help the country’s poor access health care and receive food assistance. This is not creating a compassionate society.
After millions of people peacefully protested in the streets, the president put out a video of himself dropping excrement on them. In what world is this appropriate?
What is happening in a country where politicians often repeat a phrase attributed to Jesus, used by the Puritans in the 1600s, about America being “a city set on a hill”? For those Puritans, America was to be a model Christian society that would be a beacon of hope for the world.
We need, here in Canada, here in our valley, to keep trying to create more compassionate families, workplaces, classrooms, churches, friendships and a community. We seem to live in a time when an act of compassion is subversive to another way of thinking and acting that wants to take hold.
Fortunately, it’s never too late to do the right thing or the kind thing.
If the best way of being less susceptible to disease is staying healthy and taking care of ourselves, let us keep being well and doing well so that whatever mental illnesses that may be going around in the States do not find a host environment here.
