the need for action, but not without compassion

Sometimes I get moving too fast in my schedule, and I neglect or hurry past people I care about in my life.  My proclivity for action can so quickly chase compassion off my path and into the ditch.  This happened to me last week.

In the midst of a busy week of work with community and church and conversations about racism and justice,  I popped off a quick text to a group of neighbors who water and weed their flower corners all summer.

Each May, our neighborhood hosts a Saturday morning event called "Miracle of Marigolds".  Neighbors come together, and we plant several corners with marigolds.  Neighbors living close to a corner commit to caring for that particular corner, watering and weeding so that the flower corners might all grow and flourish around the Walnut Neighborhood. 

Last Wednesday, I shot off a quick reminder text to neighbors that basically said that due to very hot temperatures and no rain, the flowers might need some attention and water.

One neighbor replied with a text that basically said that due to a very hard and stressful week, some of our black neighbors might need some attention and checking on.

Full stop.

In the midst of action and busy, I neglected that which was the more important: compassion.  I had not checked in with some of my neighbors to see how they were doing.  I could have at least started my text with an acknowledgement of the heaviness and pain of the week.  But, I didn't.  And the flower text seemed insensitive and irrelevant for some to the weightier matters at hand. 

In the midst of cries for action and calls for swift reform and an urgent sense of movement to dismantle racism across our country, I am reminded that I cannot lose sight of real life on life compassion close to home.  Compassion literally means to suffer with....to enter into the pain...to get close to the pain, to tarry there.  Jesus was the master of compassion, entering into pain, being present, and suffering in solidarity alongside fellow humans.  This means moving toward brothers and sisters in pain and suffering, not only at a macro level, but at a micro, one on one level as well.    

Where is one place you're moving toward pain and suffering these days?  What has most grown your compassion quotient in your life?