Bookreview. Compassion : A reflection on the christian life

Compassion: A REFLECTION ON THE CHRISTIAN LIFEMargret AnabaronyeFelician University INTRODUCTION
Compassion: Three writers wrote a reflection on the Christian life. Henri J. Nouwen, Donald P. McNeill, and Douglas A. Morrison. There book changed the world from 1982 when the book was written to present, “This is an excellent tribute to Henri Nouwen who, although he predeceased the other authors, lives on in Compassion as he does in his many books.”(Nouwen, McNeill, & Morrison, 1982, p. 1) Compassion is a Latin word, which means pati and cum, together it means “suffer from or with.” According to the book of Luke 6:35-36, AP said, “ Love your enemies. Do good to them… Be compassionate, just as God is compassionate.” What it means to love your enemies; It is sometimes difficult to know who is your enemies. Thirty bible verses talk about to love your enemies. Think about what made your enemies or who is your enemy; it may be a painful set of memories of what someone did to you or someone you hate or you are jealous about (competition). Jesus understood the offensive nature of the crucifixion, yet he still forgave them; for cruelty, Jesus returns compassion. When you see someone suffering we should try to help, it requires us to be strong when someone is weak, and also like or love your enemies are the highest reflection on the Christian life. Compassion is not a natural phenomenon; nobody is born with compassion, it depends on the environment where the child was brought up.

He/she must be taught to be compassionate. According to Dreitcer, compassion is “the feeling that arises when you are confronted with another’s suffering and feel motivated to relieve that suffering.” (Dreitcer, 2017, p. 17) Compassion is the art of showing unconditional love to everyone, through obedience to God.
In the first chapter the author challenges us with a question, how we know that God is our God, not a stranger or anybody on the street. In the book of John 6:46, nobody has seen the father, accept for Jesus, as Christians we know this because our life is about following Christian values. In Christ Jesus, we see God, the Father, was in him, and after his death, a Holy spirit made manifest in our life only if you believe.(Romans 8:1-11)The book explained sincerely on how Jesus show compassion to the poor, hungry, the blind and the sick. “God is father and mother, brother and sister, son and daughter. There, all feelings emotions, and passion are one in divine love…”(Nouwen et al., 1982, p. 15). I agree with the statement, compassion can only be moved by the divine love and grace, Jesus shows much sympathy when he sees people suffering, hungry (feed thousand people) and Jesus shows tears of compassion for people who lost their faith. Compassion is grounded in natural feeling and love, informed by understanding, and expressed in action, as our look at biblical beliefs of compassion showed.
In chapter three the authors explained there was no manifest to God’s compassion, Jesus suffering was due to obedience. Compassion cannot be separated from compliance (obedience); for instance, when you look at the story of the Good Samaritan, (Luke 10:25-37) he stops to a wounded man, it is an excellent thing to do. In our society, today, due to economic reason and cultural diversity people can no longer offer help to anyone, compassion is a hard thing to do if you are not natural at it, it takes prayer and the grace of God. “ Massive exposure to human misery often leads to psychic numbness. Our minds cannot tolerate being constantly reminded of things which interfere with what we are doing at the moment.”(Nouwen et al., 1982, p. 51) Compassion is just a state, not something that’s created; it is a feeling you have when you see someone suffering. Jesus teaches in the book of Luke 10, shows Christians that to become entirely compassionate is to turn to proper understanding and care for one another in action.
The authors said in chapter one, “ That competition, not compassion, is our motivation in life.” (Nouwen et al., 1982, p. 17) This statement is true; everybody wants to be on top, the best in everything, it is tough to find a real friend or brother. To be compassionate one has to give up who you are, in the book of Mathew 19:13-15, the disciple was not happy that little children were brought to Jesus, He explained to them, that such belongeth to the kingdom of heaven. To be compassionate as you need to give up the art of competition, fear of the unknown, and be merciful as our loving God, love one another with unconditional love. Competition stands in the way of Christian being compassionate.
The new self; the authors invite Christian to receive new person. When one is born again, all things are passed away; all things are through Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:16 17. “This is the mystery of the Christian life: to receive a new self, a new identity, which depends not on what we can achieve, but on what we are willing to receive.”(Nouwen et al., 1982, p. 19), when we understand what a new life in Christ is, following the footstep of Christ, the compassion of Christ is moved by deep emotion and love. Jesus wants us to get rid of our old life, fear, and competition. In chapter six the authors’ statement. “When we give up our desires to be outstanding or different when we give up needs to have our special niches…” (Nouwen et al., 1982, p. 77), I agree, and like the statement says, it is a real beauty in Christian life. They explained how self-emptying for each other, when e listen closely and pay more attention, we become emptier and see the need to show love and compassion to people in need.
The compassion of Jesus is linked with his humility, in the book of John 1: 1-3, the bible made it clear that Jesus was with God during creation, and he is one with the father, come to us as a servant, art of obedience to his father. He was full of the father’s compassion and unconditional love. When the first Adam sin, Jesus became the second Adam, He left his heavenly throne; he came down to earth. In the book of Ph 2:6-8, “His state was divine, yet he did not cling to his equality in God but emptied himself…” When every Jesus is in a community, he was moved by compassion.
In chapter four the authors spoke of community,”The Christian community mediates between the suffering.”(Nouwen et al., 1982, p. 49) The community is not your close family, they are different people, with different culture and religion. Living with and grow up with Muslim, the Holy Quran spoke of compassion, do unto others what you, what you want done onto, try every God creation equally. It has expressed more of love; kindness can never be separated from our community. In the book of Luke 10:29 Jesus asked, “Who is my neighbor?” The Samaritan is a citizen of an enemy community; the Jewish have nothing familiar with them, he was the last person who might help the wounded man.
The stated that we should be our brother’s keeper, I disagree with the author’s statement. “ In the Christian community, we can keep our eye and ears open to all that happens without being numbed by technological overstimulation or angered by the experience of powerlessness. In the Christian community, we can know about hungry…”(Nouwen et al., 1982, p. 54) It sounds good, but in real life, everybody is busy, nobody has time to notice if a member is absent in the church; people do not know where and how to reach each other. Competition, jealousy have taken place of love in the heart, everybody wants to be the best. I remember an incident that happened one time; a man came to the church with a dirty cloth, brother saw this man and decided to help him, the man was furious, He said, “Do you think you are better than me.” How on earth with that brother show compassion to another. the author’s further explained how one could be compassionate in the face of a situation like this, “ people who say, “ I wonder if anyone cares what I am doing.” (Nouwen et al., 1982, p. 59) The book of Colossians 3:23, RSV said whatever your task, work heartily, as serving the Lord. To love God is to love God’s compassion. To be compassion is not an individual trait or personal attitude, but away from being emotional, seeing people as the lord look, one cannot show kindness if they do not have love. Luke 6:35-36.
According to the author’s, “The Christian community mediates between the suffering of the world and our responses to suffering.” To my knowledge when they said community, I believed they are referring to Christian around the world not only people living in the same Country’s or states. During those natural disasters happened in Puerto Rico and Houston, Most of the people who responded were Christians from different denominations, people came together to help, people donated clothes, food, and money. When Christian come together, they show God compassion which is revealed by showing solidarity, servanthood, and obedience. The author said that these characteristics are what makes Christian community stays together as one body in Christ Jesus. “Solidarity can hardly be an individual accomplishment. It is difficult for us to enter into the pain and sufferings of our fellow human beings.” (Nouwen et al., 1982, p. 55) I agree with the statement, no matter how rich one his, they can be able to afford to buy things, but you can not be able to deliver it on your own, you most need people with common interest.
The Lord Jesus shows compassion through humility art of serving. “We might be able to help a few people for a while but to respond in servanthood to all people all the time is not a real human aspiration.”(Nouwen et al., 1982, p. 59). We all need people in our life, from birth to death, no one carries his/herself, everyone has different talent, in a community such is required. More to that, for one to be compassionate, he/she must be obedient, “We must recognize that obedience, as an attentive listening to God, is very much a communal vocation.”(Nouwen et al., 1982, p. 56) The author’s explanation of Jesus as an obedient servant, really show an accurate reflection of the Christian life. However, competition and jealous will not allow many to Join or displaced them as a servant in a community. In chapter five, the authors expressed how Jesus gave up his heavenly kingdom, humble himself in human form, it is a remarkable thing to do, but when it came to disciple, it is challenging. In my country, many families force their children to be a priest, for the benefit of it. The voluntary displacement can only be shown by being a disciple. The only thing people think is how to make money, how to pay their bills; It is hard to find a faithful disciple in our present generation.

References
Dreitcer, A. (2017). Living compassion: Loving like Jesus (ed.). []. https://doi.org/Nouwen, H. J., McNeill, D. P., & Morrison, D. A. (1982). In (Ed.), Compassion: A Reflection on the Christian Life, (p. pp. -).:. []. https://doi.org/ Retrieved from