This week I caught a look at Jenny Brockie’s SBS Show ‘Insight’, her last offering as she moves into retirement.
I have a deep respect for Ms Brockie and the way in which she has presents and explores complex community issues. This episode focused on the ‘food crisis’ that families are currently facing as they struggle to supply the basic needs on limited budgets. My heart went out as I heard people’s stories. The stories were real and the people genuine. This caused me to reflect on the importance of our current focus on Compassion, one of our Graduate Aims, a virtue, identified as being of high importance, in our community.
I regularly speak of compassion in terms of ‘a response to a need’, or expressed in another way as, ‘love in action’. When someone falls down you help them up. When someone is hurting you reach out and provide a comforting word. This is compassion expressed in a practical and authentic way; more recently, this is what has been reflected through the generous contribution of families to things like Operation Christmas Child, the NSW Rural Fire Service fundraiser, and the current project putting together Christmas food hampers for churches. Thank you for your support as we work towards supporting charities and work for those in need.
The biggest difference, however, is when each one of us respond to the day to day needs of those people we are in regular relationship with: our spouse, our family, our friends, our colleagues and peers. There is no doubt that ‘love in action’ will improve the quality of our relationships in all cases.
Please pray for us as we move towards Christmas and a busy end of a difficult year. Take the time to ‘love well’ and be mindful of one another.
God is Love - 1 John 4:7-9 - 'Dear Friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.'
