A Call for Compassion

I was riding the train into downtown the other day on my Sabbath. Trains in Chicago can be excellent stages for watching people interact. That’s the great thing about public transit; everyone has to wait; everyone rides in the same cars; there is no social, economic, or racial segregation. This particular morning though I witnessed a scene unfold that broke my heart.

In my time working with students at Orr Academy High School I have learned a lot about the cycle that ex-offenders face when trying to re-enter into society. They are often not eligible or looked over for jobs. They often are let out with only the option to return to the place they fell into trouble at or become homeless. There are few programs that are helping ex-offenders specifically in the process of re-entry and often times those programs go un-promoted to the people who need them most.

A man walked on the train, well dressed with a professional looking folder, and proceeded to announce to the train his need. He was an ex-offender with a family, unable to find a job and struggling to pay the bills. In order to be able to take care of his family, he was seeking employment or the goodwill of someone who could connect him to someone that could help. This man spoke eloquently, he was gentle, but you could also tell that desperate circumstances had driven this man to this time and place. He received no response, no acknowledgment even from the many business people on the train. I wish I had thought quickly enough to get his e-mail so that I could have tried to find someone who could have helped but he got off at the next train stop.

A lady a few seats over commented to the person on her cell phone “I just hate riding on public transportation because of “stuff” like this.” It broke my heart. We need more encounters like this in our lives so that we cannot continue to live in such isolation that when we talk about issues or make judgments about groups or ideas we have no faces to those issues. When “ex-offenders” become Joe and Dante instead of a nameless entity, the black and white of a situation melts into the gray. We learn to show compassion in situations we may not have understood at the human level before and we learn to talk about issues with a new openness to learning and understanding that is so needed in our world. I pray that the walls that society has built up to separate us from the reality of our world come crumbling down. I pray that when we make statements about issues it because our heart is tied to the well-being of those who those decisions effect. May God’s kingdom come and His will be done, here on earth as it is in Heaven!

~ by aworldupsidedown on April 3, 2009.