Compassion

I can not, for the life of me, understand the disregard for human suffering. I think sometimes that I am an Ilse in a sea that's demands beat upon me and stays constant.

I grew up here in the south. Here where churches line every street corner and the bells ring calling the masses to salvation. Here where biblical verses are as common to hear as hello's. Here, where we should do unto our neighbors as we would have them do unto us. And here.. where slavery had to be pulled from our cold and dead fingers.

I grew up hearing about the differences in man. How we were equal.. but better. And I found my own way. Fought against my upbringing to be better than them. I wanted my children to learn to judge people by the content of their character, not by the color of their skin. I wanted them to protect the under dog, comfort those who needed it. Fight against injustice. Be the good man who refused to let evil succeed.

And so...

Last night as I sat around my table, surrounded by my children, I heard one of them tell the most offensive jokes about the Jewish people. Vile and disgusting. How had my child learned to find anything of the sort funny? Why did some of the others laugh at it before I had a chance to loss my temper and scream? I found my self sitting up late in the night making them all look at pictures of the Holocaust. Praying in my heart that the pictures in that book would touch them as it does me? How do you teach compassion? How do you fight a world of of hate with only pictures and prayers?