Reflect
One of the last places we expect to find compassion is in a government bureaucracy or customer service center. Yet what unexpected delight to find a human touch there! No matter which end we’re on, it’s possible to bring compassion there: offering to get coffee for the beleaguered worker at the DMV; or as that worker, seeing a person who’s not just the next problem, like a wheel in a machine.
Pray
Compassionate God, when I become frustrated with slow clerks
or grow tired of customers,
help me see their boredom, their pain.
Act
To what group needing compassion are you most drawn: children/elderly? Prisoners/refugees? Homeless/hungry? Sick/lonely/dying? Ordinary neighbors, family, and friends? Consider how you could act compassionately to this group or to an individual—either practically, emotionally, or financially.
