Generosity Springs From Compassion

Karen’s mother had told the 7-year-old to be home by 5 p.m. for dinner. It was 5:30, and Karen still wasn’t back from the house of her playmate Allison.

So Mom went out on the sidewalk to look for her tardy little girl.

Soon she saw her come down the sidewalk toward home.

“Karen, where in the world have you been? You knew I would be worried.”

“I’m sorry, mommy,” Karen said. “But as Allison walked with me outside her house, she dropped her very favorite porcelain doll on the cement, and it broke.”

“Oh,” said the mother. “So you stayed to help her pick up the pieces?”

“No,” said Karen. “I stayed to help her cry.”

I thought of this wonderful story of compassion as I watched another compassion story unfold in Sandpoint recently.

“Cash for Kosovo” began as one woman’s eyes of compassion watched the human horror of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo on television.

As she watched the hordes of refugees fleeing from their homes to relative safety, Marianne Love remembered how she and her family had to flee their own house-on-fire many years ago. She also remembered how gracious and generous community members were to her family.

And so in early April she wrote a simple yet compelling letter to the community, inviting people to contribute to a refugee-relief fund. The money would be sent to Kosovo through the International Red Cross.

Her letter offered people a way to do something they already wanted to do.

Without fanfare, Marianne compassionately started a fund drive for Kosovo that has raised over $18,000, all of which is earmarked to help homeless Kosovar families.

I have lived in Sandpoint for almost 11 years. The generosity of the greater Sandpoint community has been very evident in benefits conducted for families in crisis or for diverse community projects that inevitably improve the character value of Bonner County and Sandpoint.

But I honestly can’t recall any fund drive that raised so much money for people who live not only across our nation but across an ocean! My mind has been boggled and my heart expanded by the outpouring of effort and money from so many people.

The 170-plus deposits made to Cash for Kosovo represent hundreds of people, so many of them children and youths who did fund-raisers of one kind or another. There were six deposits of less than $10, the smallest being $2.40.

I can only imagine the children who opened their piggybanks as they watched Kosovar children walking along refugee roads or huddled next to a parent in a refugee camp. I can only imagine what moved their eyes of compassion to open up their hearts of generosity.

But I can say, “Thank you, kids.” Thank you to every child and teen whose eyes of compassion moved them to somehow reach out to children and teens in Kosovo.

I spoke to two of the many adults who looked with compassion upon the TV images they’ve seen every night.

Jackie Slopak was eagerly looking for some way to respond to the Kosovars when she read Marianne’s invitation in the local paper.

Her religious faith and intuitive generosity told her what she must do. Immediately she walked around her neighborhood.

In three days of doorbell-ringing and visiting with neighbors, she raised over $900! Not bad for a simple gesture of compassion.

Another area woman chose to make her donation anonymously. Through an intermediary, she agreed to visit with me so I could better understand what moved her to make deposits totaling $3,000 to help the Kosovars.

Since she remains anonymous, I’ll call her Annie.

Annie’s motivation was not exactly the same as Jackie’s. She has little use for the institutional church.

But she does have what’s more important: a deep sense of God’s desire for all people to be safe and loved. An unexpected monetary gift to her found its way to where it was needed more.

Like all people young and old who find their eyes of compassion moving them to open their hearts of compassion to people in need, Jackie and Annie represent the essence of humanity.

Likewise, the children who gave individually from their personal savings remind us that, deep inside, God created us to care not only for those we know and can touch.

God infused us with enough compassion to reach across the world to people we don’t know, with gestures we know will be but minimally effective by themselves.

Yet we also have it within us to know how essential it is to help a little girl pick up the pieces of her broken doll.

We know how God-like it is to help her cry over her broken heart.