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    A Mile in My Shoes: Cultivating Compassion
    A Mile in My Shoes: Cultivating Compassion
    A Mile in My Shoes: Cultivating Compassion
    Ebook116 pages1 hour

    A Mile in My Shoes: Cultivating Compassion

    By Trevor Hudson

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    About this ebook

    We can be quick to pray for people around the world in times of trauma, but has prayer become a way to avoid taking real action? Are we reluctant to be fully aware of the suffering around us?

    Trevor Hudson challenges us to see, hear, and respond to the needs of others, recognizing the living Christ in all things.

    Hudson designed an 8-day program—a pilgrimage—to help all Christians cultivate the depth of compassion Jesus demonstrated. Through this program, pilgrims learn to be present wherever they are and with whomever they meet.

    "We seldom become more compassionate without working at it," writes Hudson. "One practical way to cultivate compassion involves building the pilgrimage experience into our lives. …The risen Christ meets us in the lives of those who suffer."

    Join Trevor Hudson in this exploration of how to love your neighbor as yourself and choose compassion as part of your daily life.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUpper Room Books
    Release dateMay 15, 2017
    ISBN9780835817493
    A Mile in My Shoes: Cultivating Compassion
    Author

    Trevor Hudson

    Trevor Hudson has been in the Methodist ministry for the past thirty odd years, spending most of this time in and around Johannesburg, South Africa. Presently he is part of the pastoral team at Northfield Methodist Church in Benoni where he preaches and teaches on a weekly basis. He has written nine books, including A Mile in My Shoes and Listening to the Groans, which have recently been published in the U.S. Much of his ministry has been shaped by two passions: helping ordinary people experience the transforming presence and power of Jesus in their everyday lives and helping people build the kind of local faith community which seeks to take seriously the suffering of those around them. His interests include watching sports, walking and running, discovering new places, reading and writing.

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      Book preview

      A Mile in My Shoes - Trevor Hudson

      Chapter 1

      Introducing the Pilgrimage Experience

      IREMEMBER the exact moment the idea of a Pilgrimage of Pain and Hope was born. It was a Sunday afternoon in the bitterly cold August of 1982, and I was driving home from visiting Soweto with three overseas friends. Together we had attended a small meeting where Jean Vanier, founder of the extraordinary L’Arche movement, had met with a few people with handicapping conditions and their families. For almost three hours I had listened quietly to the life stories of ordinary men and women who lived amid crushing deprivation and oppression.

      As I steered my car along the busy highway that linked Soweto to neighboring Johannesburg, their words and faces kept crossing my mind. Suddenly a thought came into my mind with surprising forcefulness and clarity: Take members of your congregation with you to where their brothers and sisters are suffering were the simple words that typed themselves across the screen of my mind. I pastored a largely middle-class suburban congregation safely shielded from the traumatized apartheid context of the early eighties in South Africa. Forced removals, poverty, and homelessness were abstractions in the experience of my congregation, as they were in my own. Few of us had ever consciously related our Christ-following to these social realities or experienced the sharing of life with and learning from those who knew firsthand the pain of these social contexts. Perhaps intentionally exposing ourselves to the suffering of others would change us and help us respond in appropriate ways.

      I began to pray and plan. Ever since my own beginnings as a disciple of Jesus, I had been struck by the fact that many of the most Christlike spiritual leaders were men and women who lived in close relationship with those who suffered. People like Dorothy Day, Jean Vanier, Henri Nouwen, Cicely Saunders, Jackie Pullinger, Desmond Tutu were all pilgrims whose words and witness had greatly shaped my understanding of the Christ-following life. Through all these lives ran the common thread of a connection with the poor, the hurting, the broken, and the marginalized. Could this be one reason why, I wondered, the transformative grace and caring compassion of Christ seemed so evident in their lives? Could it be that if small groups from my local congregation were to spend time with those who suffered, we would also experience a similar conversion of our hearts and lives?

      With these questions percolating in my mind, the idea of a Pilgrimage of Pain and Hope began to take form. I contacted friends and colleagues who ministered in possible pilgrimage sites and raised the question of a small group coming to spend time with them. They responded honestly with their concerns and suggestions: we would come as pilgrims, not as tourists; as learners, not as teachers; as receivers, not as givers; as listeners, not as talkers. Aware that much preparation would be needed to foster an appropriate pilgrim attitude among us, I sounded the call for our first pilgrimage experience and waited. Fourteen members of the congregation indicated an interest in becoming pilgrims. The adventure had begun.

      Eight months later, after much careful preparation and planning, the first Pilgrimage of Pain and Hope was launched. Fifteen pilgrims, ranging in age from seventeen to midthirties, left the Kempton Park Methodist Church for an eight-day immersion into the struggles and joys of our suffering neighbors. I doubt that any of us realized the extent to which our journey together would impact our lives. Suffice to say that, upon returning home, I made a threefold resolve: (1) I would plan for our congregation an annual, weeklong Pilgrimage of Pain and Hope; (2) as best as I could in the light of the Christian tradition, I would keep trying to shape the pilgrimage experience into an effective means of spiritual formation; and (3) at a personal level I would seek to become a pilgrim in daily life. On the following pages I share insights and learnings that have become clearer as I have walked along the pilgrimage road. As I do this, I pray that the Spirit will call other Christ-followers to embrace the pilgrimage experience.

      ESSENTIAL PILGRIMAGE INGREDIENTS

      For almost a decade, the Pilgrimage of Pain and Hope was an integral part of our congregation’s life. More than one hundred young and not-so-young adults participated. For many of these people the pilgrimage became an instrument of lasting personal transformation that led to profound changes in outlook and lifestyle. Repeatedly the pilgrims’ lives bore clear evidence of ever-deepening commitment to the way of Christ. As our congregation’s pilgrimage experience developed over the years and I began sharing the ideas with other congregations, it became clear that the concept rested upon three essential ingredients: Encounter—Reflection—Transformation. I will explore each aspect more fully in later chapters, but I want to introduce them briefly

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