Building Courageous Communities of Compassion

(Originally published on May 18, 2022, under the “Faith Matters” series in the Flamborough Review community newspaper.)

Compassion requires courage

We live in a world where being compassionate sometimes has a cost. It sometimes requires courage. Sticking up for people who need support these days can land you on the receiving end of venomous attacks. As we approach Pride Month, let’s acknowledge that even flying a rainbow flag can trigger vandalism.

I believe that the opposite of love is not hate; it is fear. Hate is merely a manifestation of fear. We live in a culture that is so fear-based these days, that acts of genuine love and compassion have become triggering for fear-based people. We perceive threats everywhere and we’re chronically on the defense.

Love is the antidote to fear

If love is the opposite of fear, then that also means that love is the antidote to fear. In fact, in the end, love and compassion are the only long-lasting antidotes to fear.

In October 2019, when grade nine Hamilton student, Devan Selvey, was murdered, it resulted in HWDSB establishing a Safe Schools Review Panel. I, and many others, became personally involved in that process. The panel’s final report had an overarching theme: there is a culture of fear present in schools. The antidote to a culture of fear is to create a culture of compassion.

Becoming a Courageous Community of Compassion

I believe places of worship have a unique opportunity and responsibility to be courageous communities where compassion is taught in the face of the culture of fear that we find in the world today. But the church has not always been a safe space for everyone in the past. We need to be honest about that fact or we can’t change it. Compassion can be its own barometer. Do you see acts of compassion being demonstrated or is it all talk? Let actions speak louder than words as you seek safe spaces to learn how to be more compassionate in the face of a world of fear.

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Pink Shirt Day/Anti-Bullying Day

My Trans Pink Shirt

My pink shirt says “Papa Bear” with a large father bear protectively embracing his pink, white and blue transgender bear cub. I wear that shirt because one of my cubs is trans and I love her for all her God-given awesomeness and I would become a ferocious papa bear if anyone hurt her. Of course, she’s an adult now and is old enough to take care of herself, but she’s still my cub.

Bullying in My City

On October 7, 2019, 14-year-old, Grade 9 student, Devan Selvey, was stabbed to death in full view of his mother outside his high school in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada by fellow students who had allegedly been bullying him for weeks. This tragedy garnered international media attention. It is tragic that it took a murder to get our attention. What held our attention was the number of stories that came to light in the following weeks of students who wanted to take their own life because of the bullying they had experienced at school.

Hamilton Wentworth District School Board boldly faced the apparent failures of their system and commissioned a year-long review panel to study the problem of bullying in local schools and make recommendations as to how the school board could better help reduce the problem. That study revealed that:

Hamilton students were experiencing bullying at double the national average. There is a real problem in my city. But I learned more:

Voices Against Bullying

The public outcry of anger prompted the founding of several local anti-bullying groups. One of which was Voices Against Bullying, founded by local mom, Julie Schaafsma. As a child, I was severely bullied – verbally assaulted, physically assaulted, sexually assaulted, forced confinement, and forced narcotic ingestion, repeatedly over a period of more than a decade. My teachers not only did nothing, absolutely nothing, to stop the torment in front of their eyes, some of them even encouraged it. Clearly the problem had not improved since I was a child. I needed to step up and be a part of the solution. So I stepped up to support Julie’s initiative as we put together a team of system-changers. And we’re seeing success.

[Jesus said:] 
Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. ‘If any of you put a stumbling-block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea. 
-- Matthew 18:5-6

My Bear Cub

My own transgender bear cub has thankfully been spared bullying and harassment for her God-given sexuality so far. I hope it stays that way. I want to do my part to help build a world where other pink/white/blue bear cubs can also grow up to be who God intended them to be, free of harassment, violence and oppression. I thank God that my trans bear cub is loved for who she is by her father, mother, brother, grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles and friends. Not all her peeps are so fortunate.

Today, I wear my pink shirt to stand in solidarity with all victims of violence, harassment and oppression, but especially children, and especially my own bear cub’s rainbow peeps.

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