To my fellow Americans, I have one question that weighs heavily on my heart: Where has your compassion gone?

You sit at home or in church on Sundays, bow your heads in prayer, and sing hymns about love, mercy, and kindness. You hear the words of Jesus — love your neighbor as yourself — yet we stand outside those church doors, and so many of us seem to turn a blind eye to the suffering around us.

Does it not trouble you when innocent people are torn from their homes and separated from their families? Does it not shake your conscience when leaders you support giving tax breaks to the wealthy while taking health care from millions of our fellow Americans — men, women, and children whose only “fault” is being less fortunate than you?

Do you feel no shame or burden in your spirit when thousands of people die or go hungry in other countries, while we here live in abundance, filling our bellies without a second thought? We have been commanded to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and care for the least of these. Have we forgotten those words? Or worse — do we choose to ignore them?

Forget christianity what about just common decency, is not about the comfort of our own lives while others suffer. It is not about politics over people. It is not about hoarding blessings but about sharing them. Compassion is not a suggestion in our faith; it is a commandment its who we should be as individual and as a nation.

So I ask again, with all sincerity and urgency: Where is your compassion?

Because if we cannot answer that question truthfully — if we cannot live out the love we claim to believe in — then perhaps the problem is not in our politics, but in our hearts.

Dwight Cromie