Compassion and Responsibility

It takes great courage to live and especially in 2021.  Compassion and responsibility are the virtues that have come to mind as I explore ways to step into helping others.  Often, my first reaction is to say it will be ok, or you are good as you are, however, lately the inspiration to be more direct with others may in fact be what they/we need. Have I coddled others/myself too much at the expense of not enabling others to live up to their potential or my fear of losing friendships? As a 32 year veteran of the St. Vincent De Paul Society of San Mateo County, compassion for the poor is a basic tenant of my faith and our society. Equally as important as compassion is responsibility. Responsibility includes helping people take steps to improve their situation. It is easy to be compassionate but takes hard work to be responsible.  It takes real commitment to go from providing food to providing training, sharing access to a network of services and following up with those we serve to help them move forward with skills, education, job applications and consistent contact.  This effort is to ensure that they move in a direction emotionally and physically to create a better life for themselves.  Socialism, as I am beginning to more deeply understand, takes that responsibility away from people with the notion that someone else will take care of them. Until we step into what we can do for ourselves we are not aware of our human potential. Socialism robs people of the opportunity to become all that they are intended to become.  Even as good Christians we know that we are make in the image of God. God is all good and capable. My question for myself is "do I hold people up as able?" or "do I give a bag of food and run from my own responsibility to really help people?" Another way to say....do I give the poor a fish or do I teach them to fish.  We are all capable of more than we think, we must step into our potential and push all others to do the same or we will die!