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Posts from the ‘Empathy’ Category

Apr 1

Irreverent Defiance of Despair

“Curiosity lights our way to compassion.”― Shannan Martin, Start with Hello

“Here, in this unfinishable life,
we bring our burdens (so heavy)
to hands strong enough to carry them.
Blessed are you,
walking the path of courage:
finding improbable ways to love,
offering creative acts of mercy,
and practicing irreverent defiance of despair.
Blessed are you, who create
beauty in this world.
May you carry this quiet revolution into
a world aching for signs of hope.
Blessed are we, trusting that somehow,
even now, today could be a sign
of good things to come.” – Kate Bowler

Step out of the noise, distraction, clamoring
Of judgment, complaint, busy, comparison, counting, keeping score, opinion, advice, criticism, pessimism
Take a detour, go off path, cut a new trail
Into kindness, compassion, showing up, staying, listening, serving, holding a hand
Quiet revolution
Look for the helpers
And when others look for “the helpers,” be one of them
Signs of hope
Acts of love
Create some beauty in your slice of the world today
Cast light.

“Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping” – Fred Rogers

Feb 5

Walking Out Love

“For it is from love that we are born. And to love that we must return. This is the journey of the soul we call Life.”― Michael J. Tamura, You Are the Answer

a blessing for everyday empathy (because, hey, SENSITIVITY ISN’T A BAD THING) by Kate Bowler

“Blessed are you, the sensitive one,
attuned to the feelings of others.
You couldn’t turn it off if you tried.

Blessed are you with the
emotional bandwidth to hear hard things,
without fixing or minimizing or deflecting,
You know the gift of presence.

Blessed are you who
chooses to show up without judgment
with little gifts or small acts of practical help.
You know the gift of compassion.

Blessed are you, too,
when you are utterly exhausted by
other people’s problems.
(And actually now that we’re talking about it
it’s getting even more annoying.)
Your empathy is a precious gift
that deserves to be protected too.

Today, help me stand ready to hear
those divine whispers nudging me
to give compassion away.
Naturally. Freely.

And help me find those who,
to my surprise, want to pour back into me.
(Which, fine, you know I hate receiving.)

Love given and received,
without shame or embarrassment.
Because what else can a big-hearted person”
do but learn to give and get?”

Be kind
Love well
Cast light.

“Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.”― Anne Frank

Jan 13

Building Bridges

“Men build too many walls and not enough bridges.”― Joseph Fort Newton

“Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge… is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self kind of understanding.”― Bill Bullard

Less assumption, judgment, fear, indifference
More questions, listening, gentleness, humanity
Multiply rather than divide
Compound human interest
Invitation, welcoming, belonging
Kindness, compassion, peace
Build bridges
Make connections
Cast light

“We have, as human beings, a storytelling problem. We’re a bit too quick to come up with explanations for things we don’t really have an explanation for.”― Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

Dec 16

Illuminate and Animate

“It is not over,
this birthing.
There are always newer skies
into which
God can throw stars.”
― Ann Weems, Kneeling in Bethlehem

“Joy doesn’t demand we silence our grief. It asks us to make just enough room for God to slip in beside it. And sometimes, that tiny crack of space is all joy needs to return.

Blessed are we who cannot fake cheer,
who sing soft instead of loud,
who light blue candles in December
and still hope joy might come.” – Kate Bowler

Hope, light, joy
Even, perhaps especially, on the ground of grief
Thin places and spaces
Cracks for light to enter
Hem of heaven
A particular grace
Throwing stars
Newer skies to illuminate and animate
Once again
Be kind, generous, a warm embrace
You are one of the stars to another’s dark sky
Blessing of a smile, a call, an invitation, place of belonging
A room at the Inn
Cast light.

“Like a thin place, a blessing can help us perceive how heaven infuses earth, inextricable from daily life, even when that life is marked by pain. In the midst of grief, when our loss can make the boundary between worlds feel horribly solid, insurmountable, and permanent, this comes as a particular grace.”― Jan Richardson, The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief

Sep 26

Quiet Abiding Presence

“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” – Mother Teresa

Presence
by Gabby Jimenez

“Presence doesn’t make a grand entrance.
It doesn’t need the spotlight.
It doesn’t always come with answers or certainty.

But presence stays.
It listens.
It breathes alongside you in the silence.
It says, “I don’t know what to say, but I’m not going anywhere.”

The truth is, we don’t remember every word someone said when we were struggling,
but we always remember who was there.
Who sat beside us.
Who made space for our feelings.
Who didn’t try to fix us or rush us through it.

That is the gift of presence.
It is not loud, but it echoes.
It is not everything, but it means everything.

True presence has boundaries.
It’s rooted. Steady. Clear.
It says, “I’m here with you, not instead of you.”

You can hold space without losing yourself in someone else’s storm.
You can show up without having all the answers.
You can offer compassion without taking it all on.
Real presence honors both people in the moment: the one who’s struggling, and the one who’s showing up.”

May we be present to others.
In small, ordinary daily ways.
Show up.
Not to fix, frame, platitude, solve, give advice.
To walk along side.
Often in silence.
Abiding and accompaniment.
Remembering that we belong to each other.
Though the world and my ego would disagree.
Love well today.

“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong.”― H. L. Mencken

Apr 11

Bridging the Gap

“You must learn to live on fault lines.”― Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted

For Loving When Differ­ences Divide Us

“This is a hard one.
How do I begin to connect
with someone so different from me?
How do I bridge this gap?
It feels wrong, like the beliefs I abhor.

Blessed are we who want included
in the wild and beautiful experiment
to find a common humanity.

Who desire to come into the gap
that separates human from human,
to love the stranger—
especially the one we really don’t understand
and secretly want to set straight.

Blessed are those standing in the gap,
In what can’t be understood.
To actively work on disproving
our own intuitions about another,
to begin to see what they see.

Blessed are we, swimming upstream
against the current of human frailty,
fears and emotions,
and willing to be wrong.

To reconsider.
And hold to our integrity
with kindness.
Desiring to map it out
and play the course,
instead of the one we made up.
And to discover that humility
is what makes change possible.

Grace is never neutral.
It works backwards and forwards in time,
conspiring to make wrong right.”

– Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie, The Lives We Actually Have

To ask and listen
To consider and reconsider
To learn and grow
To choose kindness over righteousness
To offer grace and receive it too
To agree to disagree
To walk in shared humanity
Light breaking through the clouds
Less judging, more loving
Hard, good work
Go first.

“Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?”— Marcus Aurelias

May 5

1 Comment

Light through Clouds

“Don’t quote some Bible verse out of context, just because you don’t know what else to say. Don’t slap a Jesus sticker on someone’s devastated life; they’ll need more of Jesus than just a sticker. Instead, lead with a ministry of tears before offering a ministry of truth.”― Katherine Wolf, Suffer Strong: How to Survive Anything by Redefining Everything

“Maybe we should all get T-shirts printed that read, “Please treat me with care. I’ve been through a lot.”― Katherine Wolf, Suffer Strong: How to Survive Anything by Redefining Everything

May love, kindness, compassion, hope, enthusiasm, empathy be my first and last response.
Walking it out in actions and words, more in actions.
Assume the best in others.
Transform and be transformed.
Light through clouds.

“Life defines us, but suffering redefines us. Ultimately, hope refines us, transforming us from within in ways we never could have imagined.”― Katherine Wolf, Suffer Strong: How to Survive Anything by Redefining Everything

Jan 12

The Gift of Listening

“Look for happiness under your own roof.”― Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project

“…good listeners have a humble perspective. Humility in listening means that we let go of preconceived opinions, we let go of the need to be right, we let go of our own insecurities, and we let go of the need to appear wise, good or spiritual. In short, we let go of ourselves in order to be present to the other. This is a high calling and a commitment we will need to return to again and again.”― Alice Fryling, Seeking God Together

The gift of listening.
Really listening not merely waiting to respond.
To be right.
To pronounce your opinions and return to your corner of the ring.
Asking, asking again and waiting.
Allowing space and silence for understanding to unravel through conversation, connection.
An exchange, a dance.
Life is rich and meaningful in relationships.
In moving from self, self-absorption, ego into engaging with the souls among us longing to be seen, heard, and accepted.
There is happiness, not perfection, under our own roof.
Start with empathy, kindness, compassion.
To really understand the heart of another, and of self as well.
The task of today, of a lifetime.

“We do know that no one gets wise enough to really understand the heart of another, though it is the task of our life to try.”― Louise Erdrich, The Bingo Palace

Jul 14

An Instant

“Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?” – Henry David Thoreau

When we allow and invite humanity to show its face, to look deeply into another’s eyes but for a moment, we find ourselves, our connectedness to the whole, how life comes together in both difference and commonality. There’s a story to every human, seek to understand rather than judge. To take a few steps past assumptions and leap beyond opinion.

May empathy, compassion and understanding be the ground we walk on to go beyond soundbites and bumper stickers, political parties and positions deeper into the complexity, beauty and holy ground of others.

“The hardest spiritual work in the world is to love the neighbor as the self – to encounter another human being not as someone you can use, change, fix, help, save, enroll, convince or control, but simply as someone who can spring you from the prison of yourself, if you will allow it.” – Barbara Brown Taylor

Accenture produced a beautiful video on inclusion and belonging worth a few moments to reset the table in your mind, to shift your heart, to see with new eyes.

Mar 5

Yellow Door

“Nobody needs a smile so much as the one who has none to give. So get used to smiling heart-warming smiles, and you will spread sunshine in a sometimes dreary world.” – Lawrence G. Lovasik

“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” – Leo Buscaglia

Be the yellow in grey.
Smile.
Extend a greeting first.
Ask how another is doing.
Engage.
Simple acts given freely, without reserve.
An invitation.
A door.
A threshold.
A homecoming.
Laughter, levity, light.
Sunshine to make flowers bloom.
Be the yellow in grey.

“What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but scattered along life’s pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.” – Joseph Addison

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