Hopeful Thinking

About what or whom do you feel compassionate? Compassion literally means to “ co-suffer,” which sounds a lot like empathy, when you think about it. Different from empathy, however, though still closely related, compassion is the desire to alleviate the suffering of another. Empathy is the ability to perceiveBy and sometimes even feel another’s suffering. But where empathy feels, compassion acts. It must. One important facet of compassion is in how it differs from the concept known as altruism. Altruism as a concept is a bit of a fabrication, actually, of 19th century French philosopher Auguste Comte. He was looking to create a word that could serve as a good opposite to the word egoism, which is itself a word to describe those who only think of themselves. But the opposite of thinking only of oneself can’t be about thinking of everyone but oneself. Because there‘s actually never a time when we don’t think of ourselves. We’re always aware of how we fit into a situation and ...

Whose bright idea was it to forgive and forget? It’s been an idiom of the english language for over 600 years, yet is it really good advice? I ask because when we’re being recommended to forgive, forget seems to be the very next word we all think of. Yet, I think forgetting is only in the best interest of the person who has done the wrong in the first place. I’m sure they’d love for you to forget what they did. I’m guessing it was a guilty party who first invented the phrase to get themselves off the hook. Not so fast. Remembering is accountability. For instance, we should definitely remember US Confederate history. That’s not the same thing as honoring it. We have special places for things we want to make sure we don’t forget. They’re not the same places we put things we wish to honor. We will have to forgive our past in order to come to terms with it. But we won’t accomplish it by forgetting. Some history just needs its proper place and context. Just as there’s a difference ...

Life is complicated. Right now we face so many challenges. Our perceived ability to control our world continues to slip through our fingers every day. But we are still designed for joy and for community. And we are agile enough to survive this. We’re incredibly creative and adaptable. And though we sometimes use that adaptability and agility to further dig ourselves into a hole, we, for the most part, usually take two steps forward for every one step back. The long game is to our advantage. Have courage.  Perhaps, it would be worthwhile to consider that there is more to us than what we appear. The greater consciousness of humanity—meaning what the majority of us are thinking or praying about at any one given time—has been shown to play a part in how things unfold. Including the ways which appear to be beyond our ability to intervene. Mysteriousness. Is consciousness at work in places we don’t readily assume? Does our consciousness affect things? Things like the planet, perhap...

What shall come of this strange time? What is its wider purpose?  If God truly exists, what is Its point in all this for us? Personally I see no reason to exclude the notion that divinity has a loving and benevolent hand in our current experience. My own leap of faith is that there is love and benevolence in all things, even when they seem at their worst. I choose to see benevolence here. What are some of the things that we already notice to be changed about our culture from this virus? Virtual gatherings, for one. And that has some interesting merits. I’ve noticed on Sunday mornings that there are people who have moved away or whose schedules and families have become too busy to attend church, now joining us again virtually. They’re finding fulfillment in being part of the virtual community. We will now continue the practice once able to gather again. This is of course not limited to church life. Humanity has been moving for some time toward greater work-at-home models, ...

I struggled with my message this week. For both my congregations, this Sunday is the blessing of the animals. We’re doing it virtually, of course. But my mind keeps circling back to the crises unfolding all around us. It felt awkward to speak of something as trite as the warm and fuzzy when our world is suffering so.  Of course there are genuine things about our world’s animal life which deserve our respect, honor and attention. Time should always be set aside for something as significant to humanity as that. Domesticated animals are our human responsibility for creating them in the first place. They’ve been bred by us to seek our approval and validation for their hard work while also providing love, validation, and companionship to us. We have played God with these creatures. There are responsibilities to that. Far too many humans have taken on the responsibility of pet caretakership only to fail at it horribly. So we honor those who take in our loving life forms who’v...

It’s almost hard to conceive the level of desperate unrest occurring among humanity right now. A great moan emanates from us collectively as if we are slowly ripping at the seams while witnessing it in real time. We feel powerless to stop it. The sky feels as if it’s falling. As real as this crisis truly is, the sky is doing no such thing, of course. It’s firmly in place as always. Yet none of this trauma is in our imagination either. Sadly, the presence of truth is no guarantee of progress when doubt is sewn. Even fake news makes its indelible impression on reality. Our own individual perception of this time is absolutely genuine. You are having a real experience. But there are lots of real things in this world. Love is real, too. So is compassion. As optimistic as I may be, I must be frank as well. I absolutely do see more hatred today than when I was a child. Much more.  But, am I seeing less love?  I’m not. Much more, actually. It honestly appears as if there ...

Right now we all have our eyes on the future. And yet, at the same time, we are so focused on what’s going on right now, we forget (or don’t know how) to plan ahead. We have anxiety about it because we don’t know what’s going to happen next. We don’t know what the “new normal” is going to be like. We don’t know what will emerge from this strange and fearful time. Our eyes may be looking ahead, frantically even, but they’re not seeing much. The view is too dim for us to even make out the edges of it. Our predictions are flimsy at best.  But we crave to know what’s going to happen next. We feel a fair bit of anxiety when we don’t. We rely on people who forecast the future in all kinds of ways. Meteorologists tell us what they think the weather is going to be like. Political analysts tell us what they think is going to happen next in politics. Historians and sociologists tell us what they think will happen next in our society. All of these predictions are based on what has happe...