One of my favorite names for the Holy One is “Emmanuel,” meaning “God with Us.” We in the church world typically dust this title off around Advent. We read it in the Old Testament book of Isaiah, when the prophet … Continue reading God With Us
In our divided world where everyone seems to be self-protecting, drawing up sides, canceling out their dissent, and boosting egos or right-ness, creating sincere, safe spaces for hard conversations is a missing practice in our communities. These kinds of conversations, … Continue reading Brave Leadership: Bridging Divides & Building Peace
Carnal fasting He was running everywhere. He was running from home to school, running from school to his afterschool job, from his job back home. Running while wearing extra clothes, a sweatsuit under a sauna suit. Or was the sweatsuit … Continue reading Empathetic Fasting
“I believe in the sun, though it be dark; I believe in God, though he be silent; I believe in neighborly love, though it be unable to reveal itself.” The quote was an inscription from an underground room where nine … Continue reading What Empathy Takes and Gives
“…I will learn to deeply care. I will allow myself to feel your pain, to come close enough to be trusted to help you carry the unreasonable burdens that have been placed on you…” Continue reading Empathy is Required for Godliness
Empathy and Why it is Important “Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace of joy or … Continue reading Empathy: Why Does it Matter?
In 1961, journalist John Howard Griffin wrote a book entitled, “Black Like Me: A white man learns what it is like to Live the Life of a Negro by becoming one!” The book documented his experiences in the South after … Continue reading Walk A Mile in My Shoes
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines empathy in plain language. The word empathy is a noun. It means “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another.” Let me bring this … Continue reading “50 Shades of Black (an Empathic Journey)”
An excerpt from The Place We Make: Breaking the Legacy of Legalized Hate We don’t know what we don’t allow ourselves to know. But when I began to know—after I’d picked my jaw up off the floor enough times to wonder … Continue reading Imagining My Way In
Three-Fifths 