Do you have a few minutes?

Hi, Y’all. As I sit here with my coffee and my dogs watching the sunrise on this chilly morning, I’m reading the headlines and attempting to process all that is going on in this country. I know, these are big thoughts for a Friday morning but it’s how my brain works this time of day. I’m a morning person.

So, here’s what’s on my mind: We are losing our capacity for empathy. There’s lots of reasons for this loss and I’ll leave those theories and explanations to the psychologists, sociologists, and other experts who know how to study such things.

I think that a major reason is we are being giving permission not to be empathetic on a daily basis by the leadership of this country. I am regularly shocked by the way our president speaks of others, by the way he shows absolutely no concern, empathetic or otherwise, for any human being. I do not understand how anyone can say he’s looking out for us or the greater good by what he’s doing.

I see him intentionally creating chaos and crashing the lives of those whose jobs he’s deleting and anyone who disagrees with him. I see his lies and his rewriting of the narrative and his unwillingness to see his fellow human beings as anything but instruments of his desires and collateral damage in his game of greed.

I hear folks scared about what will become of their social security income and their Medicare funds to pay for their healthcare, neither of which are entitlements but money from their own income over the years that our president and his co-president are threatening to steal.

But y’all know all of this. The only reason anyone cannot see it at this point is, in my opinion, because they are choosing not to. If I’m wrong about that, please help me understand why you support what our president is doing.

Empathy is defined as “an emotional response of compassion and concern caused by witnessing someone else in need.” Empathy is an other-oriented view of the world around us. Empathetic concern is a fancy psychology phrase for how Jesus teaches us to live when he tells us to love God with our whole being and love our neighbor as ourselves.

We cannot follow Jesus and be unmoved by the pain and suffering in this world. I don’t know how to say that more plainly. That isn’t just my opinion. It is the teaching of Jesus, part and parcel to the Gospel that is Good News for the poor and oppressed and ALL people. We cannot follow Jesus and turn a blind eye to the pain and suffering that is being caused by the actions of our president.

AND, we must be guided by Jesus as we address the evil, as we speak LOVE more loudly than the hate. We cannot devolve into name calling or brutality. Express curious compassion to those who are still under the spell of our president. Write and call your representatives and firmly speak the truth. Reach out to your neighbors. It’s difficult, I know. But with God’s help we can follow Jesus in the Way of Love.

And, to wrap up, I used the following blessing a couple of Sundays ago and some of you have asked for a copy of it.

Thanks for listening, y’all. Together in love and with God’s help we continue to build up God’s Kingdom on earth as in Heaven. LOVE.