When I was a young-ish reporter working on a medium-sized daily newspaper in Florida, one of the more dreaded assignments was the Saturday work known as “bits and ‘burbs.” That jargon stood for the oft-scorned task of collecting suburban news…
What I learned about ‘the poor’ by working in a soup kitchen
In 2011, while I was studying as a doctoral student at the University of Toronto, I applied to be the coordinator of a soup kitchen one night a week a few blocks from Queen’s Park. It was called the Gathering…
Being Christian in an antediluvian age
Antediluvian: adj. of or belonging to the time before the Flood. In Luke’s Gospel Jesus had these words of warning: “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man….
Roe v. Wade in real time
It was very late one night when my phone rang, the caller ID telling me this would be a crisis call. As a victim advocate, I had received hundreds of middle-of-the-night crisis calls over the years. For the sake of…
Reading good literature can develop skills in empathy and compassion, professor says
Reading literature can help Christians develop the Christ-like empathy needed to bring more compassion and healing to a divided world, according to author and scholar Karen Swallow Prior. The Southern Baptist seminary professor spoke during a Sept. 1 webinar examining…
Have you heard the one about empathy being a sin?
Empathy is in the news, and not in a good way. With recent controversial statements by John Piper and resignations of multiple staff at the church he put on the map and the seminary he led, attention has fallen to…
The recovery of empathy
The lowest form of knowledge is opinion. It requires no accountability and understanding. The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our ego and live in another’s world. — Plato Recently I was reading the…
Everything’s getting on my last nerve
I don’t know about you, but, I tell you, right now, pretty much everything is getting on my last nerve. People who refuse to get vaccinated are getting on my last nerve. Ditto people who won’t wear masks. Republican obstructionism…
A call from an old friend ended with disappointment but also a reminder of why I must love those who disagree with me
I just finished a call with an old friend of mine — “old” not in the sense of his age but in the sense that our active friendship grew dormant more than a quarter of a century ago. Space fails…