Remember
Do You Remember When?
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The whole time between Thanksgiving and Kwanzaa is filled with days of remembrance.
In the weeks around the winter solstice those of us in the Northern Hemisphere remind ourselves that we live in a universe where light will push aside the dark, where seedlings will sprout after their long cold sleep, where hope springs into the world unexpectedly, unlooked-for. It is a season of gathering for many, and a season of memories.
Sustainable Empathy
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Traveling home at the end of a really hot day, I got to Grand Central Terminal and made my way down to the 7 train like I always do. There was obviously a problem with the train because the platform was packed solid with commuters waiting, tight like sardines, sweating in the intense heat.
I could barely get onto the platform there were so many people. I asked around and nobody knew what was going on and there were no announcements forthcoming and no station agents in sight. So we all just waited uncomfortably, absorbed in our smartphones.
On the Mend: Brokenness and Healing
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A friend of mine slipped on the ice and broke her ankle one winter and was laid up for weeks and weeks. As I expressed my sympathy for her misfortune and suffering, a surprising phrase slipped out of my mouth. I said to her, “I didn’t realize you were breakable!”
But of course, we all are: our breakability comes with being human. Even the strong ones among us—the ones who, like my friend, are always there taking care of others—even the strong ones are breakable.
Vulnerability and Compassion
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The pragmatist philosopher-activist Jane Addams in her first book, Democracy and Social Ethics (1902), examined the great gap that she believed was then opening up between “old” and “new” ways of thinking about poverty.
Addams gave witness to the moral compassion within what she called “the neighborhood mind.” She attributed this compassion, in part, to the recognition among the poor of their common material precariousness.
Facing Vulnerability
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Why is it so hard to be vulnerable? Vulnerability is both necessary to create the real connections we crave as human beings, and it involves the risk of being rejected for the true and vulnerable selves that we might share with others.
In Daring Greatly author Brené Brown has an entire chapter on habits that we cultivate to avoid being vulnerable. Let me share a few of them and you can see if any of these patterns might appear in your own life.
From Your Minister
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Over ten million people have now watched online a 20-minute talk called “The Power of Vulnerability.” It’s a talk by Brené Brown, a researcher on the topic.
Brown’s book, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead is also a mega-bestseller. The huge number of us clamoring to learn from her indicates that she has hit a deep vein of longing, both for reliable data and for help with an unavoidable fact that we all figure out sooner or later: despite all our efforts to deny and ignore it, we are vulnerable.
REsources for Living
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Imagine that you are standing in front of a group of colleagues, or your entire class, about to give a presentation. There are people in the room who can make decisions about your job opportunities or your grade, but more than that there are a whole bunch of folks watching who will decide in their own minds whether you are smart, whether you are entertaining, whether you are the sort of person they admire.
How do you feel?
The Transformation of Silence
On Going to Church (Excerpt)
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I come to church—and would whether I was a preacher or not—because I fall below my own standards and need to be constantly brought back to them. It is not enough that I should think about the world and its problems at the level of a newspaper report or a magazine discussion. I must have my conscience sharpened—sharpened until it goads me to the most thorough and responsible thinking of which I am capable.
