Radical Compassion & Abundant Empathy: A Facebook Experiment Friends, as missiles and rockets are shot back and forth between Gaza and Israel, I am increasingly alarmed by the vitriol expressed towards the other. Social media can be a profound blessing and a wounding curse. We crouch in our corners and put out missives to awkwardly try to convince others of the rightness of our position, all the while stepping perilously towards dehumanizing each other in a painful, awful war. Today, Id like to use social media for blessing. If you find yourself critical of Gaza, please, try to find empathy for the average citizens of Gaza, who are terrified of Israeli rockets falling on their homes, who are burying innocent loved ones, who are being used as pawns by a leadership the vast majority dont agree with but feel powerless to get rid of, whose lives are full of poverty, despair and violence. Just for a moment, try to feel and hold that awful reality. If you find yourself on the critical side of Israel, please, try, just for today, to empathize with average Israelis who find their lives disrupted by rockets aimed their homes, having between 15-90 seconds to race to a bomb shelter, who watch their children go off war, many of whom are critical of their leaders response to this war, who are wary of more conflict. Just for a moment, try to feel and hold that awful reality. No blaming, no talking around the pain, no deflecting. No excuses, no dehumanizing, no justifying. Just holding each others reality for the day. Can we make today, one day, a day for Radical Empathy and Abundant Compassion?
Posted on: Wed, 16 Jul 2014 11:02:48 +0000
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