Alexandra Schwartz’s short, informative essay in the New Yorker—well, the title almost says it all: “The Tree of Life Shooting and the Return of Anti-Semitism to American Life.” Almost, but not quite. Please read it. Why? To glimpse the seemingly evergreen historical uses of antisemitism if you didn’t grow up like me, constantly reminded by the absence of ancestors and the words of those around you that we are always in jeopardy, that we live here on sufferance, on a provisional tolerance that can always be withdrawn.
Empathy
Healing the Heart of this Country
|
Dr. John Goldthwait explores how compassion can help us overcome the us-versus-them mentality and start the healing process.
Culture
Planetary Parenting
|
Stan Charnofsky proposes a new category of parenting in which we all, parents and non-parents alike, take responsibility for providing harmony, love, and honesty for the next generation.
Empathy
Transcending Barriers while Life Meets Death
|
In this time, so full of pain and challenge, I was unexpectedly nourished by an email I received from someone who is consciously, purposefully trying to live applied NVC and Conflict Transformation in work and life, currently doing it in Eastern Sri Lanka. I am sharing an abridged version of her words here.
Culture
Belonging Cuts Like A Knife
|
I’ve heard it said that belonging sounds kind of soft, but to me, it’s a knife that cuts straight to the heart of our collective challenge. How do we cultivate a society that embodies the right to belong, that offers full cultural citizenship: justice and love, equity and compassion, the right to feel at home in one’s community, to feel safe in one’s school? To belong. It’s not clear whether school shooter Nikolas Cruz actually trained with the white nationalist militia Republic of Florida (the group’s leader claimed Cruz, then said he’d mistaken him for someone else. But Cruz had been aligned for years with white supremacist views, according to a high school classmate and others: “He would always talk about how he felt whites were a bit higher than everyone,” Charo said.
Culture
On the Receiving End of Hate
|
Still feeling upset about Trump’s comments about Haiti? So is Phoenix Soleil: “What he says hurts me because he’s voicing a shadow in this culture.”
Culture
Anti-Ageism: The Next Big Social Movement
|
In this review of Margaret Morganroth Gullette’s of “Ending Ageism or How Not to Shoot Old People,” Ruth Ray Karpen reminds us that many Americans still need to be educated about the aging process.
Culture
Embracing the Stranger, Part IV: Knowing Ourselves to Know Others
|
The call for vulnerability in community allows for people to open and eventually come as their full selves.
Culture
Embracing the Stranger, Part III: A Place for Compassion in Activism
|
Because we pick up on others emotions naturally, the empathic instinct of our nervous system can eventually become exhausted, whether we consciously or unconsciously engage in an act of empathy
Culture
Embracing the Stranger, Part II: Challenging Ourselves to Love Ourselves
|
By reflecting on ourselves inwardly, we can see possibilities for the development of the world we inhabit with others as well.