Learn how to be compassionate, and empathetic, and human, no matter who you're dealing with.

Kristina Cook writes,

If we wish to persuade, we have to talk to people in a way that they can hear. If they shut us down from the start, we can't get anywhere.

I believe - I STRONGLY believe - that the left and the right, the regular folks who identify with one or the other (not the elected folks - that's another conversation) want the same things. We want to protect our most vulnerable populations. We want to thrive. We want everyone else to thrive, too. We want to protect our freedoms, and protect everyone else's freedoms. We want to be empowered to live our lives according to our own decisions.
We want the same things.

We may have different tactics on how to get there. We may have slightly different ideas about how all those things look. But in the end, those are minor differences.

If you want to be an agent of change, learn how to speak so others can hear you. Learn what they want, and how your principles serve those ends. Learn how to be compassionate, and empathetic, and human, no matter who you're dealing with. You will do much to advance the cause of the human race if you'll invest the effort to do these things.

Compassion and gratitude

David Desteno writes in the October issue of Readers Digest about how to sharpen your trust instincts.

...We think we know what trust means (keeping your word) and looks like (beware shifty eyes), but after conducting and reading hundreds of studies, I’ve observed that it’s much more nuanced than you think, and many of our longtime assumptions can be way off. Consider these principles to avoid being vulnerable and make smarter decisions.

...positive emotions like compassion and gratitude appear to nudge our moral compass in the right direction. In one study, we manipulated people’s emotional states before they played a gambling game so that some participants felt grateful. Those who were in an appreciative state of mind acted more trustworthily in the game.
Read more here.

Upside-down

Scott Sauls writes today at A Holy Experience,

...the Apostle Paul said that it is in weakness that we experience the glory, power, and grace of God. This is how God works. God is upside-down to our sensibilities. Better said, we are upside-down to His.

Suffering has a way of equipping us to be the best expressions of God’s compassion and grace.

It has a way of equipping us to love and lead in ways that are helpful and not harmful. A healer who has not been wounded is extremely limited in her/his ability to heal.

If you experience anxiety and depression, I am sharing this part of my story to remind you that there is no shame in having this or any other affliction.

In fact,our afflictions may be the key to our fruitfulness as carriers of Jesus’ love.

Afflicted does not mean ineffective. Damaged does not mean done.

Read more here.

Competition and compassion are not mutually exclusive.

Some things are allowed by rule. Some things you do because it's right. Please read the story here.




Thanks to Ann Voskamp for reposting the video.

"Father forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing."

Do you have a parent or child you haven't talked to in years? How can we see them through eyes of mercy and kindness? Is it too late to connect or reconnect?

Is it possible that someone is there on the other side of the road, someone like you, stripped, knocked out, unable even to ask for help? Might that person be wounded also?

Consider the words of Jesus on the cross as He struggled for breath, His body so bloodied He was unrecognizable. He had done no evil, no wrong at all, ever.

Yet He was executed as a criminal. Jesus hung there, pinioned like a dove, and uttered the most startling words ever: “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”