Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, prelate of the Episcopal Church had the audacity to do something truly radical recently: she asked a president for mercy. Mercy is not necessarily entirely foreign to this particular president. He showed “mercy” to 1,500 men and women pardoned on his first day in office, some charged with violent crimes, for […]
Tag: empathy
20 Years On and Rethinking Empathy and Reconciliation
I’ve been thinking a lot about an old English teacher, Faye Hardin, who passed away in 2019. She was a tough old bag. Some twenty years ago when I had her my senior year, there were students in my class whose parents and grandparents had her as a teacher. She pushed students harder than most–to […]
Breaking Quarantine, Day 93
Aside from essential trips for groceries, an occasional waltz through a nearby cemetery, or some long drives here and there, my self-imposed quarantine has been spent mostly in the same two-bedroom apartment. Three months ago, today, I made the decision to stay-at-home as the world around me changed due to a pandemic. Today, for the […]
Five Reasons Americans Prefer a COVID-19 Death
I don’t understand why anyone is surprised that Americans are incapable of following “stay at home” orders. This is the country of “Honey Boo Boo,” anti-vaxxers, Joe Exotic, and Neo-Nazis holding public office. We aren’t exactly the cream of the crop, as countries go, even though we think we are. Here in New Jersey, while […]
Quarantine, Day 15
It feels like everyone I know right now has just enough of a sore throat to wonder. We just found out a day ago that we’re now one and two degrees away from fellow colleagues who have tested positive for covid-19. The creeping dread follows that knowledge. I check my temperature often. I shake off […]
Story Collecting from New Orleans to Denver and Beyond
I’ve been out in Denver for work. Before that I was in New Orleans. I work in fundraising, and my job mostly consists of meeting people and hearing their stories. I don’t think it was ever intentional, but these last several years collecting and cherishing the most heartfelt human stories from the people I’ve met […]
The Little We Know that Keeps us from Empathy
Earlier today, my Mom told me a story about my grandfather from when she was in college. Over the course of several months, he began to grow increasingly paranoid for the family’s safety and eventually began to hear voices in his head. That lead my grandmother to intervene when she feared his unfounded paranoia was […]
