Poetry, Music, Meaning-making, Community, **Connection with the Holy.
Please join us for our first SolSeed Service.
Saturday, February 6, 2010 11 am Service. 12:30 pm Potluck. Please bring a drink, dessert, or side dish (e.g. salsa) to share. Shelley & Brandon will provide Haystacks (aka American Taco) Sanders' home, 1824 SE Oak St, Portland OR 97214
Core/seed topic: Empathy
Order of Service
Lighting of the Chalice
Opening Words All: Our world is one world, and we are one people. Reader: We gather this day in celebration of life and spirit. All: The human heart can hold both joy and sorrow. Reader: This day let us hold one another and all that is sacred.
Song: "Spirit of Life" from *Singing the Living Tradition*, p. 123
Poem: "Spring and Fall" by Gerard Manley Hopkins, read by Shelley Sanders
Empathy Presentation and Discussion with Mark Hansen
Song: "Lean on Me" by Bill Withers, performed by Steve and Judy Sibelman
Meditation Only your compassion and your loving kindness are invincible, and without limit. -Thich Nhat Hanh
Song: "Our World is One World" from Singing the Living Tradition, p. 134
Silence
Closing Words Reader: So with a boundless heart should one cherish all living beings. **All: So may it be.''' Reader: Blessed be.
Notes from the empathy discussion
- Empathy can only exist after a child can see him/herself as separate from his/her mother
- Levels of empathy
- First level: "That person hurts, therefore I must hurt"
- Requires that you have had the same experience you're witnessing someone else have
- Second level: "I have no idea what you must be feeling"
- Trying to understand/relate to an experience someone else is having that we have never had
- Third level: Putting aside one's own feelings and "living into" another person's feelings
- Compassion is a product of suffering, but suffering can lead to jadedness instead
- Stories help build a repertoire of experiences to identify with, even though we're just reading about how characters feel in those situations
- There is a darker side to empathy
- You can understand/relate to the experiences of an enemy
- This can help you figure out what would hurt that enemy most
- Is empathy nature or nurture?
- Neither/both: we're born with a certain amount, but can learn more
- Similar to communication styles, where you have a naturally dominant style but can learn the others
- Some people express "empathy" for starving people in poor countries whom they will never meet, while failing to empathize well with those immediately around them
- Avoids letting the other have empathy for you in return, which can be dangerous?
- Developmentally, trust comes before empathy
- Einstein quote (?): "The most important question anyone can ask is, 'Do we live in a safe universe?'"
- People who are abused as children learn not to trust the world, and this makes empathy very difficult for them