Pastor's Weekly Word

 

Some of you have been participating in the study and conversation many religious communities in Dallas have been doing together on the book, A Fearless Heart: How the Courage to Be Compassionate Can Transform Our Lives, by Thupten Jinpa, a former monk. It is a wonderful book. In it, Jinpa talks about empathy. “What is empathy?” he asks. “It’s our natural ability to understand other people’s feelings and share in their experience.” He goes on to talk about how a shared experience has two components: an “emotional response to someone’s feelings, and cognitive understanding of his or her situation.” When we share in someone else’s experience, whether it be by an emotion we share with them or a feeling we have for them without actually feeling what that person is feeling, we gain a sense of empathy. Something in us changes, and we end up feeling closer to that person.