Sewing Love

Sewing Love!

"Owe nothing to anyone--except for your obligation to love on another. If you love your neighbor you will fulfill the requirements of God's law. .Love does no wrong to others, so fulfill the requirements of God's law" Romans 13: 8;10

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A number of years ago I was asked to teach a course on "empathy", and as I gathered with the students and my textbooks, I discovered you do not "teach empathy". One has to experience pain and loss to truly be empathetic.

Studies suggest that empathy arises early in our lives, and from my own experience it does. It was the empathy that I showed at a young age that brought attention to my first District Superintendent, and he gave me my first church. These studies also show that nonstop exposure to violence in the media

numbs our empathy for pain and suffering.

I find that the constant exposure to the pain of the streets, and homelessness numbs the empathy of people. People simply do not see the suffering in front of them.

Pope Francis says this "globalization of indifference" makes us forget what it means to weep with each other.

Even if we have never experienced the loss of home or of having food, we all know what it means to feel alienated, rejected, and alone. It is not a giant leap from there to imagine the horror and pain of sleeping on the street, with nowhere to go, little food, all alone

It is by recollecting our own felt need for both human touch and divine grace, we can nurture hearts full of empathy and compassion--and in the process, draw closer to being a people worthy of God's benevolent grace. Deo Gratias! Thanks be to God!

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Fr. River Damien Sims, sfw, D.Min., D.S.T.

P.O. Box 642656

San Francisco, CA 94164

www.temenos.org