Inspiration: Essays & Musings
The Ethic of Reciprocals
Some have called the Golden Rule, the heart of the Charter for Compassion, the ethic of reciprocity. Treat others as you wish to be treated yourself. Reciprocity, according to the dictionary, means mutual, uniformly felt or done by each party towards the other or...
The Language of Us and Them
Periodically, Slate has been running a piece about American events written using the tone and language US reporters typically employ when writing about events elsewhere. It's disconcerting, enlightening and in a very direct way, about compassion. The latest is about...
Facts are Like Cows
We publish a series of classic fiction books that focus on particular peace & justice topics. Most are short stories, but End of the Line is an anthology of five short novels about the death penalty. As I re-read my introduction to the book -- about the impact...
The Compassion of Traffic Lights: Nothing Happened
At the beginning of our weekly staff gathering yesterday, Ann Helmke, the peaceCENTER's director, told us that all the traffic lights went out downtown. We leaned forward in our chairs, primed for a gory story of traffic snarls, blaring horns, some Texas-sized road...
Feral Cats and Compassion
Cathy Rosenthal writes a column about animals for the San Antonio Express-News. Today she answered a compassionate question about the care and feeding of feral cats. Compassion moves us to feed them. Knowledge informs us that there is a better solution: Dear Cathy: My...
Compassion Metrics: Social Climbing
I'm a numbers nerd. Compassion is not just a matter of being nice It's making sure that there is a safety net for our city's most vulnerable citizens. It's about infrastructure, and it can be measured. If you are a fan of the quantifiable -- what I call compassion...
If you want to change the world, you have to change the metaphor
The quotation that accompanied this graphic is from Joseph Campbell: “If you want to change the world, you have to change the metaphor.” When the peaceCENTER -- the catalyst for Compassionate San Antonio -- was founded almost 20 years ago, we used the work of...
Burnt Flower Soup
Twice a month the peaceCENTER has an evening potluck/staff meeting/re-centering and Narjis brings a crockpot of homemade soup, often made with produce from her community garden. "What is it this time?" I asked her, greedily. "Burnt flower soup -- an old Swiss recipe,...
There Goes the Sun — Bill Sinkin, a Compassionate Businessman
Here at Compassionate San Antonio we direct most of our efforts into having San Antonio recognized as a world-class compassionate city. We realize, though, that a compassionate city is made up of compassionate people, compassionate neighborhoods, compassionate...
Compassion And The Not-So-Middle Class
NYT columnist / Princeton economist Paul Krugman recently wrote about the middle class in a way that has relevance to compassion. The vast majority of people in the US — 91% according to a Pew Research poll — identify themselves as being middle class, he wrote. The...
My Heart Grew Three Sizes
Guest Post by Susan Smylie I attended a Compassion San Antonio event today, Musical Bridges Around the World Amal concert, a lovely performance by two concert pianists from Israel and Palestine, Bishara Haroni and Yaron Kohlberg. Before the concert began, the Charter...
Pete and Re-Pete After Me
My hero, the folksinger and activist Pete Seeger, died yesterday at the age of 94. Here's an example of his subversive attraction: I first learned his songs at Girl Scout camp, when I was 10. Songs about peace, about civil rights, about the dignity of labor. Songs...
Tube or telescope?
These two quotations seem to go together somehow. Jane Goodall, the anthropologist, using the analogy of a rolled up newspaper, a tube, to explain the limitations of our vision. And then Neil DeGrasse Tyson, the Astrophysicist, whose world is expanded by looking...
TEDx Talk, Cary Clack: Treat Each Other Decently
When our good friend Cary Clack talks about the blues he is talking about suffering. When he talks about nonviolence — love in action — he is talking about compassion. Deeply moving.
Moral Dilemma: Right, Wrong, and Trolleyology
Let's assume we all want to do the right thing. We want to be fair, compassionate, honest ... I think that description fits most of my friends. But it's not always easy or clear-cut. Social scientists study things like that, and it even has a name: trolleyology....