EMPATHY

 

When someone we love dies…somewhere in our heart a tidal wave of sadness grows….a wave whose ripples find their way to everyone we know.

Once engulfed by our wave…somewhere in the hearts of our friends and family their own tidal wave of sadness grows…a wave that ripples out to everyone they know.

Eventually, however, even the strongest tidal wave of sadness fades…or lands upon the beach…which means there will be people in this world to whom our sadness will not reach.

People who never knew us….therefore can’t offer much relief….

People somewhere across the world who will never share our grief.

I love how we were created with empathy…I only wish that it was stronger…

that it wold stretch across the world…that it would last a little longer.

Perhaps then when we hear of even one person dying in a war…or by some other type of madness

If the world’s empathy was stronger…we would all share each other’s sadness.

We wouldn’t need to be a family member or friend to feel the tidal wave of sadness when a person anywhere dies needlessly in war or at the hand of someone with a gun.

We’d all be engulfed by the same tidal wave of sadness and feel the same grief as  everyone.

Which is why, in my prayers each night as I get down on bended knee

I say a prayer that every baby being born…will be born with stronger empathy.

Because it is my hope…if each new generation has a little more empathy than the generation before….it will lead to a world with a lot less killing…a lot less cruelty…

and, I pray, a lot less war.