Opinion is really the lowest form off human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another's world.
So what, then, does Christianity have to offer in the midst of hardships and heartache? The answer, I think, is consolation, including the consolation that comes from being part of a Christian community--people who walk alongside us as we journey through grief,...
In order to empathize with someone’s experience you must be willing to believe them as they see it and not how you imagine their experience to be.
One doesn’t have to operate with great malice to do great harm. The absence of empathy & understanding are sufficient.
When I was a medical school professor, I invited my students to view their own experiences of sickness and medical care as a way to empathize with their patients’ experiences. Like them, we can prepare for our dying by “practicing” dying in response to situations of...