the case for empathy

“Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies-"God damn it, you've got to be kind.”

 Kurt Vonnegut

“A saint is a person who behaves decently in a shockingly indecent society.”

 Kurt Vonnegut

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It seems like such a simple thing

To be kind

Like such a no-brainer

And yet there is so little kindness

Which may of course merely be a symptom

of something far deeper

and more profound

not so much a societal ill

as a sickness of the soul

something missing at the center

that has left too many souls shriveled

dry and

brittle

without love

and thus without empathy

and thus without kindness

and so it become far too rare a thing

to see “random acts of kindness”

instead we see cruelty

and the casual acceptance of cruelty

we all know the litany of ills

caged children

shot children

hungry children

sick children

we all know the litany of ills

the oppression of women

the abandonment of the ill

the shaming of the poor

this is a very old thing

born out of envy

and resentment

born out of a need to have power

to dominate

to be superior

it is very old indeed

for centuries we have fought this

struggled against this

searched to change this

but now it is nurtured

and encouraged

our dry and tired souls

need refreshing

as the world becomes a wasteland

a wilderness

we need springs of living water

gushing up within us

filling us

with presence

with love

God’s love

Not our tentative and conditional love

But that love that accepts, embraces, forgives

All

We need love that we might have empathy

We need empathy

That we might

Be kind

And damn it,

We’ve got to be kind