Again we are faced with a week of horrible violence. It is not just about black lives matter, blue lives matter, but all lives matter. There is a terrible disconnect in the world today. Today is letter E in my alphabet gratitude challenge. My word of the day is Empathy.

Merriam-Webster dictionary defines Empathy as “the feeling that you understand and share another person’s experiences and emotions : the ability to share someone else’s feelings”.

What does that really mean exactly? I am starting to wonder if we are just becoming immune to what is going on around us and what we can do about it. I am just sad today.

I am an empathetic person. I care about people around me. I give food to the homeless man on the street near my house. I pay it forward in the drive through line at Tim Hortons. I called 911 in the spring when a man was wandering around the streets near Wilmington in his underwear. I get it. All lives matter.

We keep putting words in front of the real facts that these are people – they could be people watching a concert in Paris, in an airport in Istanbul, in a gay nightclub in Orlando, in your bedroom in Israel, in your car in Israel, a café in Israel, your car in the United States (land of the free remember), at a peaceful rally in Dallas. At the end of the day these are lives, human beings, just like you and I.

I mentioned this before on my Facebook page – three days after Orlando I was in my car coming home from a show at Princess of Wales. Stopped in the entertainment district at a red light, in my car. Groups of people on the street to my left, groups of people on the street to my right. At any moment I could become a victim. A victim of random (or not so) acts of violence. It just all seemed too real that this is what the world we live in today is about – time and place. Innocent and not so much. Is this the new world we live in? I suppose it is. I don’t like it.

If you light Shabbat Candles tonight let’s add some extra prayers for humanity, not just the victims of the violence of the past few days.

Alphabet Challenge day 5 – E – Empathy

 

I am a couple of days behind in this 26 day challenge, but I will catch up.

Today is day 4 – which is letter D. I have two words for D to share with you today – Diversity and Divinity.

All through my life I have had a diverse group of friends. When you are young and in school it is easy for friendships as you are with the same people every day, and every year for many years. When I went to camp, I had camp friends, etc. All through those years there is a sense of similarity and a cultural sameness.

Once you start working you meet new people and start to develop adult relationships. They are more diverse as these are not people that you would have not necessarily have met in your younger years. They may not (and probably do not) have come from the same upbringing as you have. I have been lucky in my working life which is more than half my life, to meet a lot of amazing people coming from many diverse backgrounds with their own unique stories have how they have grown up.

One of these great friends that I have met along the way is a Minister in the United Church. I have written about her before as I loved being part of her journey into her ministry and the life she has grown into.

I went to her Church on Sunday. It was a beautiful day and her Church is in Jordan Station which if you aren’t familiar is in the Niagara region which in itself is a world away from the concrete jungle we call Toronto. The population is just about 22,000 and filled with families who have deep roots in the area.

I feel so comfortable in her place of worship. It is a small church with wooden pews, and you know it is filled with love of the members whose families who have been there for over 100 years.

Towards the end of the service Anita asks the congregation if there are both joys and concerns for family and friends that would like to be included in prayer. Much like we have our Misheberach prayer from the Rabbi, but this is a sharing time where people speak out about the good and sometimes not so good of what is going on with loved ones and themselves. Once everyone has shared, she begins her prayer. I closed my eyes and listened to her soothing voice pray for the healing of those not well, for the happiness of those sharing good thoughts. I have some people I know going through some issues of their own so I closed my eyes and prayed for them.

I cherish all my relationships and what I can learn from them and what I can teach others. I hope you have learned something about me as I journey through this Alphabet Gratitude Challenge.

Day 4 – Letter D – Diversity and Divinity.

 

 

 

Today is day three which makes it letter C. For those who know me well, you will not be surprised that my gratitude word of the day is COLOUR.  Yes, for my American friends, it is spelled correctly with a U in the word.

I have been a plus sized person pretty much my whole life. When I was much younger, still in school there  really weren’t a lot of clothing options for people ‘like me’. I wore a lot of black and sometimes blue.

Until one day a friend called me a said I had to go down to the Eaton Centre, that Cotton Ginny opened a plus size store for their clothes. That was news to my ears. A store that caters to younger people that carried colours, not just black and blue. I finally had COLOUR in my life.

As I look through my wardrobe and the clothes I currently wear I can say that I don’t have a lot of black clothes. I have friends that pretty much only wear black and I try to avoid it if I can. Colour makes me happy. Especially purple and pink. I was just shopping yesterday and came home with two pink shirts, one purple and one teal. No black even though I did try on a black shirt.

I would be remiss if I left out my current passion for colour, which is colouring. It has been over a year now, and I have five different books, and countless of different markers. I am always in search for new marker colours and my current issue is that there aren’t enough shades of purple in markers. Colouring is meditiation for me. I make time to colour as often as I can. The more intricate the pattern, the better. I know that stresses some people, but it actually makes me feel better. If you haven’t tried it yet, you don’t know what you are missing.

Day 3 – Letter C – Colour