Two Teachers of Empathy - A Jesuit Priest and A Cartoon Mouse

When Jesuit priest Gregory Boyle was teaching a short story class to lifers in Folsom Prison in 1993, he asked them if they could describe the difference between sympathy, empathy, and compassion.  He noticed they were using the three terms interchangeably when discussing the grandmother's transformation in Flannery O'Connor's story A Good Man is Hard to Find.

As I've been reading and watching the news, and listening to the tone and rhetoric of our national and political debates, I've been thinking a lot lately about empathy.  

The first time I thought of empathy as a personal trait was around 2006-7 when I completed a yearlong leadership development program.  We were all required to take the StrengthFinders test and empathy was identified as one of my top five strengths.  

It states: "People exceptionally talented in the Empathy theme can sense other people's feelings by imagining themselves in others' lives or situations."  It also states that you don't 'necessarily agree with each person's perspective' or 'condone the choices each person makes, but you do understand.'  And this 'instinctive ability to understand is powerful.'  

I've wondered recently how I unconsciously developed empathy.  How was this trait - which I hadn't named or purposely developed - identified as a personal strength in a leadership test? 

I think, for me, it was through the arts.  It was through books and stories and film and theater, which all introduced me to real and imagined worlds and characters.  It was through taking acting classes where I studied and interpreted characters and pretended to be someone else.  It was through writing classes where I wrote my own short stories and created my own characters.   

I recently wondered if one of my favorite movies as a child - An American Tail - instilled in me empathy for those who have fled their homelands to start new lives somewhere else, for those who are lost and searching for home and family?  Is Fieval one of my earliest teachers of empathy?   

Is empathy that feeling that bubbled up and sent thin tears down my cheeks as we stood before a small church in central Italy looking up at a stained glass image containing the Statue of Liberty?  

On that hot midsummer day in a very remote, rugged part of Italy, I thought of the tens of thousands of immigrants who left Italy more than a century ago in search of new lives, among them Tom's paternal grandfather, whose hometown was just a few kilometers from where we stood.   

I thought of the family members left behind, who probably never saw their beloveds again.  Perhaps they found comfort whenever they walked into church and glanced up at the image of America's promise.  Did it give them hope that their loved ones were pursuing new, more prosperous lives? 

So let's go back to Gregory Boyle and his classroom of lifers.  

The students were able to provide answers for 'what is sympathy' - I'm sorry about your family member who recently died.  

For empathy, one student said it's like saying I'm sorry about your mom's recent death because I too recently lost my mom so I know how you must feel. 

But compassion seemed to stump them a bit until one student, who was 25 years into a life sentence, said:  "Compassion -- that's sumthin' altogether different.  Cause, that's what Jesus did.  I mean, Compassion...IS....God." [62] 

Boyle, who has been working with gangs in the Los Angeles area for more than three decades, writes after telling this story in his book Tattoos on the Heart that: "God is compassionate, loving kindness.  All we're asked to do is to be in the world who God is.  Certainly compassion was the wallpaper of Jesus' soul, the contour of his heart, it was who he was.  I heard someone say once, 'just assume the answer to every question is compassion'." [62] 

As I consider all the many issues our nation, our society is grappling with today and when some of us do wonder  - What Would Jesus Do? - here is a simple answer: COMPASSION.  

Rather than get hung up on who is right and who is wrong, I loved Boyle's perspective.  He writes: "The strategy of Jesus is not centered in taking the right stand on issues, but rather in standing in the right place -- with the outcast and those relegated to the margins."  [72]   

I just thought this was a really beautiful idea to share.  Perhaps it would help to focus more on the new commandment that Jesus gave in John 13:34 - LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

My mom recently told me that whenever she sends text messages to my niece she always ends with 'BE KIND.'  So I think I'll end this post by simply saying 'Be Kind' and I remain ever grateful for the teachers who continue to enter my life through books and even cartoon mice. 

And if you want to learn a bit more about Gregory Boyle and his work with Homeboy Industries, I would highly recommend his books but also his Ted Talk from 2012 on Compassion and Kinship.