I do my best thinking while I walk, and I love to walk. I sometimes get so lost in my thoughts I am transported to a magical place where no burdens are allowed to follow me. It is my form of meditation. I think of many things while I walk, some of which may be considered “strange” by those who don’t understand. I debate my favourite word. “Gallop” often wins because then I am on Nassau, my handsome Arab gelding, and we are galloping up hills and across wide green fields and leaping over fallen trees in the forest and splashing through creeks. It is like riding the wind, my bare legs warm against his smooth sides, his mane in my face as I whisper, “let’s go.” All this from one word. I love the word “umbrella,” which conjures up all manner of fun and how I used to imagine if I stepped off the barn roof with an open umbrella in my hand, I would float down to the ground without a sound. I have since adjusted my stance on the science of that action. “Giggle” is the definition of innocence, and I can still hear my daughters giggling over shared secrets, the most joyful of sounds. Fair to say I don’t often have a consensus on my favourite word, which I don’t mind. I think about my name being “Sally” because I thought it a perfect name when I was a child. Who could ever be angry and raise their voice to a “Sally”? Try it; it just can’t be done. On my walk yesterday I was thinking of my favourite human quality and that, as you can well imagine… got me thinking.
Kindness has always topped the list of qualities I admire in people I encounter on any given day. Witnessing kindness and offering kindness is the purest sort of medicine, with the power to heal all wounds. Kindness is empathy in action; and empathy is the understanding of another’s emotions. “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb into his skin and walk around in it,” said Atticus Finch, giving moral advice to his daughter Scout, in my absolute favourite book of all time. Thank you, Harper Lee.
Allison Russell, Canadian singer songwriter and activist with a depth of character earned from surviving a difficult childhood, believes empathy is a superpower and is “the currency of art.” She is a fierce advocate for the arts which is a necessity for developing minds and for its healing powers. We can’t be a good friend without empathy or a good neighbour or a good parent. As a grandparent, I find it much easier to have empathy for my grandchildren, remembering those similar moments when their mothers wrestled with confusion while growing up. I don’t think I had the same quickness for empathy when my daughters were growing up, maybe because life was often too busy to always look for understanding of behaviour issues. I hope that wasn’t always the case, because the truth is every day is a learning day, and we don’t stop learning until our last breath.
Empathy isn’t held in high regard these days by those who are shouting their rhetoric at the top of their voices. That Tesla fellow was quoted as saying – “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.” That same guy called social security in the US a “Ponzi scheme.” His perspective from his ivory tower and a net worth of $335.2 billion is not valid, and it is dangerous when someone of his ilk, someone who has no philanthropic focus, is making decisions for a country while forgetting all about those who grow up in poverty, those marginalized by social injustice, where opportunities are difficult if not impossible to imagine.
What a contrast that voice is to the voice of Tommy Douglas in 1971, a clip of which has been captured in the opening of a video message entitled “Dear Canada” created by Tim Thompson. I hope you have had the opportunity to watch that short video because it is a significant reminder of so much that is precious in this country. Mr. Douglas said: “My message to the people of Canada is this, that if we could mobilize the financial and the material and the human resources of this country to fight a successful war against Nazi tyranny, we can if we want to, mobilize the same resources to fight a continual war against poverty, unemployment and social injustice.” The power of empathy. What greater purpose could each of us participate in, I wonder.
wendistewart@live.ca
