@FirstChurchofJerusalem
Today's Early Church Wisdom
“I shall not hesitate also to put into ordered form for you, along with the interpretations, everything I learned carefully in the past from the elders and noted down carefully, for the truth of which I vouch. For unlike most people, I took no pleasure in those who told many different stories, but only in those who taught the truth. Nor did I take pleasure in those who reported their memory of someone else’s commandments, but only in those who reported their memory of the commandments given by the Lord to the faith and proceeding from the Truth itself. And if by chance anyone who had been in attendance on the elders arrived, I made enquiries about the words of the elders—what Andrew or Peter had said, or Philip or Thomas or James or John or Matthew or any other of the Lord’s disciples, and whatever Aristion and John the Elder, the Lord’s disciples, were saying. For I did not think that information from the books would profit me as much as information from a living and surviving voice.
~ Papias of Hierapolis (c. 60–130 AD) From the Preface to his lost ‘Expositions of the Sayings of the Lord’
This week's Psalm is Psalm 31 'My Rock, My Shield, My Song'

Harder Than You Think!

I remember when I first discovered the power of empathy. I knew immediately that it would be good for me to learn to empathise more. It wasn’t that I was a cold, unemotional logician, but up to that point I had not fully understood the value of empathy and how it could enhance our influence for good. “This will be simple,” I thought, as I decided to respond more empathically. But when I came to do it, I was shocked at just how difficult it was. Why did I find it so hard? Because, as we have seen, empathy is more than simply feeling with others – it’s about expressing it. And expressing empathy requires sighs, hmmms, aaahs, perhaps even tears at times, as well as a whole range of other emotional expressions that we do not use extensively in our culture. Yes, we may sigh from time to time, but we are not used to remaining in this communication mode for more than a few seconds. To properly empathise is to be able to continue in kind of emotional communication, at least until the right emotional connection has been established with the other person.