R is for Random Reflections

November 16, 2025

"Please let me merge before I start crying!"

A few days ago, I was stalled in traffic at the Point's "spaghetti junction" in Pittsburgh. If you know, you know. I noticed this bumper sticker on the car in front of me (other stickers included ones supporting the Humane Society and Shih Tzu puppies).

Man, I felt the driver's pain! That discomfort you feel when you know you are supposed to know how to do something, IN PUBLIC, and your lack of practice with the something brings you great distress and discomfort, may cause others to feel annoyed and even angry. I felt for her.

And I wondered how often I miss opportunities to give grace to someone in this awkward position, to feel compassion as opposed to impatience about how someone else’s lack of knowledge or skill might inconvenience or frustrate me.

Compassion. Empathy. The recognition that we are all imperfect human beings.

There are some “influencers” (I don’t really know what that word means!) who are denouncing empathy as being the scourge of our times. There is even a new book about “Toxic Empathy” – I started to read it then put it down when I realized that, to the author, feeling empathy for a person whose behavior or beliefs differed from hers only serves to condone that person’s sinful behavior – you can probably see where this is going.

Once again. As mature adults, we can hold two or more seemingly opposing feelings or thoughts at the same time. Yes, the driver needs to learn how to merge smoothly. And yes, let’s be patient with new learners – we have all been there at one time or another.

Easier said than done – but possible. For years I have worked on issues related to climate change, primarily to share with others how this crisis affects human health and well-being (as well as the well-being of the whole planet). I have met folks in my seminars and workshops who are angry and even hostile when the subject of climate change is raised – it is a hoax, it is not real. Over time, I have become more curious than frustrated by these responses – Where does their information come from? How might acknowledging climate change lead one to question some of their own behaviors and beliefs?

What has been most interesting to me is watching how, over time, the beliefs and behaviors of many people do change – they become more open and curious themselves and dig in for information that might educate them further.

Responding in these situations with judgment about where someone is with their understanding, beliefs, behaviors – or even with condescension, “writing someone off” – is not going to get us anywhere. I keep returning to Ram Dass’s saying – “We are all just walking each other home.”

So I take a deep breath and sit a little more patiently as my fellow driver slowly and cautiously merges, heading toward the Fort Pitt Tunnel with maybe a tad more confidence.

******

“I sure love Jesus, but we aren’t going steady.”

~ Patty Griffin

Larry and I recently attended a concert featuring Patty Griffin, with Ricki Lee Jones as the opening act. What amazing powerful music these two women made!

If you are familiar with Patty Griffin’s music, you know that many of her songs have deeply spiritual themes – regret, forgiveness, love, loss and grief, longing, reaching out to divinity and a higher power.

When she opened one of her songs with the quote above, I laughed out loud. I got it.

I remember the years of Vacation Bible School I attended at our Methodist Church. The lessons, at least at that time, were based on Jesus’ words and were so simple – love your neighbor as yourself, feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, welcome the stranger, heal the sick, forgive and ask for forgiveness. Without knowing it, I absorbed these lessons – they informed how I move through my life, how I try to treat others, and myself, how I make important decisions in difficult situations. I learned in VBS, where we had cookies and juice and made crosses out of popsicle sticks, that I was part of a larger humanity, that we all needed to come together to make it work.

Jesus’ teachings are still deep in my bones, and over the years other wise guides have added layers to his words, enriching and deepening my understanding of life, humanity, and spirit. (We aren’t going steady.) When I worked as a therapist, clients (children and adults) often brought spiritual and religious concerns into therapy sessions. Will I be forgiven for what I have done? Will I see my mother again when I die? Why do bad things happen? How can I go on after this horrible loss?

My therapy clients were Protestants of all stripes, Catholic, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, agnostic, atheist, seeking and questioning. I learned from them, from their wrestling with their own traditions and beliefs, that the divine is available to all of us. We are bathed in it. We are surrounded by love.

******

“We are shaped for closeness and for intimacy with our surroundings. Our profound feelings of lacking something are not reflection of personal failure, but the reflection of a society that has failed to offer us what we were designed to expect.”

~ Francis Weller

We are indeed bathed in, surrounded by love, the potential for closeness and intimacy. And yet, we build barriers to accessing it. We often fail to see love in ourselves, in other people, and in the world around us.

In current times, love often takes a back seat to hate, hostility, contempt, rage, aggression, harsh judgment, and exclusion directed toward others. Apart from the ubiquitous social media, what drives such negative emotions and behaviors?

I learned in my work with clients, and on my own life, that hatred, anger, and aggression are often quicker and easier ways to discharge what is really being felt – emotions that are harder to face and express. Emotions like grief, loneliness, fear, guilt and shame, sadness. Turning away from acknowledging and processing these very real and painful human experiences, turning instead to anger and hate directed toward others, blocks our individual growth and ultimately damages the communities in which we live.

And the kicker is that – healing from the human pain of grief, loneliness, fear, guilt, shame, and sadness can only happen when we are connected, in community with others who are also human and who also experience pain. We are damaging and alienating the humanity that can help us heal. We are making it so difficult to learn how to live together in peace.

May we be patient with new drivers who are learning to merge. And may we work together to remove the barriers to love and community.

Even in times characterized by cruelty and lawlessness.

Especially then.

Ink Painting: “The Earth Breathes in Color”

All the colors come together to make such beauty.