A discussion group for "Twelve Steps to A Compassionate Life" by Karen Armstrong meets the first Sunday at 2 p.m. beginning February 5. Each meeting focuses on discussion of one chapter, beginning in February with the Preface and Chapter 1: "The First Step: Learn About Compassion". Between the first step, “Learn About Compassion” and the final step, “Love Your Enemies", Armstrong takes up “compassion for yourself,” mindfulness, suffering, sympathetic joy, the limits of our knowledge of others, and “concern for everybody.” She suggests concrete ways of enhancing our compassion and putting it into action in our everyday lives, and provides, as well, a reading list to encourage us to “hear one another’s narratives.” Throughout, Armstrong makes clear that a compassionate life is not a matter of only heart or mind but a deliberate and often life-altering commingling of the two. The book is an outgrowth of the work Armstrong has done in bringing the Charter for Compassion to the world ( www.charterforcompassion.org ) A discussion group based on the book is a fitting extension of the values that Lynchburg Mayor Joan Foster encouraged with her "12 Acts of Kindness" program.
|
