 Good evening, everyone. I feel like I really don't need this microphone, but since since it's here So thank you for being here. My name is Paul Lakeland. I direct the Center for Catholic Studies, and I think I am Welcoming you on behalf of the Center for Catholic Studies and the O'Callaghan family to the 18th annual Andromio Callaghan Lecture. It's amazing 18 years that we've been doing this I'm going to say very little except just the usual routine that After the speaker will have time if you want to raise questions and so on and I will have a microphone I'll carry around so we can Everyone can hear you and what you have to say will then be on the videotape. So be careful what you say Other than that, I think it's pretty straightforward. So the as always we ask one of Our colleagues from the university to introduce tonight's speaker. So I have asked Andrea Canwell to speak and to introduce our speaker Andrea is Yes, associate director of the Center for faith and public life and spends her time Promoting service learning a very important dimension of the university's work. So Andrea come and introduce Michelle Thank you, Paul So we are so pleased to welcome dr. Michelle Saraceno to Fairfield as this year's speaker for the Andromio Callaghan lecture on women and the church Dr. Saraceno is a professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Manhattan College where she has taught for the past 15 years her scholarship and research focus on the intersections among theological anthropology contemporary continental theory Psychologies of the self and expressions of religiosity in everyday life Currently she is exploring the spiritual and ecological implications of water and water related practices including baptism bathing and swimming Dr. Saraceno is the author of four books her most recent book is Christian anthropology an Introduction to the human person which deals with the important and sacred relationship between humans and non-human animals Another of her works clothing a Christian exploration of daily living Exams the spiritual and emotional anxiety we negotiate through our adornment practices and has recently been published in a Chinese edition As a woman who can be found many mornings Mouth a gape in her closet debating about what to wear I can deeply appreciate the spiritual and existential Questions to be explored on the topic of clothing. So thank you Dr. Saraceno was awarded the first place book award in theology by the Association of Catholic Publishers in 2012 for being about borders a Christian anthropology of difference Which examines the theological implications of the borders of self religion and place and provides an important theological Framework for how we as Christians understand the challenges and opportunities of living in a globalized and increasingly interconnected world She has also published various essays and academic journals and collections on issues related to theology and difference specifically about gender She's also contributed to the National Catholic reporter writing book reviews in the areas of religion ecology and culture Dr. Saraceno completed her undergraduate degree at Duke University with a major in English She continued her studies at Yale Divinity School earning a master's degree in religion as well as a doctorate in religious studies from Marquette University Originally from Long Island. She now lives in Westchester with her husband and two children So on behalf of the Center for Catholic Studies and the University and the O'Callaghan family, please join me in welcoming Dr. Michelle Saraceno Hello everyone It's a pleasure to be here this evening and I'd like to thank Professor Paul Lakeland. Where is he? For inviting me to Fairfield Miss Mary Crimmins, I don't think she's here, but she organized. Oh, hi. Okay organized everything. Thank you and The generous family of Andrew me O'Callaghan and we had a beautiful dinner together. So thank you for welcoming Here me here tonight Tonight I'm going to ask you to imagine all the sacreds all the places between you and others as wild and What I mean by wild is anything or anyone that is unknown and if it's known then not domesticated undomesticated My hope is that if we hold the same attention and survival strategies in our interpersonal Relationships as we do when we are in the wild we have the potential to create deeper More empathetic relationships with all creatures in our midst Human and non-human. I see what happened. We were set Anthony We're good This first slide is a brief sketch of the stages of my presentation I'm gonna move from defining wild places to exploring the notions of wilderness and scripture theology and psychology in The third section I'll emphasize strategies for engaging the wild namely being attentive Or what I call intentionality Improvising and letting go Then I moved to sharing a personal way of reflecting on what it takes to navigate the wilderness for me That's through swimming in the last section I suggest that embracing the wild in our interpersonal relationships is a way to encourage empathy in our lives Empathy allows us to stay connected with others who are different from us Learn from them and grow in this moment Empathy has the potential to bridge the religious political and cultural divides that seem to permeate our world So let's begin by considering what makes something wild and what constitutes wilderness any place or Event or being that is foreign to us in some way is wild Peace to be sure all wild places are not the same Some are pleasing while others are bothersome Sometimes they're both. I like to think of wild places in the world the words of Diane Ackerman when she says Wild places are holy places. They keep us secluded sprung loose from reality separated from life's routines Take for example the images on these slide The Ganges River the Redwood Forest and the Great Barrier Reef Many people will consider these places to be wild sacred and beautiful Places such as these evoke something in us They arouse us. They stimulate our senses and can even inspire us to be better versions of ourselves Yet with all the delight they bring to our senses when in their midst we should neither become too comfortable nor complacent Unforeseeable happenings can unfold and foreign creatures can pop out out of nowhere It's in our best interest to proceed with a sense of respect and caution To get an even clearer sense of the complexity of the wild Let us take a moment to envision ourselves on a nature walk Even with a map in hand Things could go awry A storm suddenly manifests The path muddies Down trees block your root brush scrapes your ankles insects Nip at your neck in an instant the wild becomes unsettling We are cold in that moment to exert extra attention and care as not to get hurt and perhaps even to avoid hurting another Conservationists have driven home especially in this age of climate change and environmental degradation That our previous ways of navigating everything that is other and wild As something to be dominated used and controlled has had disastrous effects What's more we've learned from the social sciences That our manipulation of the wild Is not merely a result of greed, but also because of fear We fear much of what is other or different than us And at times we deal with this fear by deluding ourselves into thinking the wild place Or wild creature is familiar and manageable Even making the other into something manageable and familiar through force and violence In the first part of the 20th century Aldo Leopold an american conservationist An author of a sand county almanac commented on the human misuse of the wild which carries weight even into today For leopold The ability to see the cultural value of wilderness boils down to a question of intellectual humility Having intellectual humility It is is admitting that we don't know everything about the other before us and therefore living with a sense of respect commitment and willingness to learn What if we applied the lessons about the wild from conservationists to our everyday lives What if we framed our interpersonal relationships? like forests oceans and deserts As unknown mysterious and sacred places that demand our intellectual humility For some conceptualizing interpersonal space as the wilderness may seem like a bit of a stretch How is relating to one's child partner or colleague analogous to being in the wilderness? Here's how i'm making the comparison Just like in the wild in relationships, there's the potential for feeling joy and experiencing transcendence As well as for the potential for encountering danger and undergoing suffering at the hands of the other My argument that relationships are wild hinges on the premise That's similar to the way that humans have manipulated and dominated nature for their own use and out of their own fears Individuals often fall into the trap of domesticating the sacred space between one another When we think about when we think the other is just like us We could end up become that could be end up becoming a source of pain for them and for us And if and when we start to become uncertain as to who they are We tend to fall into the trap of trying to control them as a way to gain power and safety Instead of assuming an over familiarity in such relationships and trying to control others Might we imagine them as mysterious places where we are called to let go of all preconceived knowledge And all our fears and instead just be present with the other There in the presence of the other we are challenged to observe what's going on instead of assuming this or that What's more in the interpersonal wild We're called to change our minds our hearts and our actions In other words to improvise If what we observe or feel in the presence of the other is not what we had originally thought was the case Finally, we are called to let go Of all the false ego and the false sense of safety because we are in the wilderness with the other Adjusting our frame from thinking about Relationships as entities we can control and should control Gives us the possibility of creating more life-affirming relationships one fed by empathy and love Wilderness is not something that we have to look for rather What i'm trying to communicate here Is that it's the sacred space between self and other In which we are called every day to open ourselves The wilderness is where we are most of the time that is to say in the middle Within the limital space between me and you It's what sherry turkle a renowned psychologist Speaks about when she writes we live our lives in the middle of things This could be the middle of an intimate relationship With another person with god Intimacy in the middle like being in the wild is not always pleasurable Sometimes it's tense precarious and uncomfortable And it is there in the middle of our intimate relationships Where we find ourselves immersed in our desires for love and in our fears about failure Hoping for a better future and grieving for the losses of the past That's our wilderness We're in the middle of something raising children providing care for ailing parents In the middle of a marriage a job a celebration And we're always in the middle of relationships in these settings The notion of midlife crisis is an important idea But i think it's a bit overdone Because it can lead mislead someone to think that we're only have one middle in our lives When we're always in the middle of something Unsettling situations and complicated relationships In his work on aesthetics George steiner describes predicament of being in the middle in terms of a saturday experience He writes quote But ours is the long journey of the saturday between suffering Aloneness an unerable waste on the one hand and dream of liberation on the other He urges us to ponder that after the work of friday And before the celebration of east or sundering there is saturday The liminal position of being as being in the middle The middle and saturday are two more ways of speaking about interpersonal wilderness It's probably becoming apparent by now that the notions of the wild and wilderness have both literal and metaphorical dimensions The concept of wilderness has served as an important symbol for christians jesus fast for 20 days and nights in the wilderness according to the gospels And in his early part of the ministry his ministry He's tested if you will to see if he can survive temptation and not give in to evil He prevails and like jesus christians are called to traverse the wilderness in their own lives Our wilderness is not the desert per se But a type of wilderness experience in which living with others presents as a challenge for us to say yes to good and to god Consider a challenging relationship with a partner a child your boss an employee parent Often individuals feel like they should have it all figured out and under control And when things happen bad things happen uncomfortable situations arise There's panic and denial at least potentially Instead of thinking we should have it together could we envision ourselves as embarking on a journey into the unknown Where we'll be faced with tests challenges and queries Often we don't know what the other wants And that probably scares us so we'd rather leave the relationship than stay Or maybe the case that we're too frightened to show the other what we need So we decide to leave Interpersonal wilderness is the place where uncertainty and sacred vulnerability abound And our job is to find a way to reside in this wilderness One of the ways to reside there is to demonstrate intentionality by being vigilant observing and paying attention Simone vey a french philosopher Who lived in the early 20th century wrote about the importance of attention For vey being attentive is what she called the purest form of generosity This idea makes me pause Because to pay attention is in critical moments demands commitment and care Important aspects of any love relationship And as we all know to observe is not easy It's a practice And a way of being for the other Loving the other in the wilderness In addition to being attentive in the wilderness We need to be ready to improvise And we see the importance of improvisation as a survival strategy in the work of Dolores Williams Her groundbreaking christian theological book entitled sisters in the wilderness Blends womanist theology feminist theology and critical race theory And the cover of her book is in the middle panel of this slide Williams discusses how women of color are not all that different from the slave woman haigar in the book of genesis Some of you may recall That according to scripture Haigar was forced to flee her masters sarin abraham Only to find herself alone with her son ishmael in the wilderness For williams women of color like haigar Experience wilderness in the concrete She writes wilderness is a near destruction situation In which god gives personal direction to the believer and thereby helps her make a way out of what she thought was no way From williams work. We see that women of color are called to improvise in the face of suffering And as a side note the symbol of wilderness is so significant historically to enslave To enslave communities and to african-american communities That um, we see these in the spirituals. We see this music that wilderness becomes a place where god meets Humans in the midst of oppression and despair Regardless of our race or religion religion though in the sacred space between self and other Each one of us is called to improvise In her work composing a life Mary Catherine Bateson Whose margaret meets daughter and a writer and cultural anthropologist in her own right Discusses the power of improvisation She surmises that many of us feel overwhelmed by everything that's going on in our life At school at work at home And we know this feeling She says that we feel like we have to juggle it all Assuming that in order to be good and to be lovable that we have to keep everything at control Enable to handle it on our own So we keep moving everything at once. We're juggling forcing things to happen From Bateson's perspective this juggling act prevents us from leading a flourishing life And I think many of us who experience this juggling feel Unfree As an alternative she urges us to frame the fluidity of life as an opportunity to compose a life Composing involves being attentive to what's going on like was already mentioned And also being open to change Going with the flow is one way of talking about improvisation But that's but but improvisation is not an uncaring about what's happening on the contrary It's because we have an investment in the relationship or the matrix of relationships That we give ourselves permission to change our mind our heart our course of action in the presence of the other We're already switching gears here from theology to psychology So I want to mention the work of brunet brown In this discussion of wilderness as a symbol Brown is a clinician who some of you may know and she researches the areas of shame vulnerability and empathy and she explains wilderness as quote an untamed Unpredictable place of solitude and searching The wilderness for her can often feel unholy Because we can't control it But it turns out to be a place of true belonging And it's the bravest and most sacred place you'll ever stand she says Brown presents us with a picture of emotional wilderness That we are not to avoid But to seek in order for true Freedom to emerge In seeking the wilderness We need to observe Improvise and finally let go and relinquish any number of things That holds us back including a static sense of self a false ego and the illusion of safety And part of this act of letting go involves mourning Morning is significant Because without recognizing the loss we face when we give up Uncertainty and we give up on pride We can't fully be at peace with the other For many of us when we hear the word mourning we picture in our mind's eye sadness and death I want to underscore further the catharsis that accompanies mourning The acknowledgement that whatever or whomever was lost was so significant to us A realization that is critical in order to flourish in the wilderness So from here on out I suggest that we consider using these three strategies as tools for navigating the wilderness As brunet brown puts it you don't walk into the wilderness unprepared To brave the wilderness and become the wilderness. You must learn how to trust ourselves and others So what does being prepared mean? It means first we need to make a commitment or intention to engaging that space as wild Eyes wide open This is the paying attention and being vigilant. I mentioned just a few moments ago Second in our commitment to the otherness of the wild We need to be ready and willing to improvise in the face of the other We take our clues from the other Change with and for them Third We need to give up on the privilege of being in the center of the world We're in the wilderness and our place is precarious and uncertain In a way, we must acknowledge and even more in this loss of safety Before we can move toward a healthier relationship And what i'm hoping for a more empathetic way of being So these are the three strategies i'm going to keep on coming back to so i just wanted to highlight them for you Already i've put forward the idea that each one of us is in the middle Whether it's in the middle of You know being in the middle with family with friends with frenemies Now we want to propose that each one of us has hobbies Interests practices that help us hone these three strategies for living in the middle So i'm going to share my experience And it's my hobby of swimming. Does anybody swim? okay, and And so i'm going to look at swimming and see if we could talk more about being attentive improvisation and morning And not just in the water So i began swimming regularly everybody has their stories about a hobby for this is mine I began swimming regularly at a health club Several years ago. I have to undergoing my knee surgery And I was at a point in my life where I wanted a new fitness routine and I wanted to reinvent myself So um the first few laps and the and the pool were very awkward Because i've entered a new community that have rules about swim caps and swim lanes and and all this sort of etiquette that I never knew existed before and um It was interesting because once I learned the the rules of the guidelines I was freed up to embrace the experience of being in the water And now each time I take the plunge so to speak All those distractions about guidelines go away and something wild happens And it's not always pleasurable In fact, most of the time it's unsettling and that's the exact frame used here for approaching our relationships with others human non human and divine These relationships are unsettling because when we dwell with others We're in the middle of things We're it's like we're at a party. We enter a party. That's already underway In which the guests are already mingling the wine is flowing the inside jokes are established and we're just thrust into relationships Things are in process so much so that everything that is revealed to us needs to be engaged as part of a middle Coincidentally my favorite day to swim is saturday and this makes me think of george steiner's work on the saturday experience It's usually the most strenuous workout of the week and I muddle through saturday swims with hopes of finishing The epitome of in-betweenness the saturday swim arrives after a long week of school family responsibilities work Unforeseen problems and hopefully happy surprises And like with my swim saturday the actual day promises for hope renewal and transformation Saturday is the day to let go and begin again It's a day of mourning all that went wrong and trying to recreate or look forward to things that can go right Seemingly a solitary activity Swimming is never just about the individual who's swimming But is always a social activity that unfolds in relation to a fluid Unpredictable other So first and foremost if we're going to go back to the strategies swimming requires attention and vigilance To the water except those aren't the words that swimmers use they talk about getting a feel for the water Getting a feel for the water means paying attention to it and one's position in it When an individual enters the water there's already a flow happening Swimmers need to pay attention to the flow and engage that flow in the most strategic ways possible In other way in other words improvise Finally, there's a cyclical nature to swimming and that each swim stroke has a work aspect A recovery aspect and then the swimmer repeats again With each stroke the individual lets go of all that's happened and prepares anew A mourning of sorts So in returning to these three strategies for Navigating wilderness let's imagine the first Being attentive in terms of swimming With each swim I'm called to a heightened vigilance Of the depth temperature and flow of the water Paying attention allows me to respond to unforeseen and unexpected events Swimmers practice paying attention by performing swimming drills and employing equipment such as paddles bands and buoys Well, some people are content splashing around and getting their body to move in the water More intentional swimmers long log long hours on their stroke and their breathing on an effort to overcome What is often referred to as hydrodynamic drag? This is the resistance to the physical movement of the swimming stroke caused by the surrounding fluid A first step in paying attention in the water is acknowledging the challenge of hydrodynamic drag In addition to paying attention to the water and their surroundings Swimmers need to then let go excuse me improvise and let go Of an helpful patterns in order to move through the water more efficiently Let's break down the swimmer stroke into two phases. There's the catch phase And then there's the recovery phase in the catch phase Is when the hand enters the water and pushes and pulls the water To try to move through it The recovery phase is when you come out of the water, right and you gear up for the new entry In an ideal situation after recovering and before re-entering their hand the swimmer strategizes to fix the stroke Based on bodily feedback gained from swimming the previous stroke This is where all the improvising and letting go happens We can compare some of the aspects of swimming to everyday living with others Just like with swimming when trying to relate to others in the interpersonal wild We experience an analogous form of drag An emotional friction that complicates relating We need to accept it and expect it even But too often we don't perhaps we feel like we should have it all together like I said before Meaning that we should have our relationships with others in order From the outside looking in other people seem to have their lives together And you could just think of all social media here people posting the best parts of their lives and sometimes you catch that and Maybe you don't feel the best about yourself These perceptions can cause anxiety Make us feel like we're not good enough to be loved by anyone really This is related to the illusion that others are perfect and to be lovable like them We need to be perfect and downplay feelings of vulnerability If we realize when we look deeper that everyone has experiences Of drag Challenges and relating and loving we can begin to improvise and move more smoothly through the water through life In addition to navigating drag whether in the pool or in everyday life We are constantly negotiating our place in relationship to the other Honing what clinicians refer to as proprioceptive sense Proprioception can be defined as an awareness Of one's body in relationship to the environment Knowing where we are in relation to another is an additional way to get a feel for the other And navigate the wilderness Swimming happens to be a sport That encourages one to be vigilant about where their body is in relationship to the other the fluid other Because even a small shift in one's body position could influence the efficiency of the stroke The more one can get a feel for the water by knowing where they are in relationship to the other The more successful and pleasurable the swim will be Similar to the phenomenon of the swimmer who attempts to get a feel for the where they are in connection to the water I'm asking us to think about Whether christians might become more aware of their position in relation to other believers as well as non-believers Realizing one is in a community with others who have different priorities Who need different space Is neither common sense nor natural and comes easier for some than others Yet in our age of religious pluralism The need to be aware of others is of the utmost importance So we can practice these skills This practice unfolds by paying attention to the dynamics of the other Embracing the middle as the opportunity for growth Earlier I mentioned the work of the conservationist Aldo Leopold and his call for intellectual humility when engaging the wild Intellectual humility at least Metaphorically manifests in swimming when the swimmer's hands are in the water And when the swimmer realizes that they have to stop applying pressure one way and apply something otherwise to move forward It involves giving up on mastering the element of the water and instead paying attention to the process of engaging the water And even creating new muscle memories in the midst of stubborn and unhelpful ones Similarly Intellectual humility occurs for those of us in intimate wild relationships When we realize we need to give up on old patterns and misguided feelings about having mastery over others human non-human and divine An individual is called to change By giving up a pattern of relating a feeling a wish a sense of self and an idea about the other So that they can move on To be sure intellectual humility Allows us to relate to all creatures with empathy So what i'm trying to get us to um Consider here is that those strategies of vigilance Improvisation and letting go Which I I think about when I swim and maybe you maybe you run or maybe you sew or maybe you do something you can think about them Are the seeds of empathy's flourishing? And I already mentioned brunet brown The clinician and researcher on shame And i'm going to show one of her short videos now on empathy and we can just keep that in mind As we go forward So I have sound I'm good So what is empathy and why is it very different than sympathy? empathy fuels connection sympathy drives disconnection Empathy it's a very interesting. Teresa Weisman is a nursing scholar Who studied Professions very diverse professions where empathy is relevant and came up with four qualities of empathy perspective taking The ability to take the perspective of another person or recognize their perspective is their truth staying out of judgment Not easy when you enjoy it as much as most of us do Recognizing emotion in other people and then communicating that empathy Is feeling with people And to me I always think of empathy as this kind of sacred space When someone's kind of in a deep hole and they shout out from the bottom and they say I'm stuck. It's dark. I'm overwhelmed and then we look and we say hey I'm down. I know what it's like down here And you're not alone sympathy is Ooh, it's bad. Uh-huh. You want a sandwich? Empathy is a choice and it's a vulnerable choice because in order to connect with you I have to connect with something in myself that knows that feeling Rarely if ever it is an empathic response Begin with at least I had a yeah And we do it all the time because you know what someone just shared something with us That's incredibly painful And we're trying to silver lining it. I don't think that's a verb But i'm using it as one We're trying to put the silver lining around it. So I had a miscarriage At least you know, you can get pregnant. I think my marriage is falling apart At least you have a marriage John's getting kicked out of school at least sarah is an a student But one of the things we do sometimes in the face of very difficult conversations Is we try to make things better if I share something with you that's very difficult. I'd rather you say I don't even know what to say right now. I'm just so glad you told me Because the truth is rarely can a response make something better what makes something better is connection So there's a lot we can say about this video. Maybe it'll come out at the discussion at the end one per one point noting That I like to note is that the hug was reciprocated. I don't know if you saw that and You know a question when you're in this wild is that you don't know what's going to be reciprocated and what isn't Or how something is going to be received And so that's all part of the cost here and the risk and um I'm just Thinking along with uh brunet brown You know, it's the stakes of wilderness That they're so high that makes the reward of empathy so great So just something that we keep in mind as we keep on thinking here As we just continue this conversation about empathy It's worth turning to the work of us edith stein And i'm sure some of you have heard of her She was canonized unto john poll the second in 1998 and she's a sister of turissa benedicta of the cross and Why am I turning to her because her dissertation was entitled the problem of empathy And I really feel like she's one of our greatest works on empathy today in terms of philosophy She was born in 1891 and raised in a german jewish family And she studied philosophy under edmund husserl Who was one of the most significant phenomenologists of the 20th century and reading her work One sees that stein was an outstanding philosopher and probably in a different time where women were allowed to excel at the university Her story could have been very different Potentially she could have had a university post And she maybe she would have been touted as one of the greatest philosophers phenomenologists of the 20th century However, her life took a different term And she converted to christianity from atheism And she became a carmelite nun And as many of you probably know after she uh fleed holland when christians of jewish descent were Being threatened. She was unable to escape the nazis and in august of 1942 She and her sister were deported and they were murdered at auschwitz The reasons for her canonization are worthy of a proper discussion And for time's sake cannot happen here. So instead I want to focus on her philosophical writings And as I said her dissertation was entitled the problem of empathy and in this important work She's quite clear in her assertion that empathy is an act of cognition It's an attempt at knowing Even knowing that one cannot fully know the situation and the accompanying feelings In regard to interpersonal relationships stein's philosophy maintains the uniqueness of the others experience For instance, she argues that in empathic acts Quote knowledge reaches its object, but does not have it end quote Empathic acts for stein are about being vulnerable and having intellectual humility in relation to the other Blending stein's thoughts with our discussion of interpersonal relations We could argue that we're in the wilderness with the other and cold to empathize with them Not through pretending we can feel what they feel But admitting we don't and wanting to stay and learn more about their predicament anyway For stein in empathizing the individual becomes one Perspective among many she actually uses the terms as a spatial point among many This means that one needs to realize That the other standpoint and other other standpoints are worthy of consideration They need to pay attention to the other and even change their position because of the other And I wrote this quote. I have this quote up here for you because I think it's interesting She says if we take the self as the standard We lock ourselves in the prison of our own individuality Others become riddles for us or still worse We remodel them into our image and so falsify historical truth In addition to paying attention to the other For stein improvisation and letting go our important strategies too except she doesn't call them that She does argue that at times individuals need to correct their empathic acts When a person smiles it may not mean happiness. We need to dig deeper Beyond the smile is the individual's body language communicating another story For stein there's no shame in being wrong as long as one stays open to the relationship As well as being corrected by the other An american essayist and novelist leslie jamison in her work the empathy exams demonstrates a deep sense of empathy that resonates with much of what has been said here relative to knowing the other without mastering the other For jamison after admitting for the larger part of her life that she had to Defined empathy as feeling another's pain. So that was her original thought that empathy was feeling another's pain She changed her she changes her perspective What happens is she undergoes a couple of medical interventions and during those times probably like others You know, I've I've gone through things and I I want people to feel my pain because I feel like if they feel my pain that were close And they understand me And so she searched for comfort for the assurance of people around her including her physicians her family her boyfriend named Dave And uh, not surprisingly she felt disappointment for they didn't seem to know exactly what she was going through And that not knowing felt like distance to her And even a rejection of her She wanted the loved ones to show they cared for her by feeling what she felt But as I said, she eventually has this change of heart and mind as her boyfriend Dave reveals to her a higher purpose for empathy Namely just being there Jamison writes quote Dave doesn't believe in feeling bad just because someone else does This isn't his notion of support He believes in listening and asking questions and steering clear of assumptions He thinks imagining someone else's pain with too much surety can be as damaging as failing to imagine it He believes in humility She says I remember lying tangled with him How much it meant that he was willing to lie down in the mess of wires to stay there with me Dave teaches Jamison about the grace of the Saturday In which one is thrust into a fluid relationship with the other In which neither party knows everything about the other and stays there anyway That's true empathy Communion with the other in the midst of not knowing in the midst of tangledness in the wilderness I'm just going to end tonight with a little gentle plea That like most of you think we probably need empathy now more than ever We need to find ways to listen and speak with one another across dinner tables board rooms Parishes and schools in very uncomfortable situations and about very uncomfortable topics Empathy emerges when we give up on the desire to master the other And what they're saying and trying to just sort of control what they're saying When we met when we give up on mastery we risk our emotional and spiritual safety to remain in that relationship When we are empathetic we attempt to get a feel for the other without making any claims to the status of the other In fact, empathy emerges when we relinquish power over that other Mourn that power and let the other have an impact on us And perhaps even reveal something about ourselves that we never knew. Thank you Thank you, Michelle Um, we have some time for conversation I'm going to suggest you take one minute to chat with one another and then we will pick up From there So one one minute silent or one minute's chat and then we'll talk to michelle Okay, so there's some conversation going on here and joe's got his hand up so Joe I'd just like to know what is it about the space between us that makes it sacred space That's an excellent question It's sacred because it's mysterious. It calls us into question. It calls us to vigilance and It's a place of deep Contemplation and prayer. I mean every time we encounter someone we're not saying this is a place of deep contemplation and prayer, right? But if we really observed it is it is that place where we're where we're We're not in control Now whether we call that god intervening or not, I mean, I think that's what you're getting at like it's god there I would say yes. That is that is a place that mystery that deep not knowing um I would say yes It's a good question so i'm listening and What you say Seem makes a lot of sense to me when we're thinking about You know an encounter with someone But I want to go back Just put my question by go back to your swimmer swimming up and down laps Isn't the isn't it the case that? Aside from what you said about the swimmer that he he was a he right He is actually getting better at what he does and consequently is less In an alien space or in an alien medium as time goes on so In other words, this is the way I want to put my question Where's the teleology in what you're saying right is I it's it's kind of I'd say it's agonistic And and I want to hear so in in deep friendships in long-term loving relationships of One kind or another Isn't there a movement towards less of these? I don't know what to call them tensions or or whatever Do you see what I'm asking you? Yes, and I'll try to answer it the best way possible that this yes the swimmer gets better right, but the water is always changing So a good swim one day might not be such a good swim But but the technique could be better. So that's a problem with the metaphor right the swimmer gets better now in Interpersonal relationships where you're familiar with the person. That's what you you want to know right Do you get better? I think the the person the subject Gets more sophisticated at paying attention gets more sophisticated at improvising gets more I think they develop the skills just like the swimmer develops the skills But that situation is always changing and I think one of the problems at least I make and I I'm assuming other people make Is that well, we meet someone an encounter who's different You know sure it would benefit us to observe and improvise and all that But often we take the people in our most everyday lives and interpersonal relationships I don't want to say for granted because that's not going we think we know what's happening all the time And I think no there. We need vigilance there. We need improvisation there because we can fall into the trap So I don't think it's just encounter. I would really resist that And I'm sorry if I went that way with it. I think in our deepest relationships is where we're called to pay attention And you know if we want to go theological perhaps it's sinful when we don't pay attention right when we miss that opportunity So that's just some reflections I need this I do So I was wondering about the this concept of otherness so, um, I think that it's there's For this real empathy to develop there has to be some Mutuality about the otherness that not only do I have to recognize the other in you But that I come to you as other So that your experience of me is as other Especially the farther the more distance there is between us in one way or another and that that um that that my ability to be Really intentional and and observant and aware An empathetic Requires me also to know that my Presence to you is in some way other And so just the thought I was having and then the the other thing I was thinking about was what you were just saying is Sometimes when in those most intimate relationships, we sort of forget that there's otherness there That you're not the same as whoever you're you know your spouse your children somebody like that And so you you might be you know pretty good at paying attention when you're with someone who's You know definitely a different person different In that was the one way or another but harder when you're in those intimate places So thank you. I really want to go to your first point. Um I think that's really insightful But how do you present yourself as other? That's great And you're right and that's not in here, right? So that's a missing piece, but it's really important I mean that's part you could we could say it's part of the intellectual humility to know that you're you are other right that That's a big step in it that you're you're not coming into it You know you are other but That's a whole different level of self-reflection going on there and is really giving out you really have me thinking now It's really giving up on pride and certainty and status and I think I obviously you know, we're all talking about privilege and all the dynamics around that today, right? And that's where the morning piece is really important I think because if if we actually present ourselves As other and we're Each one of us has privilege in one way or another, right? So we and we recognize that and we try to sort of let it go before we enter, you know as we enter into it That's like a bummer Like privilege is great Right, but I don't mean it like that, but I'm just saying like that's something that we have so used to So that's the morning piece like I think there has to be an honesty that we've gotten a lot from that and To get something deeper. We need to let it go, but We got something from it. I don't know either. It's on and it's off. It's probably the way I'm holding it That's a great. That was great. Thank you. All right. Well, listen. Thank you very much, michelle We have a round of applause for michelle and before you leave we have a custom of announcing next year's speaker So next year's speaker someone with whom you probably are not familiar. Her name is Trisha Bruce And she teaches at a little school in Tennessee called Maryville Yep, yep that's small, but um, but um I met her actually originally when she was a grad student in Yuccao Santa Barbara Where she was doing her doctoral dissertation on voice of the faithful And she wrote her first book on voice of the faithful. It was called Faithful revolution how voice of the faithful is changing the church that was in 2011 and her most recent book is called Parish and place making room for diversity in the american catholic church. She's a Wonderful speaker and we look forward to seeing her here in a year's time on the first wednesday in october And all of you too and bring a friend Thank you. Thank you again, michelle