On The Wisdom Daily this week (Dec. 14-18), we discussed the need to choose our language with care, the lawsuit over a major museum’s “racist” art, the impulse to tune out troubling news, the Star Wars fans blending science fiction into the Christmas story and more. Did you grow wiser this week? We hope The Wisdom Daily played a part. Talking About Donald Trump: Why We Should Channel George Orwell – Michael Bernstein Donald Trump makes me think of George Orwell, but perhaps not for the reason one might expect. My......
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Daily Life, Spirituality & Faith, Wisdom Warehouse |
December 15, 2015
Shining a Light on Being Too Tired to Care
Bombarded with news stories of gun violence, and racist and Islamophobic rhetoric from politicians, I’ve begun to notice a numbness overtaking me. It’s a natural response to move away from pain, as from a hot flame. But even when I turn off the radio, or avoid reading official news sources, the pain of the world trickles into my social media feeds. Ideally, I want this pain to move me to act for change, but have begun to feel overwhelmed, to shut down. According to Dr. Joan Cook at Yale University, those of......
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The day before the people of Paris suffered their deadliest assault since World War II, ISIS detonated two bombs in southern Beirut, killing 43 people and wounding hundreds. Some have taken to social media and combined the blue, white and red of the French flag with the cedar tree of Lebanon, or otherwise marked these tragedies together. Still, it’s an uncomfortable question why this attack did not spawn the universal calls for solidarity and recognition as the outpouring seen for those in France. There is something at stake in allowing ourselves to......
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From Odyssey Networks’ Faith on the Record series: A new bill has been enacted in the state of California known as the “right to die” law, empowering terminally ill patients to legally seek assistance if they decide to end their life. Critics say it’s a step too far toward trying to play God, but the law’s supporters believe a suffering patient’s companions and doctors shouldn’t be penalized for honoring a request that’s ultimately one of comfort and mercy. “How much pain would you tell another person they have to endure?…This really is......
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In the midst of a very eventful summer for the European Union, German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently found that she’d unexpectedly gone viral on YouTube. During Merkel’s otherwise pedestrian TV appearance on Good Living in Germany, a 13-year-old Palestinian refugee named Reem asked a heartbreaking question about facing deportation from Germany to her native Lebanon. When Merkel noticed the girl cry, she reached out to console her, saying that she’d done well. But the moderator took exception, saying this was not about doing well, but about Reem’s anxiety. Merkel insisted she was......
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