(Ir)Regular Christian: "Complete Revelation of Empathic Love"

Please visit this profound post by fellow blogger, the (Ir)Regular Christian. He illustrates how the Incarnation is the most complete act of empathic love.

(Ir)Regular Christian: "Complete Revelation of Empathic Love": This third Sunday of Advent I will continue to explore the Christian teaching of the Incarnation, the embodiment of God the Son as Jesus ...

No Crib for a Bed

At our Christmas Eve candlelight service, we read Luke 2:7 and sang "Away in the Manger." Although I've been singing the song since I was a child, I still was not familiar with one translation of the scripture:

"And she bare her firstborn son, and wrapped him in `clothes, and laid him in a feed-trough..."(WYC from www.biblegateway.com)

I learned that the Greek word for manger, phatne, can mean either a stall for keeping animals or a feed trough for animals. (http://www.orlutheran.com/html/chrbirthfaq.html

Meditation: The Prayer of the Heart

Empathic or not, meditation can be a really useful tool to enhance your life in Christ. Unfortunately, meditation in popular culture doesn't often seem to be thought of in context with Christianity.

I suppose the form of meditation we hear about most is transcendental meditation. The goal of transcendental meditation is to empty the mind of thoughts in order to find peace and enlightenment within ourselves.

Prayerful meditation, Prayer of the Heart, or meditating on scripture, are meditations on the word of God. The purpose is to turn our thoughts to God in order to attain peace, wisdom, and understanding through and of Him.

Our Glorious Cantata

I had the great joy of attending our church's Cantata today. One of the "side effects" of having the gift of empathy is managing not to cry too much in the face of such beauty. The voices were amazing, uplifting and reverent, but equally moving were our lay reader and our translator of American Sign Language each contributing a wonderful gift of communication.

Tulle and Ribbon Angel

A week ago Sunday, I was inspired to make the tulle and ribbon angel below. I've never made anything like it before; it just came to me. There were no patterns or instructions, yet it worked out beautifully.

I loved the result so much I walked it around my house trying to find the perfect place to display it. When I couldn't find the right place, I realized - this angel is not intended for me. But, I had no idea who it was for.

Compassion? I'm too overwhelmed!

In my last post, I suggested we pray for compassion, to pray for the strength not to shut our hearts to others. But, what if you feel too overwhelmed?

I've seen lots of talk online about how to control your empathic abilities- turn them on or off, up or down at your discretion. This is intended to help empaths from being constantly overwhelmed with the barrage of emotions they sense in everyone around them.

Surely, being empathic is not easy and some truly suffer. It would be presumptuous of me to categorically say that we should not learn to turn this gift off to preserve our sanity. However, I remain skeptical and am not sure I agree with this approach.

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Pray for compassion*

1 John 3:17 KJV 

But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?

Living the Spirit of Christ means having a visceral reaction when seeing a person in need.   In 1 John 3:17, some translations discuss the uncharitable reaction of shutting up the bowels of compassion in response to those in need.  In the Latin, viscera means bowels.

So I'm An Empath

So, I'm an empath. That would explain some things about me. I was afraid to embrace my empathic abilities, but then I realized that God gives us all our gifts which would include being empathic. Of course, this would not hold if I had gone out and sought this ability through the occult, but I did not.
When I sense things, I feel a very strong compassion and concern for others which could not possibly be bad. So, I have begun to embrace this identity, the Christian Empath, using discernment and good judgement, all in a context with God - through prayer.