What is Truth? Easter and Controversy

Following the Passover meal, Jesus was arrested.  He was sent to Pontius Pilot for judgement as he had the authority under Roman law to order Jesus to be crucified.  Jesus was charged with sedition against Rome, opposing the payment of taxes to Cesar, and calling himself a king. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontius_Pilate)

37 Pilate then said to him: Art thou not then a king? Jesus answered: Thou sayest, for I am a king. To this end was I born, and to this end have I come into the world, that I might testify to the truth: every one that is of the truth hears my voice.

38 Pilate says to him: What is truth? (http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscript.aspx?book=36&chapter=18&lid=en&side=r&verse=37&zoomSlider=0)

Christ's Empathy for Us

I read an article called The Healing Power of Empathy, by Daniel Harrison in which he wrote: "This type of love [empathy] Jesus commands His followers to possess (John 15:12–14)—the type of love that, once it understands what another person is going through, actively seeks that person’s well-being." http://www.ministrymagazine.org/archive/2008/September/the-healing-power-of-empathy.html

The article was about cultivating empathy to heal the divides between people.  What I took away was the significance of the snippet I quoted above.  It prompted me to look up the passage from John 15, and I found the below, John 15: 1-13 to be very insightful as I read it with a new perspective.

Online Resources for Empaths

I am endeavoring to create a list of online resources for empaths.  As a christian empath, I am trying to avoid sites that lean too much towards the occult for my comfort.  I hope to include many sites that present the gift of empathy from the Christian perspective.  Please use discernment and good judgement extracting the information from these sites that is helpful and appropriate.

Words for Love: Empathy in the bible

I occasionally come across online discussions that raise the fact that the word "empathy" does not appear in the bible.  I've seen discussions parsing words over what kinds of spiritual gifts are given.  That having the abilities that empaths claim is not possible and one instead may be compassionate, sympathetic, or have a mental illness.

Play on Words: Empathic vs. Empathetic

I found this article from The Grammarist to be very interesting:

"Empathic is a variant of empathetic, which means characterized by empathy. Some American dictionaries list empathic as the standard word and empathetic as the variant, and the shorter word is older than the longer one. But empathetic has prevailed—probably due to analogy with sympathetic—and is now about five times as common as empathic in news publications from throughout the English-speaking world."

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.

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.