July 30 2023 : Courage + Compassion: Learning In Action

This Sunday we got to know two people plus a group of people who brought courage to their compassion and broached barriers to learning, thereby helping to make much-needed differences in the lives of others they may never meet. Their lives can inspire us to strengthen our own combination of compassion and courage, together.

The readings further reflect the courage and compassion demonstrated in the lives of the people we visited in the Perspective(s).  

The first reading is by the poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou:

Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage. 

The second reading brings us the words of Albert Einstein, the theoretical physicist who made ground-breaking advances in quantum theory, relativity, photoelectricity, statistical mechanics, radiation, gravitational force, and also developed what is known as the most famous scientific equation of all time, E=mc2 (E equals M C squared) regarding the relationship between energy and mass. However, the relationships, the interrelations, in life were of far more importance to him, as is evident in the following:

A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.