When the Charter for Compassion was launched in November 2009, I didn't know that by 2012 more than 85,000 people would have affirmed it online or that we would have 150 active partners around the world. I did know that if we were to make the Charter something more than a call to action, we'd have to come up with practical, sustainable, creative and realistic ways to bring compassion back to the center of our world consciousness.
We've made great strides in a surprising number of areas. The Compassionate Cities campaign, which requires a detailed 10-year plan from all applicants, now has more than 70 cities worldwide in the process. Officially compassionate cities already range in location and size from farming town Khairo Dero in Pakistan to the American heartland, Louisville, Ky., where the mayor has is determined to set a world's record in compassionate acts during a week of service in April.
The Charter has been translated for children and around the globe there are already 15 officially compassionate schools and many more using compassionate curricula developed for all age levels. In Pakistan, one of the most active Charter partners, just one of the many extraordinary things they have done is to introduce a compassionate character into the Pakistani Sesame Street, Sim Sim Harama. Pakistan is working closely with Jordan, on the other side of the Gulf, in education efforts. In Jordan one compassionate school is housed in a tent and follows nomads through the Jordanian desert. The two Charter groups plan to expand the number to 5,000 within six years.
One of my personal favorites is the prison reform project that trains prison officers to treat inmates with more respect and care. When it was put into practice in a jail in Washington State, the goal was to decrease violence by 2.5 percent; in fact the project was so successful that violence was decreased by 100 percent. Now the creators are evaluating just what the federal government could save by implementing this program across the United States. Additionally, Louisville Kentucky and Berkeley California are just two of the cities exploring restorative justice programs as part of their cities' compassionate programs.
Among our partners are both scientific and medical researchers. Stanford University's Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education is conducting research into mapping compassion in the brain and developing compassion training programs; for adults. In Holland, an impassioned group of medical students have written a charter focused on medical ethics and compassion in healthcare. They are working to make compassion training a required part of the medical school curriculum.
We are connected by the Internet in a fashion as never before. To take advantage of that opportunity we have launched a new website. It will provide practical tools and a meeting place for people from all over the world who are interested in creating and sustaining a more compassionate world. If we all became active upholders of the Golden Rule in our daily lives, in our political lives, in our cities, we could combat the voices the extremisms and hatred that are tearing us apart and endangering us all. We could create a better, more just, more respectful society and world. We can do it and we must do it.
WATCH Karen present the Charter for Compassion and answer the question "What is Religion?":
Tiffani Thiessen: How The Power Of Collective Kindness Can Make A Big Difference
THE CHARTER FOR COMPASSION - YouTube
Charter for Compassion | Facebook
TED | Talk | Tag | Charter for compassion
Bill Moyers Journal . Karen Armstrong and the Charter for ...
One, for example, prefaces it by pointing out how Interfaith dialogue, understanding and cooperation really began back in what historians call "The Enlightenment" or "The Age of Reason," which influenced the Founding Fathers of the U.S.A.
The article also points out other times when Interfaith movements were effective, such as the 1960s in America. It's interesting.
To read it, go to http://messenger3.cjcmp.org/charterforcompassion.html
All of us who realize the true purpose of religion need to keep trying to spread the word and do what we need to do to educate humanity and prevent so many people from being led astray by hypocrites who want to rule in the name of religion.
I am a member of The All Faiths Coalition for Peace, Freedom and Justice, and I try to spread the message it promotes at http://cjcmp.org
This is news that should be on the front page of every newspaper and magazine. If it were more widely publicized, it might even become larger. This world is starving for this.
Thank you Karen Armstrong for making compassion your life's work and for all the wonderful books you've written. I read The Spiral Staircase and feel as if I know you. Your life is an inspiration.
If the churches, peers and communities practice and teach compassion, there's nothing unfortunate about it. It is a positive thing. I assume that what you're saying is that all to many of the above have failed in that mission. This is true. Of course plenty of parents have, too.
We should all try a little harder. Following the Charter is a good start.
They are finding that the old forms of faith no longer work for them; they cannot provide the enlightenment and consolation that human beings seem to need.
As a result, men and women are trying to find new ways of being religious. Like the reformers and prophets of the first Axial Age, they are attempting to build upon the insights of the past in a way that will take human beings forward into the new world they have created for themselves.
And the notion of the sacred has a history, since it has always meant something slightly different to different groups of people at various points in time. If we look at our three major monotheistic religions, it becomes clear that there is no objective "God"; each generation has to create the image of God that works for them.
When one conception of God has ceased to have meaning or relevance, it has been discarded and replaced by a new theology. Had the notion of God not had this flexibility, it would not have survived.
Above are some ideas of Karen Armstrong on religion based compassion
because if not, i don't want to hear it, it's just more of the same
is a way of life...
One of the
elements
of a compassionate
person
is a
clear
and unfettered mind...
being able to look at
the people around you...
being able to look them in the eye...
and to ask questions which
open their book of life...
about experiences, knowledge, abilities and feelings which make them
UNIQUE..
different from EACH AND EVERY other person
on the earth...
due to their particular combination of these qualities...
Compassion
towards others
takes time...
and a genuine concern for their welfare.
When someone does not naturally seem to
have compassion...
it may feel insincere for them to practice it at first...
A learning program, in which they,
can practice on those who
are also practicing the skills...
may be more effective than
trying it out on unsuspecting patients.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
quite unable to understand why the Middle East prophets stop with Jesus Christ and why not extend it up to Prophet Muhammad on whom Karen Armstrong has written a beautiful biography
http://www.turkishamerican.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=96%3Abook-review-muhammad-a-biography-of-the-prophet-by-karen-armstrong&catid=60&Itemid=92
Muhammad A Biography of The Prophet by Karen Armstrong, consists of ten chapters. It also includes two charts outlining the genealogy of the prophet and two maps of 7th century Arabia.
Unlike many other biographies of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), Armstrong begins her book by describing the perception of the Prophet in the West. She begins in the 9th century and ends at the present day. Interestingly, she titles the first chapter as Muhammad the Enemy to summarize the Western perception.
In this chapter, she discusses 9th century Muslim-Christian relations in Muslim Spain. She also discusses the crusades and the image of Muhammad that they had created to legitimize their invasions.
She makes comparisons between the way that Muslims were treated in Christendom and that of Christians living in the Muslim world as minorities.
One of the descriptive points that she makes throughout the chapter is to unfold the image of Muhammad in western literature by referring to R. W. Southern, Dante, Pseudo-Turpin, Bernard and Abbot of Clairvaux, Zwingli, M. Lefebvre, L. Rauwolf, B. d’Herbelot, Prideaux, Voltaire,