How about a little compassion?

It's 2011.  Happy New Year!  Who's ready to call it a year?

In the last twelve days, the world has seen hoards of dead animals wash ashore or fall from the sky, massive floods in the Australian state of Queensland and the attempted assassination of U.S. Representative from Tuscon, Gabrielle Giffords, the murder of her staffmember,  a federal judge, and a nine-year old born on September 11, 2001 who wanted to attend the Congresswoman's event to learn more about democracy in action.  In the aftermath of the tragedy in Arizona, the media has attempted to reflect on the vitriolic tone of political rhetoric and the politicians who usually assume that tone have sidestepped the ripe opportunity for self-reflection by denying the power of their inflammatory words to actually inflame anyone.

Nice.  As devastating as the recent events might be, however, they each offer a good chance to notice just how good the year ahead can be.  Because, whether the media reports on it or not, whether the politicians comment on it or not, we humans are really pretty decent at responding to devastating events with support, care and compassion when the need arises.

So, here's what I'm selling today: the Charter for Compassion.  Yesterday, I heard the Charter's original innovator, Karen Armstrong on NPR's Talk of the Nation.  Go listen to her!  Now!  She's the best thing to make it on the radio since David Sedaris, although she's not quite so funny.  A couple years ago, she won the Ted Prize and voiced her wish to create and distribute a Charter that would promote compassionate thought and action in the world.  She's a former nun and a religious historian, and in her studies, she's noted that religions that breed hate and intolerance have failed in their own fundamental purpose.  She celebrates the Golden Rule and is asking for all of us to remind ourselves of the simplest guiding principle for a kinder humanity: do to others as you would have done to yourself.  Or, maybe even better, the inverse: don't do to others what you wouldn't like done to you.  Or both.

I like the way the Charter's website says it best:

"The Golden Rule requires that we use empathy -- moral imagination -- to put ourselves in others' shoes. We should act toward them as we would want them to act toward us. We should refuse, under any circumstance, to carry out actions which would cause them harm."

Let's follow that rule together.  All of us.  Because we don't advance as a society if we consistently fail to recognize the similarities that bind us.  None of us belong in the crosshairs.  All of us, even those of differing opinion, deserve respect.  And when crap happens, we'll know that we are, all of us, in it together.