out into difference, in as to commonality

empathy, the final frontier

empathy is often pushed

as a way to understand the other,

the differences that nature, nurture, and environment develop in us,

by walking a mile in another’s shoes,

we can see the world differently,

though I can worry about how much

that could hurt the feet,

when I think about others important in my world,

I often wonder if they were able to empathize,

my own mother was full of love and sympathy,

yet it seems she could not really feel as another,

in another case, when a parent seemed unable to quite "get" a child,

I wonder how much the problem was an inability to jump into those shoes,

I’m beginning to imagine empathy 

as an even greater power than I’ve ever realized before,

for I feel now that understanding and appreciating difference.

though a wonderful step in itself, can be even more wonderful

if one can find commonality in the drives beneath us all,

take food as an example

and feel how the hunger within

can be satisfied with such different answers,

there’s hunger in the soul, too,

a need to make a difference,

a need to use one’s gifts in what feels right,

the conservative and the liberal

both want to renew and support the body politic,

I am close to realizing

that the way out into our differences

can be the way in to our commonality,

into how the maker within

uses each of us differently,

and that we each are making

the best difference in the world we can.

by Henry H. Walker

August 10, ‘16