Charter for Compassion Blog

The Dichotomy of Grief and Celebrating Life

We, at the Charter for Compassion, over the last few months, have been facing a human dilemma, a dichotomy of celebrating and grieving a life that is ending at the same time. A few weeks ago, I wrote of the murder of David Breaux, the "Compassion Guy," and now of the impending loss of a person with whom many who work with the Charter are almost in ...

Our Task is to Shine Light

Last week's newsletter message about David Breaux hit a chord in so many people. He was a gentle man who spent endless hours on a bench, listening to people. He gave them a prompt, asking what they thought compassion meant. He was not inviting a philosophical conversation but a heartfelt conversation. So much sharing can happen on a bench. Often, i...

David Breaux,

David was a champion of compassion. He was committed to awakening the world to compassion, and he always introduced the Charter for Compassion to those he met. He came to the community in which I lived at the time and spent a week outside the local bakery, seated on a bench, engaging people in conversation, and inviting them to write in his compass...

Good on you, mate

I love Australia, but then again, I love India and Mexico, and also the nation of my family roots, Croatia. However, I am fascinated by the concept of "mateship" that Australia has given to the world. I'm not certain the term is well known outside Australia, but it certainly is worth exploring outside the borders of the "Down-Under Continent." I re...

Don't just look at the spring, touch it, taste it. Get it inside you. ~Vincent Van Gogh Too much is happening in the world. What else can we do but take each day given to us as it comes. The Irish poet, John O'Donohue always brings a measure of solace to my heart when I can't express the exasperation running through my body. Turn off the news for a...

Restoring Our Ancient Bond with the Natural World

[Religion is hard work.] Its rituals are designed to effect a profound change within us. A religious ritual should be a transformative event—it can never be a matter of simply going through the motions, however, piously. Holiness demands that we change our lives and, indeed, our very selves. The sacrificer spent months in an uncomfortable hut, unde...

The last Saturday of every month the Charter holds a Sangha (circle) with Orla O'Sullivan, education coordinator at Plum Village, the retreat center founded by the late master Thich Nhat Hanh. Spending ninety minutes in Sangha, which you are most welcome to join, is sacred. We often laugh, sit in silence and comfort, and sometimes find ourselv...

The Charter for Compassion Team just spent the last few weeks pulling together our 2022 Impact Report. After putting the finishing touches on it yesterday, I wrote a letter that will be published along with the report. I decided I wanted to share that with you here before we release the report in the next week or so. It is a bit of history and a bi...

On March 9th, 2012, at the Omer Ersoy Cultural Center in Gaziantep, Turkey, Dr. Helen McConnell and Mufti Dr. Ali Bakkal led a presentation on Compassion in Islam. McConnell represented the newly formed Charter for Compassion and one of its programs, Compassionate Cities. At the end of the conference, a protocol was signed by then-Mayor Dr. Asim Gü...

It comes around once a year, and as a holiday, Valentine's Day allows us to focus on people we care about and elevate them to a special place of recognition.  Here is the basic truth when it comes to the Charter for Compassion, each of you is the Charter.  Every one of the 170,000+ names we have in our database is unique and very spe...

It is happening on April 1-16; a stream of events and a major conference rolled into one package. The Charter for Compassion, AgeNation, and a wonderful group of other organizations plus a cast of more than 50 well-known authors, experts, musicians and performers, film and documentary producers, and other luminaries are coming together to be part o...

Banner showing part of Martin Luther King's face, title of the article: The Building of a Beloved Community

For those of you who follow the Charter for Compassion and read our newsletters every week, you know that our topics vary greatly. As you may also know, we have just started our 40 Days of Peace program commemorating the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King. Each day, until February 28, we are adding events to our calendar to inform, reflect on an...

6 open face sandwiched with different toppings on the side with the title in the middle

Welcome to 2023! Here at the Charter for Compassion we are putting compassion into action, and we want to challenge you to do the same. Back in 2011, NPR's (National Public Radio in the USA) Neal Conan interviewed the Charter for Compassion's founder, Karen Armstrong. Six minutes into their chat, he had an epiphany. "This all seems a little harder ...

"I remember the big white house on Steiner Street, and my little sister Dagmar, and my big brother Nels, and Papa. But most of all, I remember Mama." These were the opening lines from the play, later an early 1950s television series, I Remember Mama, the story of an immigrant Norwegian family living in San Francisco in 1910. The story is told throu...

Your children are not your children They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself They come through you but not from you And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you You may give them your love but not your thoughts For they have their own thoughts You may house their bodies but not their souls For their souls dwell in th...

We give because someone gave to us.We give because nobody gave to us. We give because giving has changed us.We give because giving could have changed us. We have been better for it,We have been wounded by it— Giving has many faces: It is loud and quiet,Big, though small, diamond in wood-nails. Its story is old, the plot worn and the pages too,But w...

That's at the core of the Charter for Compassion's work. Compassion is a tricky word.It so often is used incorrectly. Too many people dismiss it as "soft" or ineffective" in solving problems. It is not! Compassion is powerful! It means action. These actions are expressions of kindness; from the smallest gestures that take little effort on any ...

These last four weeks I've been writing about the Gala and each of the Humanitarian Awards we will present on November 12 at our Global Gala. The week before those blogs appeared, I wrote about the Global Gala Gallery. (I got high marks in school for my understanding of alliteration). Each week as I wrote these entries, I felt a little gu...

I always want to tell these young idealists that the world is not as dangerous as many in the older generation want them to believe...The [people] for whom I feel the greatest sadness are the ones who choke on their beliefs, who never act on their ideals, who never know the state of struggle in a decent cause, and never know the thrill of even part...

I've been thinking about grit as a character trait ever since we decided on the theme for this year's Gala; Architects of Justice. Say "grit" and my mind immediately goes to the Charles Porter classic novel, True Grit with its infamous lines, "There is nothing free except the Grace of God. You cannot earn that or deserve it." While Porter's pr...

Deogratias Niyizonkiza: An Example of Self-Actualization "What a man (sic) can be, he must be," so said Abraham Maslow the proponent of the theory of self-actualization. I remember reading that Maslow thought that few people got to the full potential of their capabilities when it came to be self-actualized. Well, Maslow never met Deogratias Niyizon...

Mary Robinson: A Pillar of Justice and Human Rights I first learned of Mary Robinson when I was involved in a project on Women World Leaders. I was to write a curriculum to accompany the documentary film by Laura Liswood, consisting of a compilation of interviews with women who were leaders in political office around the world. The mid 1990s saw a ...

Last year during our Gala 2021 we featured a song by Holly Near. The words are apropos for announcing the recipients of our 2022 Charter for Compassion Humanitarian Awards: I am open and I am willing. For to be hopeless would seem so strange. It dishonors those who go before us. So, lift me up to the light of change. There is a hurting in my family...

Dictionaries define trivia as unimportant, inconsequential or non-essential facts. They are trifles, kernels of information that we can do without because they don't get to the heart of the matter. However, what might be a triviality to one person may not be a trifle to the person to whom that bit of information refers. Leaving the lingui...

Art isn't captured only in shows and installations. Art is everywhere in raw form—and as a part of this year's Global Gala the Charter is introducing a Gallery filled with wonderful creations from an extraordinary group of people—each taking an idea, feeling or passion, adding the raw ingredients and creating a personal masterpiece. Some of these m...

InBodiedLight Being #9 from back, ZaHaVa Sherez, InBodiedLight Being #9 from the front.  Art is not often passive or silent. It can hold fantasy, depict reality, convey emotion, carry gravitas, transport one to other places, and trigger a physical reaction. The art of ZaHaVa Sherez is engaging and inspiring. First, I find myself glancing,...

I've got celebration on my mind. Perhaps it is because at the Charter for Compassion we are in the midst of planning our 2022 Global Gala, during which we honor three extraordinary individuals who have made more than significant contributions to the world and one organization that has done the same. We won't announce the names until the end of Sept...

In Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankel wrote that "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms--to choose one's attitude in any set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." On July 13th , we offer an unusual Global Read, You Can Choose Your Own Life. The subtitle is "Stories for Decision Making." There i...

When Karen Armstrong had the idea that we needed a Charter for Compassion to help guide our way forward into the 21st century, the TED organization asked the world to contribute their ideas about what should be in such a Charter. When we were a little more grounded in our ideas about helping to create compassionate communities, we asked people who ...

We are excited to share two incredible new projects at the Charter for Compassion:  The Co-Creators Map and Grassroots Wisdom and Action book. They are entirely in and of the hands of our members, partners, and community initiatives. Their success will come about because all of us are interested in sharing our stories, good work...

No, you aren't opening the wrong mail. This is the Charter for Compassion's weekly newsletter. Let me expound some here: Hagamos un mundo más pacífico, un amigo a la vez. בואו להפוך את העולם יותר שלווה, חבר אחד בכל פעם Portiamo la pace nel mondo, un amico alla volta. Давайте сделаем мир более мирным, по одному другу за раз Spravme svet mierumilovne...

One of my first meetings today involved hearing about the murder of Palestinian journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, in Jenin. Shireen was wearing a press vest, but that didn't matter; she was shot in the head by Israeli forces. The person telling us of this tragedy knew Shireen, and it is evident that she was an extraordinarily loving and caring pe...

There is plenty to do, for each one of us, working on our own hearts, changing our own attitudes, in our own neighborhoods. ~Dorothy Day Nelsonville, Ohio is a small town nestled in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in southwestern Ohio, USA. There are less than 6,000 residents, which in some global cities might constitute a city block. Th...

There is no greater power than a community discovering what it cares about. Ask "What is possible not "What's wrong?" Keep asking. Notice what you care about. Assume that many others share your dreams. ~Meg Wheatley  I feel like I am locked in another stupor of history. My states of subconsciousness are becoming more frequent: Syria, Sudan, pe...

If everybody looks through broken glass, then together, we are looking at a world that looks broken. When I notice my crack…you notice yours, and we start healing our cracks, then we begin to look at the world through clear glass. And that's what trauma healing does. It starts unifying the world. ~Thomas Hübl How many cracks have appeared in our wi...

Susan Soleil, the Charter for Compassion's director of development is a champion of volunteering. You'll see what I mean when you read her message below. Interestingly, she coupled her own acts of volunteering with Martin Luther King's quote reminding us of our duty towards others. Duty points to a certain principle we hold toward ourselves and to ...

Isn't it wonderful when we are surprised in a good way. Our office manager, editor, translator, and jack-of-many trades, Lynn de Vree, shares with us the joys of two gifts, one of nature and one of kindness. A native of the Netherlands, Lynn is used to cold weather, snow, and ice, but not with the mountainous topography of the Pacific Northwest. Sh...

Julia Fehrenbacher is a poet, author, life coach, a teacher, and a sometimes-painter. She is most at home by the ocean and in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, with pen and paintbrush in hand. She is also a wife to a great guy, a mom to two beautiful, hard-to-figure-out teenage girls. Her family would not be complete without her very smart and ...

Today's featured article is by Nnaumrata Arora, who has been a part of our Charter for Compassion family for the last four years. Living in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, Nnaumrata is a Community Weaver, Founder and Lead Consultant at Enactive Systems. She has been an integral part of the work in the Charter's Women and Girls sector. With warm reagrd...

Kindness is a simple concept...too simple some might think to provide a solution to the complex challenges of today's world. But it is precisely this simplicity that gives Kindness such power to effect positive change. ~Olivia McIvor The Charter for Compassion is immensely grateful and proud that Olivia McIvor oversees the Charter Education Institu...

Every man lives in two realms, the internal and the external. The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms, and instrumentalities by means of which we live. Our problem today is that we have allowed the internal to become lost in the ...

It was April 15, 2008, and there I sat, row three in the University of Washington field stadium surrounded by people wall-to-wall. On stage, the Seattle Symphony under the baton of conductor Gerard Schwarz. The Symphony was joined by youth artists who sat next to their mentors. The ensemble was immense and there to the side of the stage sat Archbis...

Great stories happen to those who can tell them. ~Ira Glass The world loves a good story. What could be better than the stories coming from children and youth from all parts of the world. Two members of Compassionate India, Anjali Sharma and Deepika Ahuja, sought to prove that stories can inspire and teach. Soon a new book, My Act of Heart, will pr...

I was reminded this morning of gratitude, while facilitating a webinar with Leila Alsheikh and Robi Damelin from the Parents Circle—Families Forum (PCFF); Leila, a Palestinian, who lost a young child, and Robi, an Israeli, who lost a son in the long-lasting conflict in their lands. PCFF was awarded one of the Charter's Humanitarian Awards during ou...

We are strongest when we see the most vulnerable in our society, bear witness to their struggles, and then work to create systems to make it better. ~Stacey Abrams Here we go—we need to change! You've heard it before and the news from COP26 is filled with ideas that could conceivably stop Greta Thunberg from telling us "blah, blah, blah" about...

As we are preparing for our Global Gala on November 20th, and enthusiastic responses arrive from everywhere, I am drawn to share this letter with you by this week's guest author Michael Lisagor. Our Charter family blankets the world and therefore includes a great variety of people. Some are religious and some are not, but we all share the Charter's...

Madre mía, en el sueñoando por paisajes cardenosos:un monte negro que se contorneasiempre, para alcanzar el otro monte;y en el que siempre estás tú vagamente,pero siempre hay otro monte redondoque circundar, para pagar el pasoal monte de tu gozo y de mi gozo Mother, in my dreamI walk purplish landscapes:a black mountain that swaystrying to reach th...

Early in my career in education, I happened upon Adlerian psychology. It offered pragmatic methods for understanding behavior and provided reasonable ways to work with children, families and colleagues. In graduate school I explored Alfred Adler's work more and his belief that, as we moved to embrace democratic principles in a world coming out of t...

Encuentro Mundial de Valores (Gathering of Human Values) Your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values, your values become your destiny. ~Gandhi The Charter for Compassion's strategic partner, Encuentro Mundial de Valores in Mo...

A global event occurred in September 1893 in Chicago. By the way, in that same year the World's Fair, called the Columbian Exposition, was held in Chicago to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's discovery of the New World. It took us another hundred years before we were to acknowledge that it was the Native Americans who discov...

There is no path I'd rather roam,than these narrow lanes about my home,to leave my troubles far behind,as I follow its track to places kind. For along your path there is no wrongjust pretty flower, and bird of songNature's beauty all around,to fill my sight, to fill my sound. ~By Chris Plows A little over a year ago I moved. I live on a two-way roa...

Believe it or not, virtual events can be fun! During the last three years the Charter for Compassion has proven that when the right combination of people come together, the world rises to its feet, tears flow, hearts swell and smiles encircle the globe. On November 20th, be prepared to engage as the Charter for Compassion gathers worldwide to recog...

Yesterday, I lay awake in the palm of the night. A soft rain stole in, unhelped by any breeze, And when I saw the silver glaze on the windows, I started with A, with Ackerman, as it happened, Then Baxter and Calabro, Davis and Eberling, names falling into place As droplets fell through the dark. Names printed on the ceiling of the night. Names slip...

Words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean. Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes. ~Theodore DreiserToday's blog was written by Cheryl Rice, coach, and the author of Where Have I Been All My Life? Her company, Your Voice Your Vision partners with women striving to be leaders in thei...

Only in the darkness can you see the stars. ~Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Whether you are up to date on global news, or just absorbing the energy of the people on this planet, you know that there is a lot of suffering happening right now. Don't we just wish that we could just stop the world and catch our breath? Too often we are prone to hearing abou...

You don't read Apeirogon so much as feel it—the particular tragedies are lived out in an ever-present moment of loss… Apeirogon is the kind of book that comes along only once in a generation. ~The Guardian When I read the opening chapters of Apeirogon, there are 1001 in the book, reminiscent of the "ruse for life in the face of death," I reali...

Let's talk about laughter. How does it fit with compassion? I consider that laughter relates to self-compassion. It can certainly relax the body, it triggers the release of endorphin chemicals that relieve stress, boasts the immune system, and while it may take a lot of active laughing, it could help us burn off a few calories. Norman Cousins, in h...

Today's guest author is Donna Mills, she co-coordinates, together with Sara Jamil, the Gender Partnerships sector of the Charter for Compassion. Donna has taken on a topic that is central to the wellbeing of each of us--personal safety, and security. I remember a study done decades ago asking individuals who were displaced by war what they wished f...

Our guest author today, Pattie Williams is co-coordinator of the Social Justice Sector for the Charter for Compassion. She is also one of the original members of Compassionate Fayetteville, AR, USA, and continues to be involved in racial and social justice issues and dialogues associated with the local compassionate initiative. Belay and Shinita Ki...

Today I'd like to share with you what can happen when one person zeroes in on a need. In this story, the person is Anjali Sharma, a member of our Compassionate India team. A year ago, Anjali contacted me about a project to help young girls continue their education during, and hopefully beyond, the pandemic. She thought we should join forces with Sa...

Whether we are in the company of other people or not makes a great difference to the quality of experience. We are biologically programmed to find other human beings the most important objects in the world. Because they can make life either very interesting and fulfilling or utterly miserable, how we manage relationships with them makes an enormous...

"Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world." ~Harriet Tubman The Charter for Compassion has lost some incredible team members this year. Each one of them dreamers, committed to doing something to make this world a more welcomin...

Today's message is written by Inez Aponte from Crazy Beautiful World (CBW), reminding us that intergenerational collaboration is crucial to our work. We believe CBW is the perfect companion to the Youth Compassion Collaborative (YCC), the Charter's newest youth and youth led initiative fomenting self-compassion and growth opport...

What you allow will continue.~Katherine Fugate Today, I appeared on a podcast sponsored by Voices for a Nuclear Free World, and was asked about the issue of nuclear weapons, their proliferation and what we--as global citizens, can do to end this madness and eliminate the 3720 deployed warheads, and 9680 stored and reserved warheads, housed by 9 cou...

What Changes My father's hopes travel with meyears after he died. Somedaywe will learn how to live. All of ussurviving without violencenever stop dreaming how to cure it.What changes? Crossing a small streetin Doha Souk, nut shops shuttered,a handkerchief lies crumpled in the street,maroon and white, like one my father had,from Jordan. Perfectly pl...

Gracias a la vida, que me ha dado tantoMe dio dos luceros que cuando los abroPerfecto distingo, lo negro del blancoY en el alto cielo su fondo estrelladoY en las multitudes el hombre que yo amo Thanks to life, which has given me so much.It gave me two stars, which when I open them,Perfectly distinguish black from whiteAnd in the tall sky its starry...

We must not only control the weapons that can kill us, but we must also bridge the great disparities of wealth and opportunity among the peoples of the world, the vast majority of whom live in poverty without hope, opportunity, or choices in life. These conditions are a breeding ground for division that can cause a desperate people to resort to nuc...

I come from there and I have memories  Born as mortals are, I have a mother  And a house with many windows,  I have brothers, friends,  And a prison cell with a cold window.  Mine is the wave, snatched by seagulls,  I have my own view,  And an extra blade of grass.  Min...

Given the subject line of this newsletter, I could have easily put up a picture of what is happening in India with the exhausting figures of Covid deaths each day. I couldn't bear to do that. Instead, I selected this sublime picture by British artist, Phil Greenwood. It offers a sense of calmness, some relief, a hint of lightness, and through the a...

The Director's Note is written today by Donna Mills, co-coordinator of the Charter for Compassion's Women and Girls Sector. She and her co-lead, Sara Jamil, have been involved in extensive conversations to expand their work to embrace Gender Partnerships. You'll be learning more about this newly titled sector soon. Below Donna addressed the origins...

No one has ever become poor by giving. ~Anne Frank Cristina Gonzalez, Chair of the Charter for Compassion's Board of Trustees, and I were on a webinar last week with one of our Charter partners, Peaceful Tomorrows. Some of you may recall this group as the September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. It was formed when a small group of family mem...

It's official, Earth Day is April 22. Having one day to symbolize cleaning up the rubbish in our parks, roadways, and beaches, and planting trees and pulling out evasive plants to help native plants flourish is a bit silly. Don't get me wrong, it is wonderful to see all this concern and activity for one day, but isn't this something we should be do...

I think I'm going to do something crazy here. We've been working on a script that we will be using in a video about the Charter for Compassion. We've been tweeting words, removing sentences and even whole paragraphs. I think we've been to the "drawing table" four times and changed focus a few times. Below is our latest version. The video is to help...

Let your spiritual nature illuminate and brighten each day. Pay attention! Brushing over details can create gray and stagnant areas. This observation was listed as a monthly theme on the Findhorn website. Located in Scotland, Findhorn, an eco-village of liked minded people, has for a long time been a bucket list item for many folks around the ...