Learn of Compassionate Integrity Training ten-week series here and write kirk@uiwtx.edu for information on the next series.
Get online resources at www.compassionateusa.org
The Speakers pages have direct links to the sessions that were recorded and posted on UIW Media. Join in the networks serving each other listed on the Service and Scholarship pages. In the institute we recognized the value of our individual stories, engaged in educational practices to help students realize their own human dignity, their “sacred stories." We practiced listening more deeply to the stories of others, stories of earth, and compassionately embrace civic engagement for equity and justice. We are creating new stories across campuses, across cultures, across the city and the world. Please learn and network through this website.
Am I a victim, a survivor, a hero transforming the challenges into wisdom and compassion?
Our city has had the dubious distinction of the highest percentage of people living in poverty among the 25 largest U.S. cities and of being one of the most economically segregated cities with huge gaps in neighborhoods, education, job opportunities, housing and, medical care availability. The pandemic magnified this reality and news sources around the world showed 10,000 families lined up waiting for food when people had not been able to work for a few weeks in 2020. Let us take to heart the invitation to transformation July 27, 2021. Emphasis on independence, in contrast to interdependence, can hold us back from sustainable development.
This project seeks to transform us---the educators, the learners, and the citizens that we may recognize the structures of inequity, segregation and co-create a just “City of Compassion” through sharing stories and listening to stories.
We continue to listen to Earth, to Black people, to Girls, to Latinx people, Differently Abled people, to LGBTQ people . . . stories of truth, stories of transformation
Stories can reveal, stories can heal. Stories can be windows, mirrors, or sliding glass doors. “We cannot be indifferent to suffering; we cannot allow anyone to go through life as an outcast. Instead, we should feel indignant, challenged to emerge from our comfortable isolation and to be changed by our contact with human suffering. That is the meaning of dignity” (No. 68)” writes Pope Francis in “Fratelli Tutti.” Considering the story of the Good Samaritan, Pope Francis continues, “The decision to include or exclude those lying wounded along the roadside can serve as a criterion for judging every economic, political, social and religious project.” (No. 69).
Read of the Aug. 4-6 Institute in the University Incarnate Word student newspaper, the Logos, page 5.
