We are, at our core, creatures of story. Long before we had laws or institutions, we had fires to gather around and voices to shape the darkness. We told stories of loss and courage, of betrayal and repair, of what it means to belong to one another. These were our moral curriculum, the way communities taught themselves what to value, whom to protect, how to respond to suffering. We become, collectively, the stories we tell.

This is why philosopher Martha Nussbaum argues that the literary imagination is not a luxury but a necessity for a compassionate life. When we enter a story, we practice the fundamental act of empathy: stepping outside the boundaries of our own experience to inhabit another's. We feel what they feel, see what they see. And in doing so, the circle of "us" widens.

This is the work we are invited into at this particular moment in history. The crises of our time — polarization, divisiveness, indifference — are, at their root, failures of imagination. And if imagination is the problem, it can also be the cure. Today we share stories that reveal our common humanity, and invite us to practice compassion before compassion is even asked of us.

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News You Can Use: Compassion as a Driver of Community Health

Last year, The Muhammad Ali Center released The 2025 Compassion Report, the first large-scale national study to measure and map the state of compassion across American communities. Based on a survey of 5,400 people across 12 cities, the findings are both sobering and instructive. Sixty-one percent of Americans say they feel a decline in compassion in the last four years, and 70% express a desire for reduced aggressive political rhetoric. Perhaps most striking: only 1 in 3 Americans feel compassion for all groups of people, with the lowest levels directed toward those convicted of crimes, undocumented migrants, and people in higher economic classes.

And yet the report also carries hope. Compassion-related online searches have surged by 4,000% over the past five years, a signal that people are actively looking for something different. And the data on cities is telling: communities that score higher on compassion metrics show stronger civic participation, better access to mental health and housing resources, and more engaged residents. Compassion, it turns out, is a measurable driver of community health. Nearly two out of three people say they prefer to learn about compassion from "everyday people" rather than political leaders, social leaders, or experts. So each of us is called to be a carrier of compassionate stories, and a living example of what we all long for.

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Have You Read It?

In Tiny Shifts: How Emotional Health Transforms Stress, Relationships, and Longevity, clinical psychologist and GCC Founding Supporter Dr. Elisha Goldstein reveals a powerful truth: emotional health isn't built through the sweeping breakthroughs we've been promised, but one small shift at a time.

At the heart of the book is his 4R Method — Recognize, Release, Refocus, Reinforce — a practical framework for interrupting the emotional loops that keep us stuck and reactive. Goldstein explains that the nervous system often signals danger long before the mind catches up, and that small, intentional shifts — a slow exhale, a pause before reacting, a moment of genuine connection — can retrain the brain toward safety, stability, and calm over time.

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Insight & Inspiration. The Stranger on the Train

In the chaos of the London Underground at rush hour, Virginia Squier, a teacher chaperoning a group of middle schoolers, momentarily lost hold of her eight-year-old daughter as a train pulled into the platform. As told to WUNC News, the girl rushed into the train as the doors closed. As the girl realized what was happening, she started pounding on the door. The last thing Squier witnessed was a stranger on board, a man wearing a dog collar, getting up and approaching the girl. The sight only deepened her terror.

As Squier came and went, frantically seeking help, a student let her know her daughter was back. The man had guided the girl off at the next stop, and helped her board a train back to her mother. After hugging her daughter and crying, Squier looked up to thank the stranger, but he was gone. "My preconceived notion that he was frightening was destroyed," Squier later said. And added: “To this day, I hold his image in my head when I find myself judging someone based on their appearance. I hope he knows he rescued me from the worst day of my life."

This story, part of NPR's My Unsung Hero series, is a parable for our times: the very person our nervous systems register as "other" may turn out to be the one who shows up. Compassion, it seems, has a way of dissolving the boundaries we draw, if we let it.

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The Growing Edge. Knocking on the Door of "The Other"

What could expanding the circle of "us" look like in practice? UC Berkeley's Othering & Belonging Institute has been finding out. Their Bridging for Democracy project trained grassroots canvassers across six states to do something radical: instead of knocking on doors to deliver a message, they knocked to listen. Questions like “How has polarization touched your life?” opened conversations that surprised everyone. One skeptical retiree in Southern California, after talking with a canvasser for thirty minutes, said: "This gives me faith in humanity. You weren't here to sell anything, and I feel less alone."

Across more than 26,000 doors and nearly 2,350 deep conversations, something unexpected happened: the canvassers themselves were transformed, coming away less anxious, more curious, and more convinced that connection across difference is possible. As one project leader put it, "Bridging isn't a distraction from social justice work: it is a strategy to get us to a bigger ‘we’."

Similar long-bridge initiatives are underway in deeply divided societies elsewhere, including Northern Ireland, post-genocide Rwanda, and post-dictatorship Argentina.

​Read the full story here.​

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A Pale Blue Reminder

This week, NASA released the first images from the Artemis II mission's historic flyby of the moon, and one in particular stopped us in our tracks. Dubbed "Earthset," it shows our planet — a glimmering crescent of blue and white — slipping behind the moon's cratered horizon, just as the crew lost radio contact with home. It is a deliberate echo of the iconic "Earthrise" photograph taken by Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders in 1968, an image widely credited with igniting the modern environmental movement. What struck people then, and strikes us again now, is the same revelation: from out there, there are no borders. No dividing lines between "us" and "them." Only a fragile, luminous sphere, holding everything and everyone we have ever known. At a moment when so much pulls us apart, it is worth pausing to take that image in, and to let it remind us what we are, at bottom, protecting together.

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Let’s Practice! Create Conditions for Compassion

Bring to mind someone in your life who is not within your immediate circle (a neighbor, a colleague, an acquaintance; someone you know just enough to have formed an impression of.

For a moment, let go of what you know about them and simply consider: What has this person lost in their life? What are they afraid of? What do they love?

Rest there for a moment. Notice what shifts, even slightly, in how you hold this person in your mind. Carry that softening with you into your day.

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A Question for You Is there a story (a book, a film, a conversation, something you witnessed) that changed how you see a group of people you once held at a distance? We'd love to hear it. Reply to this newsletter, and we might share it in a future edition.

Somewhere right now, someone is knocking on a door they are afraid to knock on. Someone is listening when they could walk away. Someone is choosing to see a stranger as kin. These are the building blocks of the world we long for, and you are part of building it.

Until next time, with warmth and solidarity,

Fabiana,

Editor, Coming Home

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