Hello Dear Community, 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...
about 1 month ago • 5 min read
Hello Dear Community, In difficult times, it can sometimes feel as if fear, anger, and division spread more easily than care. Yet our experience tells us that compassion also travels. A single act of kindness can shift the tone of a conversation, a group, even a whole community. The way we respond to suffering is not only a personal matter. It is shaped by the environments we live in, the systems we work within, and the people around us. For many years, compassion has been studied mainly as...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
Hello Dear Community, As I write these words, and you read them, a line of orange-robed Vietnamese monks makes its way through snowy highways, rural roads, large and small towns, on a 2,300-mile pilgrimage to Washington, D.C., to spread peace, loving kindness and compassion throughout the US and the world. The pilgrimage began in October 2025 and is expected to last 120 days. It has not been easy or uneventful: one monk lost a leg after a truck ran into their accompanying vehicle (and the...
about 2 months ago • 6 min read
Food Bank volunteers on Mothers' Day Hello Dear Community, The news these days is dismal, and can naturally make us feel disheartened. The challenges are no doubt real, and the stakes are high. At the same time, news and social media tend to amplify negativity: stories of violence and division spread quickly, while everyday acts of cooperation often go unreported. This may explain why a 2025 poll found that nearly half of Americans believe rudeness is increasing compared with before the...
about 2 months ago • 6 min read
Hello Dear Community, How do you tend to meet beginnings? Some of us arrive at a new year carrying tenderness for what has just passed —a sense of release, mixed with uncertainty about what comes next. Others feel the pull of forward motion: the energy of a blank page, new possibilities waiting to be named. Most of us hold a little of both. Early January is a liminal time; a threshold between what has been and what is still taking shape. These in-between moments often soften our edges. Sleep...
about 2 months ago • 5 min read
Hello Dear Community, We are living through a time when so much of what sustains life — clean air, trustworthy information, public health, even our attention — feels strained, fragmented, or captured by private interests. The systems designed to manage our shared resources often treat them as commodities, and thus impoverish our relationship to them and to each other. The result is the erosion of trust, depleted ecosystems and a growing sense of orphanhood. An alternative framework has been...
2 months ago • 4 min read
Hello Dear Community, We live in times in which outrage often dominates headlines and social media feeds. Anger against cruelty and injustice can be a mobilizing force, and draw attention to urgent problems. But when outrage becomes our default mode, it oversimplifies complex issues, narrows our perspective, and makes people we don’t like or disagree with into “others”. What’s more, research suggests that, when not balanced by awareness and emotional regulation, reactive anger can erode...
3 months ago • 5 min read
Hello Dear Community, Rituals are one of humanity’s oldest forms of care: symbolic gestures that say “this moment matters”, “you matter.” As the year draws to a close and life grows hectic, these moments of intention can bring us back into connection. Whether simple or elaborate, rituals invite us to pause and remember what we’re tending to beneath the surface of our days. Ritual exists along a wide spectrum; from a few words of gratitude before a meal to a carefully held ceremony shared with...
5 months ago • 5 min read