There are moments in history when humanity must collectively pause, reflect, and recommit to our shared values. Today feels like one of those moments.
This past Sunday, our congregation recalled Hands Across America, the 1986 initiative that brought over six million Americans together in a symbolic coast-to-coast embrace. The message then was clear: we are one people, united in hope despite our divisions. Nearly four decades later, the gesture resonates more deeply than ever—not as nostalgia, but as a wake-up call.
Our nation is fraying at the seams. Not from lack of patriotism or principle, but from a slow erosion of empathy.
When Law Becomes Violence
News that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested Marcelo Gomes Da Silva—a high school senior on his way to volleyball practice and scheduled to play in his graduation band—sent waves of heartbreak through our community. Marcelo has lived in Milford, Massachusetts since age six. Now 18, he is being forced out of the only home he’s ever known.
And he’s not alone. Ming Li Hui, a longtime Waffle House waitress and mother to a child with autism, faces deportation despite two decades of legal residence. Are we really safer without these community members among us? Or are we witnessing the transformation of public policy into state-sanctioned cruelty?
We can debate immigration reform. We should debate immigration reform. But we must not accept masked agents removing neighbors in unmarked vans. This is not hypothetical. This is happening now—and if we don’t speak up, it might one day be your neighbor. Or mine.
We’ve seen how this movie ends. It played out in 1930s Germany. It echoed in apartheid South Africa. And as one speaker at Newton’s Pride Day reminded us, “None of us are safe until all of us are safe.”
The Empathy Deficit
After the pandemic, many of us hoped society would take time to heal. But healing demands effort. Instead, polarization deepened. The world burns, children starve, and we continue to choose sides instead of solutions.
It’s tempting to tune it all out. To retreat into comfort. I feel that pull myself. But true self-care isn’t escapism—it’s awakening. To truly care for ourselves, we must also care for the whole. Our sense of self is incomplete without our connection to others.
So where do we begin?
Empathy.
Not as a vague moral ideal, but as a daily, intentional practice. Empathy is more than sympathy. It is the act of imagining life through another’s eyes. A Democrat seeing a Republican. A white woman seeing a Black man. An atheist seeing a person of deep faith. Empathy doesn’t require agreement—but it demands humanity.
Maitri: Friendliness Begins Within
In Buddhism, “maitri” means unconditional friendliness toward oneself. It is the starting point for offering the same compassion to others. If we can understand our own flaws, fears, and contradictions, perhaps we can extend grace to the people around us—especially those we disagree with.
This is not passivity. This is the soil of action.
When we embrace empathy, we become agents of spiritual activism. We commit to change—not through violence or hate, but through unwavering love and justice. Gandhi knew this. So did Martin Luther King Jr. Their power came not from rage but from a profound belief in our shared destiny.
As Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh wrote, “When you begin to see that your enemy is suffering, that is the beginning of insight.”
Resources for the Heart
I’ve curated a few powerful tools to help us rekindle our sense of unity:
- Music: Watch children sing “Imagine” in the Playing for Change version. Then listen again through the lens of John Lennon’s haunting original. Let the message wash over you—“You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.”
- Forgiveness: The short film “Forgive Yourself, Forgive Humanity” reminds us that healing is possible. That under all our wounds, there is a good heart waiting to be seen.
- Teachers: Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön offers a powerful practice called “Just Like Me”—a five-minute meditation that invites us to see others with compassion, not comparison.
- Action: Get involved. Join groups like Indivisible. Attend peaceful demonstrations. Invite someone who disagrees with you to lunch. Ask questions. Listen.
And when you feel powerless, remember this: The greatest revolutions start in the heart.
All Is One
Our deepest delusion is the belief in separateness. We act as if our actions affect only us—as if we live in silos. But we are cells in a single body. The pain of one is the pain of all. To injure another is to harm ourselves. The path to peace, then, is not conquest. It is connection.
We may never agree on every issue. But we can agree on this: cruelty must end. Silence in the face of injustice is complicity.
Let us be soft where the world has grown hard. Let us be fierce where apathy reigns. Let us walk beside the Marcels and Mings and all those whose stories may never make headlines.
We are each other’s keepers. Now is the time to act like it.