(Translation: FPS=”first person shooter,” i.e., the kind of video game where you pretend to be killing people. Mod=modification.)
This is pretty much my approach to ethics in a nutshell. When we allow ourselves to be aware of the consequences of our actions, we act differently–that is, better. Two ways to become a better person are therefore: Come closer. Use your imagination. Come closer to the lives that intersect with your own so that you can see how you affect them; if you can’t actually see or hear those other lives, use your imagination. (There’s a psychological and ethical term for the capacity to imagine other lives: empathy.)
This week I met with Almaz Negash, the director of Step Up Silicon Valley, a project whose aim is to halve poverty in our area. I thought people in our congregation might be interested in working with them, and asked her what we would do to become involved. For the first step, she recommended a poverty simulation, a two-hour exercise in which participants are given pretend money and scenarios that place them in the roles of poor members of the community. It looks like Ms. Negash, xkcd cartoonist Randall Munroe and I see things the same way.
Some of the ways I “mod” my own life to become more aware of others’ lives are: read (good fiction is just as effective as non-fiction); listen to the news; ask people about their lives and try to listen to their responses with complete attention; do tonglen meditation. What do you find works for you?
Sermons in Stones 
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April 24, 2011 at 6:56 am
Catherine Mary
Your methods of awareness and mine are quite similar….I have had too much happen in my life to listen to the news or to watch it on television, but I can read the papers, or alternately someone in my family reads and we discuss things together; yes, I read up on subjects, but also about people elsewhere in the world and how their lives are affected by what is happening in their sphere;very early in my life, I found that people asked me how I was doing and then basically didn’t hear a word I said; instead of remaining in the negative emotion that often produces, I slowed my life down, not for this reason alone, but people not paying attention to each other was a large part of it…therefore the modification I made to my life thirty years ago, I have practiced ever since..I slowed down so I could hear, to begin with, and so I could respond with sensitivity, secondly, and in so doing I found that people don’t need alot of one’s time, just enough, sometimes only a few minutes…but they DO need to walk away believing they’ve been heard, that I listened to them with full attention…quite frankly, it didn’t change the behavior of others, but that wasn’t the point..it opened my eyes and I changed my behavior…years ago my mother ‘surprised’ me with an unannounced visit…to say the least of it, being married with two preschoolers, I was less than prepared for her…I remember her remarking as to why the dishes weren’t done since it was past 10 a.m….I responded by saying a friend had dropped in to talk with me for a few minutes…that people were more important than dishes…the following Christmas I received from her a ceramic plaque for my kitchen wall that said just that…”People are More Important than Dishes”, that she had had made for me…I kept that on the wall for years…I don’t meditate, but the first hour of the morning is the quiet time I have, for talking to God, and listening to what is around me, reviewing the prior day, so that my mind cleared of leftover things from the prior day, and settled to face the new one I’m in…I consider this a priviledge as many people don’t have the time to reflect first thing in the morning…
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