Twelve communities throughout the U.S., one month in each asking people to write their concept of compassion in a notebook and leading group discussion on the topic. That's what the Compassion Tour is about. The tour began September 3rd in Keene Valley, New York. It stems from an endeavor I began over five years ago in Davis, California to bring awareness to compassion by asking people to think about it. The tour amplifies this endeavor, with each visit including speaking engagements, having already facilitated a few over the past weeks in the Keene Valley area.

Loving our neighbors as ourselves is one of the overarching spiritual laws of our time.  It is an irreducible commandment, intended to remind us that we are bound to each other by compassion. It seems obvious that such a way of life would be the panacea for all social maladies, including perhaps the deterioration of civilization itself.  If we are keeping our neighbors on equal par with ourselves and our families, then we are bound to build utopian communities, right?

Blogging should not be an add-on, not an isolated project, but should be seen as PEDAGOGY.

This week, I finished a book on the Columbine shootings. The piece was written by Dave Cullen, a New York Times journalist, who lived through the media circus that was the coverage of the massacre. The story uses hindsight to delve into many of the myths surrounding the shootings, the perpetrators, the victims, and the culture that permeated Columbine High School. The story is expertly told.