The hard work of compassion

Anyone who seeks to understand goodness needs to read Ta-Nehisi Coates’ post about the “hard work of compassion.” He is an African-American engaged in the not-so-mundane task of reading Mothers Of Invention, a history of women in slaveholding families during the Civil War. He writes:

For me to seriously consider the words of the slave-holder, which is to say the mind of the slave-holder, for me to see them as human beings, as full and as complicated as anyone else I know, a strange transcendence is requested. I am losing my earned, righteous skin. I know that beef is our birthright, that all our grievance is just. But for want of seeing more, I am compelled to let it go.

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A tie between the worst of times and the 2008 Election

By Nancy Jane Moore

In case you tend to think the U.S. Civil War is ancient history, here's a story to ponder: The Austin American-Statesman has a feature on the daughter of a slave who just voted for Barack Obama. She's 109.

I think there's something very joyful about that. Here's a person who is tied by family to one of the ugliest parts of our history and yet she has been fortunate enough to live long enough to vote for an African American for president. I'm sure it will make her very happy if Obama wins next week.