Only Notice (a sermon)
I think I have mentioned to you all the Ted talks that I’ve been listening to… TED talks are 18 minute talks about technology, entertainment, and design, and they are people who are tops in their fields.
Daniel Goleman, the author of Emotional Intelligence gave a talk on compassion. He tells the story of a group of divinity students were given a practice sermon. Half of them were to preach on the story of the Good Samaritan. The other half on some other text. As they went from one building to another to give their sermon, they saw a man bent over in pain. The experiment was to see if they would stop to help the person.
Did it make a difference if the people were preaching on the Good Samaritan text? Nope.
Social Neuroscientists have found that our default wiring is to help. “If we attend to the other person, we automatically feel with them.” So, why don’t we help?
They were in a hurry.
They were worried about what was coming up next.
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