A distribution of empathy

A credit card company's TV ad consists of nothing but things that look like happy and sad faces:

Two closet knobs and a clothes hanger make a sad face; a car's front grille and fender is a happy face; stitching on a purse connotes a troubled face; a curved row of seating makes a smiley face.

In the background the Prelude from Bach's Suite No. 1 for cello is playing.

The ad is very pleasant to experience; worth more than many concerts I've paid admission for.

We have empathy for things.

This means we assign human emotions and feelings to inanimate objects. When things look like they are smiling, we smile. When things look like they're sad, we're sad.

An overcast day is a sad day. But it's not the day that's sad. We're the ones that are sad. A day -- or even a night -- cannot be sad. It's just a physical condition of a distribution of light or lack of light.

But for us, a physical distribution of light or dark immediately means an emotional distribution.

A distribution of empathy.

When the Greeks built the Parthenon, they made the stone columns bulge ever so slightly at their midsections to suggest the strain of holding up all the weight above. They wanted the stone columns to look like human muscle.

You might think that's sentimental. But if you substituted steel columns instead of the stone columns on the Parthenon -- or even if you substituted stone columns with no bulge in the middle -- it wouldn't be the famous building that it is.

It's very important to us that the stone columns of the Parthenon have been straining for these thousands of years.

Here is one of our major challenges in life: How to distribute our empathy correctly.

Or righteously.

It is one thing to feel good about a car fender that smiles. But there are higher callings for empathy.

Logos2Go

James 1.27 Pure and lasting religion in the sight of God our Father means that we must care for orphans and widows in their troubles, and refuse to let the world corrupt us.

Isaiah 55.12 You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.

Proverbs 12.10 The godly are concerned for the welfare of their animals, but even the kindness of the wicked is cruel.