The vital art of talking to strangers

This is so true it hurts. I've wasted so much time on shitty books like this.

I am completely behind this as a person who technically might seem like a stereotypical radical to "one side".

Empathy, the "Message of Christ", the Buddhist quest to end suffering, this is the fundamental goal and idea that drives my beliefs. The true revolution is to care for others with love.

IMO the crisis of the USA is that there is so much selfish lack of awareness or empathy everywhere.

Yes, Republicans are more famous for being psychopathic and heartless but if you think for a second that manyyy of the woke are not needlessly creul to others and uaware of certain aspects of reality than you're not seeing the full picture.

I also think we need to abandon most all labels in favor of descriptive beliefs. The label is only 50 percent effective unless it comes with 100 other labels. We are truly never even one of them in our individuality.

I grew up as a very lonely child so I struggle a lot with talking to strangers, usually the idea way more than the practice. Knowing that I’ll have to call a stranger on the phone or go to a social event full of unknown people stresses me out to the point of often thinking of many ways of how I’d like to get out of them. In social situations I struggle to let go and have to put enormous amounts of energy to act ‘normal’, yet most people don’t even pick up on it. I guess I’m good at pretending. Despite that I don’t hate people and I quite enjoy listening to them when a topic that even mildly interests me comes up, I’ve done a lot of work to broaden my horizons so thankfully that list of topics is quite long. I often wonder if other people are even remotely like me or if all this comes easily and naturally to them at all times.

It does have the advantage that there’s no real difficulty increase between a very difficult social event or conversation or just am average one. Or I can drink quite a lot and still seem normal. I grew up thinking that I’m defective and need to keep to myself and I had to self reflect a lot to overcome that.

Despite this, I quite understand and appreciate the need for socializing, crazy amounts more than I did as a child. I wish I could teach young me that because social situations resolve conflict and create opportunities and those create a healthier all around environment and often a better future for all those involved.

I'm trying and failing to imagine how one would strike up a deep conversation with a stranger at a grocery store or at a diner, except maybe one of those diners that has counter seating which resembles a bar. As for the rural part, I have no idea why it would matter.

I'm an ex-Catholic and am likely one of the left leaning people you're talking about. I left the church because frankly, the actions of the church and its policies are so far from Jesus' teachings that I could no longer reconcile a belief in Christ with mother church.

> We chock it up to things like abortion and sexual ethics but I don't buy it.

Homophobia != sexual ethics.

After my goodbye confession with a good priest I'm still friends with, I never thought I'd have to say these words again. But here we go. Outright homophobia is not about sexual ethics, it's about hatred and closed mindedness. Can you point out a section a single section in the gospels that indicates that this is okay? Can you point out a single statement that Jesus made that implies there is anything wrong with being gay?? I can't, yet mother church won't cut the homophobia.

Or take the church's silly little pro life movement. Do you notice that it's directed against women? Pro lifers never take out billboards that say 'Men, don't have sex with women when they're drunk. That is called rape.' But they sure like to harass scared, pregnant women and/or people who have had abortions with their shitty propaganda. Can you show me one thing in the gospels that suggest that is okay??

You can't because it's not. None of this is okay. Jesus would not have approved of much of anything. Crap, you don't even have to read too far into Matthew to realize that Jesus would not have been accepting of any of this.

Catholics are supposed to worship a dude who stopped a woman from being stoned with the words 'let he without sin cast the first stone.' And here we are, stoning the gay, stoning the activists and stoning reproductive rights without so much as a thought about it. Has the church sinned?? Hundreds of thousands of abused children point to the fact that yeah, the church has sinned.

Who is the Catholic church to cast stones, particularly when the dude we're supposed to follow was really against casting stones? And why should I stick around something so actively disrespectful? Frankly, I'd rather find a community of people who think love is the solution rather than find a community who preaches love unless you fall into one of about 15,000 boxes.....

Edit - Here's another example that really gets my goat. My own archdiocese excommunicated a woman who was ordained as a priest. I know her, in fact, my Mom used to work with her. I even went out on a couple of dates with one of her daughters and she is an absolutely wonderful person. But mother church excommunicated her because she was ordained as a priest? Why can't she be part of the community that she helped build? She worked within Catholic churches for decades, hence her work with my Mom. She was removed from the community and the priest in her own parish read the most disgusting letter about her. Do you know why???

Her calling is not legitimate. Only a man's calling can be legitimate.

Let's assume that God in God's wisdom subscribes to the Harvard Business Review. If God had an organization with a really serious sexual abuse crisis and if God read the HBR, God might decide it makes sense to bring some women into leadership positions. But oh no, the Catholics know God. They had a direct line to God when they were abusing all those kids or ethnically cleansing Canada of its indigenous population.

I'm sorry but I can't even write this shit with a straight face. How is a woman's calling totally irrelevant to a point of excommunication when men can fuck children and just get moved to a new parish (for the 17th time)?

Serious question.