Another favorite hymn mourns Israel's lonely exile from the Son of God. Another years for a future in which every knee will bow to Jesus. Another urges Christian soldiers onward, marching as to war. When I imagined singing it with a Muslim or Hindu student sitting next to me, my voice dried up. It was a song for insiders, not outsiders. If I had learned anything from going on all of those class field trips, it was how religious language sounds to outsiders, and how much that matters.

This kind of holy envy comes with its own safeguard. Although I am allowed to admire what is growing in the well-tended fields of my religious neighbors, I am not allowed to pull off the road and help myself. The things I envy have their own terroir, their own long histories of weather and fertilization. They do not exist to serve me, improve me, or profit me.

We are certainly damaged people. The question is, finally, do we use that damage, that first-hand knowledge of oppression, to recognize each other, to do what work we can together? Or do we use it to destroy?

You all look like happy campers to me. Happy campers you are, happy campers you have been, and, as far as I am concerned, happy campers you will always be.

When the Holy Father passed away in 2005, Laura, Dad, Bill Clinton, and I flew together to his funeral in Rome. It was the first time an American president had attended the funeral of a pope, let alone brought two of his predecessors.

Let your heart feel for the afflictions and distress of everyone.

Be not glad at the misfortune of another, though he may be your enemy.

Show not yourself glad at the misfortune of another though he were your enemy.

Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.

COME TO ME when you are hurting, and I will soothe your pain. Come to Me when you are joyful, and I will share your Joy,

I'd like to suggest that the Golden Rule is perhaps the most potent political weapon we Christians have today. And I don't say this because I'm Anabaptist but because empathy is at the bottom of the Golden Rule. If we as Christians with a faithful witness would set the example, not by way of reaction but by way of reasoned empathy, we might set the tone for more shalom in our world.

At the same time, as social beings, we are moved in the relations with our fellow beings by such feelings as sympathy, pride, hate, need for power, pity, and so on.