Empathy

“Can you view with empathy,
Your reigning, loathsome enemy?

The one who’s gunning to coerce.
The one whose words you find perverse.

The one who’s wanting to oppress.
And not constrained to confess,

The deeds against yours and you.
Who despises through and through.

Can you forgive this like and kind?
Who does it with the clearest mind.

Who thinks your pain is for good.
Who thinks you’ve misunderstood.

‘You must fight for what is yours,
Against the one that you abhor.’

That’s what they urged you to do.
That’s what they urged, but is it true?

Is there even such a thing?
What do such goods sooner bring?

Things to fight for, things to choose,
Things to distract, and then to lose.”

How do I fight while I forgive?
How can I face them and still live?

I’d like to have the clearest mind.
With that, who knows what I’d find.

To empathize with a fiend. . .
My goodness, what would that mean?

To feel them deeply from within,
I’d need to recognize my sin.

What if we all could do such things?
“My friend . . . that would change everything.”