Countering extremism – living with difference (previously on Facebook)

When you relate so closely to another that you feel their pain, and that pain can only be assuaged when your pain has gone, this is true compassion. That is why Jesus touched the leper, why the Samaritan crossed over. To be human, to love, we do not need to believe in God or to assent to a moral code. We ‘simply’ need to recognise and embody our common humanity with all others. This is the essence of love manifested in the idea of incarnation and can never be imposed on others and is not a condition for us to be loved.