A new year, when so many conversations seem cyclical, reviewing the repetitive silliness in our nation’s capital, the redundant articles and analyses in media, the repeated tragedies along the border. It is a time for silent grief and stammering conversations, but here are a few things that we return to in our dialogue with friends and fellow church travelers.

1. Empathy training. Each January we join four other film lovers to attend the Palm Springs International Film Festival and plunge into other worlds—this year China, Spain, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Poland, South Africa, Belgium, India, Russia, Austria and Kazakhstan—and we try to conceptualize other times—Tang dynasty China (1,000 years ago), Cold War Poland, 1940s Europe, Apartheid South Africa—to name a few, walk in others’ bleeding feet and weep into others grimy fists. One simply cannot have enough empathy training. Find yours whenever, wherever you can. On the streets of your town or on screens viewed or in pages of books turned. Wherever there is pain or joy, let your heart feel.
2. Compassion training. One simply cannot have enough compassion training. There are multiple ways of developing new aspects of compassion—the “fellow-feeling” of mutual love—and we find that a powerful film is a haunting way of deepening care for humankind. If you can find these in the coming months, put them on your must-see list.
   • Ayka (Russia) awakens profound concern for the immigrant with little power
     
   • Champions(Spain) stirs sensitivity to those with special challenges
     
   • The Third Wife (Vietnam) the domination of women
     
   • Cold War(Poland) the terrors of political upheaval
     
   • Becoming Astrid (Sweden) the plight of a girl growing up in a hierarchical society
     
   • Our next film is Shoplifters (Japan), which promises to awaken new understanding of the marginalized anywhere in our world.
     
3. World citizenship training. “My nationality is human.” We remind ourselves of this often as we see how borders block understanding, maps define the territory, skin color dictates value, place of birth denotes destiny. Living in Los Angeles County is a constant experience of getting walls crunched, prejudices exposed and fears unmasked. But denial springs eternal in most souls. However, seeing movies from around the world, like reading novels from other lands, accelerates growth, since art can be truth, and truth has its own art.
4. Un-training our well-trained Unlearning learnings we did not know we had learned. We talk about this a lot in our home-base church. Blindness can be cured—relational blindness, that is. Deafness can be removed—hearing the cries of the suffering, that is. Numbness can be aleviatied—spiritual numbness that buffers all contacts with human need. Deadness can find resurrection—no longer dead to the world but alive to all that surrounds us. We see flashes of light in our blindness, hear cries, feel the needles of awareness as we work at extending discipleship. We will talk about it again this Sunday, every Sunday.
5. Why not an Oscar for “Revolutionary Goodness”? Instances of true goodness seem so rare. Think about it. Think long thoughts.

David and Leann Augsburger are two semi-retired people who co-lead a home base church (Peace Mennonite Church, Claremont, California) and volunteer to welcome, care and connect people in the San Gabriel valley.