(#1,024): “Empathy,” “Compassion” and “Mercy” – Three Words sure to Put You on IT’s S****List

February 02, 2025 / Kurt F. Stone

Believe it or not, according to innumerable studies of mental health professionals, the vast majority of people rank fear of speaking in public as number one - 75% according to the National Institute of Mental Health. I know it sounds crazy, but public speaking is feared more than death itself. There’s even a name for the fear: glossophobia. It is derived from two Greek words: γλώσσα (glossa), meaning tongue and φόβος fovos), meaning fear or dread. Glossophobia affects men and women in equal numbers, although men are more likely to seek treatment for it. When queried, people suffering from this common ailment site fear of being laughed at, fear of “falling flat on their face,” and being “found out” to be an ignorant fool. Rememdies? There are, relatively speaking, few. It’s not like simply taking a dose of an antihistamine like Benadryl to ease pruritis (itching) or aspirin to ease the pain of a headache. Typically, glossophobia treatments often involve lifestyle changes, psychotherapy and medications. Short-term medications known as beta-blockers (e.g. propranolol, which should never be mixed with Benadryl) can be taken prior to a speech or presentation to block the symptoms of anxiety.

It seems counterintuitive, but even those of who regularly speak before the public - whether live or in front of a camera - can suffer from a subset of glossophobia, known as stage fright. Hollywood lore abounds with stars who have suffered from paralyzing stage fright including, Julia Roberts, Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson, Barbara Streisand and even Lord Laurence Olivier. One of the most famous and best-documented examples is actor/comedian Carol Burnett, who is alleged to have thrown up nightly before each show.

Those lifetime public speakers and/or actors who have never suffered a minute’s worth of glossophobia (including yours truly) find it hard to understand - at least emotionally - what the other 75% go through. This is not to say that speaking in front of a “packed house” is as easy as playing chopsticks . . . especially when the speaker is also responsible for the script itself. Besides needing to possess at least a modicum of oratorical skill, those who deliver (as opposed to merely write) political speeches, academic lectures and especially, sermons, eulogies and invocations, must know what they’re writing and speaking about. . . which can call for innumerable false starts, erasures, deletions and drafts. Composing and delivering sermons, of course, is a particularly difficult artform. At their very best, they are a mixture of homily, Scriptural referencing, didacticism and frequently moral challenge. They can also on occasion get the sermonizer in hot water with many congregants or parishioners. Sermons work best when they combine empathy, sympathy, tenderness, humanity, occasionally a touch of humor and at least a dash of controversy. Take the sermon Episcopal Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, delivered in front of the newly-sworn in POTUS, the First Lady, the Vice President and Second Lady at the National Cathedral the day after IT took the oath of office for the second time. This National Prayer Service is a tradition that goes back several generations.

During her sermon, Bishop Budde, the first woman to lead the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, ignited a firestorm when she urged the newly-sworn in President to show empathy "upon the people in our country who are scared now," including immigrants and members of the LGBTQ community. "I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President," she pleaded with him, who was seated mere feet away in the first row of pews. In including immigrants among the people in our country “who are scared now,” she was speaking from personal experience, for not only has she devoted countless pastoral hours counseling and caring for members of the LGBTQ community, she herself is the daughter of an immigrant; her mother, the late Ann Bjorkman, moved to the U.S. from Sweden. married American William Edgar and eventually became a single mother raising the future Bishop.

In her sermon at the Washington National Cathedral, Bishop Budde challenged the president directly, asserting that "millions have put their trust in you."

"The vast majority of immigrants are not criminals," she told the crowd in the pews, adding that migrants are "good neighbors" who pay taxes and are also "faithful members of our churches, mosques and synagogues, gurdwara and temples."

The bishop's by now-famous talk followed #Felon47’s rollout of a series of controversial orders and policies, including his promises to deport "millions" of undocumented immigrants and his moves to end protections for transgender people. The president was. unsurprisingly, angry with Bishop Budde - a longtime progressive activist whose connection to the LGBTQ community is personal and long-standing. In 2018, she and Bishop V. Gene Robinson presided over a public ceremony at the National Cathedral to honor Matthew Shepard, a gay hate-crime victim whose ashes were interred there. In 2017, she oversaw the removal of Washington National Cathedral's stained-glass windows honoring Confederate generals, which were replaced in 2023 with windows representing the civil rights movement.

In 2020, Budde criticized the clearing of protestors from Lafayette Square for President Donald Trump's photo op during the George Floyd protests. She also delivered a benediction at the 2020 Democratic National Convention. Needless to say, the newly-inaugurated POTUS was sorely aggrieved at what the Bishop had to say in her homily, took it as a personal affront, and let his MAGA followers know precisely what he thought about her. He later demanded an apology, calling the bishop a "radical Left hard line Trump hater" and "so-called bishop." "She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart," he posted on Truth Social, the platform he owns. Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, a Georgia Republican, urged in a post on X that Budde be deported. The question is: to where? To New Jersey, where she was born in 1959?

I for one find it simply unfathomable that using the words “empathy, “compassion” and “mercy” in a homily can earn one an entire page on the president’s sh . .t list. How thin can be his skin; how insecure can be his soul?

It seems that every day bring yet another cretinous, grossly insensitive, fact-free comment from #Felon47. Just the other day, at his first news conference since the aircraft collision over the Potomac River, he implied that DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programs were likely the cause of the crash, although an investigation into the fatal disaster has only just begun. Later that day (Thursday Jan. 30) a White House memo said the Biden administration had recruited “individuals with severe disabilities in the FAA” . . . people incapable of handling the job of air traffic controller. “A group within the FAA determined that the workforce was too white, then they had concerted efforts to get the administration to change that and to change it immediately,” he added. “This was in the Obama administration.” Leave it to our newest POTUS to inject rancorous partisan political arguments at a time when empathy, unity and leadership are required.

Believe it or not, there is actually a term for making such cretinous statements in public: dontopedalogy . . . a curious word generally ascribed to the late Prince Phillip, meaning “The art and science of putting one’s foot in one’s mouth.”

Over many years, I have been honored to deliver invocations at political and medical gatherings, and opening-day ceremonies of various legislatures and even the first public luncheon for the then-”Florida Marlins” back in 1993. (I will never forget that invocation; it came the night after their first game . . . in which they had defeated my Los Angeles Dodgers by a score of 6-3, with former Dodger Charlie Hough getting the victory and future “Mr. Marlin” Jeff Conine going four-for-four).

I close with a piece I delivered before the Florida State Senate . . . a deeply conservative body . . . a number of years ago. Believe it or not, I did not receive a single negative response. Oh how the times have changed:

MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE:

WE CALL YOU BY A HUNDRED DIFFERENT NAMES, AND CALL UPON YOU IN A THOUSAND DIFFERENT WAYS. AND YET, WHETHER WE ADDRESS YOU AS G-D, JESUS, HA-SHEM, ALLAH, VISHNU OR YAWEH; WHETHER WE STAND, KNEEL OR FALL PROSTRATE ON THE GROUND; WHETHER WE RECITE PRAYERS THAT ARE WRITTEN FROM LEFT TO RIGHT, RIGHT TO LEFT OR TOP TO BOTTOM, WE ARE ALL, ESSENTIALLY, ADDRESSING THE ONE WHO CREATES AND SUSTAINS, WHO EXALTS AND JUDGES, WHO BLESSES AND ENABLES THAT WHICH IS BEST IN EACH OF US. THROUGH THE VERY ACT OF INVOKING YOUR NAME, WE SEEK YOUR GUIDANCE, YOUR APPROVAL, AND ABOVE ALL, YOUR STRENGTH AND BLESSING.

UNQUESTIONABLY, YOU HAVE ALREADY BESTOWED MANIFOLD BLESSINGS UPON THE MEMBERS OF THIS AUGUST LEGISLATIVE BODY – BLESSINGS THAT HAVE PERMITTED THEM TO BECOME LEADERS IN THIS GREAT STATE. WE PRAY THAT THEY BE EVER MINDFUL OF THE AWESOME RESONSIBLITY THAT COMES FROM BEING SO ENGIFTED; THAT THEY CONSTANTLY PAUSE TO REFLECT UPON THE VERY NATURE OF COMMUNAL RESPONSIBILTY. MAY THEY KEEP UPPERMOST IN THEIR HEARTS AND MINDS THE MOST BASIC AND PURPOSIVE REASONS WHY THEY ARE HERE: TO FEED THE HUNGRY AND CLOTHE THE NAKED; TO EXERCISE STEWARDSHIP OVER ALL THE NATURAL GLORIES THAT YOU HAVE CREATED; TO EDUCATE, TO ELEVATE AND TO ADVOCATE.

MAY WE, WHO HAVE BEEN GIVEN SO MANY BLESSINGS, BE EVER COGNIZANT OF THE FACT THAT MANY PATHS CAN LEAD TO THE SAME DESTINATION. MAY THESE MEN AND WOMEN – THEY WHO CALL EACH OTHER “HONORABLE” AND “DISTINGUISHED” – REALISE THAT YOU, DEAR G-D, HAVE GIVEN US TWO EARS WITH WHICH TO HEAR AND BUT ONE MOUTH WITH WHICH TO SPEAK. MAY ALL OF US UNDERSTAND THAT ALTHOUGH THERE ARE UNDOUBTEDLY MANY PATHS TO THE GATES OF GLORY, THERE IS BUT ONE GATEKEEPER – YOU AND YOU ALONE.

MAY YOU BLESS US AND KEEP US.

MAY YOU CAUSE YOUR GREAT COUNTENANCE TO SHINE UPON US AND BE GRACIOUS UNTO US.

MAY YOU LIFT UP THE LIGHT OF YOUR COUNTENACE AND GRANT US THE MOST PRECIOUS OF ALL YOUR ABUNDANT BLESSINGS – THE BLESSING OF PEACE.

AMEN

Now, more than ever, we must call out the callous words, the cruel names, the all but total lack of empathy, compassion and mercy being shown on the part of our supposed leader. We have bid a tearful farewell to one of the most decent men ever to occupy the Oval Office, Jimmy Carter. Although likely not our best president, no one has ever been able to hold a candle to his humanity, his love of people, and of G-d. He followed the admonition to “do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with G-d” better than anyone else in our history. He turned his beliefs into action and actually made the world a better place. Will the same ever be said of #Felon47? Unless and until he gets his foot out of his mouth and learns that the first person also has a plural . . . the chances are absolutely none . . . and even less than that.

In the words of King David’s lament (2 Samuel 1:19) אֵ֖יךְ נָֽפְל֥וּ גִבּוֹרִֽים “How the mighty have fallen!”

To remind a leader of the necessity of exercising empathy, compassion and mercy should never, ever be taken as an insult . . . it is a gift from on high.

It’s time to take your foot out of your mouth and start acting like a human being.

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categories / The Mump Regime