The Nightingale - Poster
In World War 1 more than 350.000 women from all continents travelled to the battlefields of Europe and the Middle East to volunteer as nurse. The demonstrated the world everything about compassion, empathy and hospitality.
The aim of empathy is to build human bonds, communicate understanding, enhance self-understanding, validate the other, foster recognition, and demonstrate genuine acceptance Empathy means acknowledging a horizon of context that perpetually beyond what you can see. What that means concretely for those of us who seek to understand the world of another is that we can never assume that we have the whole story.
Hospitality is about breaking down barriers. To invite another person into the space we regard as our own, at least temporarily, to give up a measure of private. Hospitality creates something new. Hospitality is how we think as well as what we do and compassion is a wounding of the heart which love extends to all without distinction.
