Today, we will focus on Compassion — how it is learned, how it is taught, and how we are moved to acts of compassion. Since February is Black History month, our speaker, Lauren Young, has chosen to share some of the lessons she learned about compassion in her childhood and teens against the backdrop of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950’s and ’60’s.
Lauren Young, Born in Southern Wisconsin, learned her first lessons in acts of compassion by learning to be kind to animals. Her father was a dairy farmer and her mother was an elementary school teacher. Educationally, she was among the last to attend a rural one-room school (8 grades taught by one teacher); and later, among the last to graduate from a hospital-based, 3-year diploma school leading to an R.N. (Registered Nurse) license. Spiritually, she was first brought up Methodist, then the United Church of Christ; while at the same time, she was taught Unitarian principles and philosophy. Lauren’s great uncle was a Unitarian minister and college chaplain at a liberal college in Ohio, which inspired both her mother’s and her interest in Unitarianism.
Topics: Principle 2. Justice, Equity, and Compassion in human relations, UU Principles