love her: karen armstrong

Everyone needs to be reading Karen Armstrong. She's a former nun who has now dedicated her life to exploring the commonalities between religions - especially the conflict-causing ones (Islam, Christianity, and Judaism). Her most famous work is probably A History of God, in which she examines how all our ideas about God overlap and influence one another, as well as the sociopolitical background for those beliefs.

Her latest project is the Charter for Compassion, which is a document stating that:

• compassion is celebrated in all major religious, spiritual and ethical traditions
• the Golden Rule is our prime duty and cannot be limited to our own political, religious or ethnic group
• therefore, in our divided world, compassion can build common ground 

The Charter is guided and promoted by multi-faith religious leaders around the globe. Well, it's a nice idea isn't it? It's accompanied by her new book, Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life. Those of you who are familiar with my take on religion can probably understand why I find the Charter and Karen Armstrong's message so appealing.

Here's short video on the subject. It honestly makes me a little teary-eyed. Watch it; you'll be happy you did.