Mir Centre For Peace And Allan Markin Present Karen Armstrong: Twelve Steps To A Compassionate Life
By Contributor
A former Catholic nun who first gained the spotlight with her 1993 book A History of God: The 4,000-year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Karen Armstrong is now an author of 20 books that focus largely on commonalities of major religions – including the nearly universally but often-ignored principle of compassion.
Armstrong was awarded the $100,000 TED Prize in 2008 for her work and chose to use the award to create a worldwide, inter-faith Charter for Compassion, a document that proclaims “the Golden Rule” professed by every faith – that we use empathy to put ourselves in the shoes of others and act toward them as we would want them to act toward us.
The Mir Centre for Peace at Selkirk College is offering Kootenay residents the opportunity to attend a webinar talk with Karen Rodgers, based on her new international best-selling book Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life, in which she sets religion aside for the moment and focuses on more secular, social benefits of compassion.
“In Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life, Armstrong leaves aside the debates about doctrine and history and zeroes in on the social benefit of compassion,” writes reviewer, Moex Surani. “Where the Dalai Lama’s bestseller, An Open Heart: Practicing Compassion in Everyday Life, concentrates inward on the psychological benefits of compassion, the British writer’s (Armstrong’s) focus is outward, on its social and political impact.”
“Anyone who has heard the religious historian Karen Armstrong speak on a public platform about the origins of faith and its role in our world will know the buzz her oratory creates around her subject,” writes UK reviewer, Peter Stanford. “Her erudition and ability to convey complex ideas on the page, in a series of best-selling books which include A History of God and biographies of the Buddha and Muhammad, has long been widely admired. But in the flesh Armstrong brings an extra, more urgent dimension – the power to challenge audiences to consider afresh their prejudices about religion, and thus their own behaviour.”
Armstrong will be delivering her presentation directly to an audience in Vancouver, but participants at the Mir Centre for Peace in Castlegar will be able to watch on a big screen and participate by asking questions of Armstrong. The Mir Centre is currently running a book club on the Castlegar Campus and studying Armstrong’s 12 Steps book.
The event is scheduled for March 22 at 7 p.m. and tickets are available at the door at a cost of $12 for adults and $10 for seniors or students. For more information, phone 250.365.1234 or visit selkirk.ca/mir.
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