Empathy is really the opposite of spiritual meanness. It's the

Hear, O seeker of compassion, the words of Barbara Kingsolver: “Empathy is really the opposite of spiritual meanness. It's the capacity to understand that every war is both won and lost. And that someone else's pain is as meaningful as your own.” These words are not soft indulgence but iron wrapped in kindness. They teach that true strength is not in conquest, not in pride, but in the capacity to feel the weight of another’s sorrow as if it were your own. For without such empathy, the soul becomes small, bitter, and mean. With it, the soul expands to embrace the whole of humanity.

The origin of this wisdom is rooted in Kingsolver’s calling as a storyteller. She has long sought to lift the veil from human indifference, to show how easily we dehumanize those we call “other.” Her words remind us that every war is both won and lost: won by those who claim victory, lost by those who pay the price in blood, grief, and exile. But even the victors bear invisible wounds, for no battle leaves its participants unscarred. Empathy is the force that allows us to see this truth, to recognize that triumph built on another’s suffering is never pure, and that the enemy’s pain is as real as our own.

Consider the aftermath of the American Civil War. The Union was preserved, slavery was abolished, and many declared it a great victory for freedom. Yet the South lay in ruins, its people starved and broken, and bitterness burned for generations. Even the North carried wounds: families shattered, soldiers haunted, communities burdened with grief. Empathy would have counseled not only rebuilding, but reconciliation, recognizing that the pain of the defeated was not meaningless but part of the nation’s own body. Lacking this, the country bore scars of division that linger even now. Kingsolver’s words shine here: to see only victory is blindness; to see both victory and loss is wisdom.

Or recall the end of the Second World War. Germany and Japan lay in devastation, their cities reduced to ashes, their peoples crushed by defeat. Yet even as they rebuilt, the victors bore silent losses: soldiers who carried nightmares, families who never saw their loved ones return, societies forever marked by absence. Empathy bridges this gulf—it allows the victorious to acknowledge the humanity of the vanquished, and the vanquished to recognize the suffering of those who fought them. Without such empathy, resentment festers, and war merely sows the seeds of the next conflict.

The deeper meaning of Kingsolver’s words is that spiritual meanness arises when we harden ourselves to the pain of others, when we dismiss their grief as lesser than our own. Empathy is its opposite: the widening of the soul to admit the reality of shared suffering. It is not weakness to acknowledge another’s pain; it is the highest form of courage, for it demands that we step outside ourselves, relinquish pride, and see humanity even in those we call enemy.

What lesson, then, shall we take into our lives? It is this: cultivate empathy as a daily practice. When you encounter conflict, large or small, do not ask only how you have been wounded—ask also how the other has suffered. When you hear of distant wars, do not dismiss them as foreign sorrows; imagine yourself in the shoes of those who flee, grieve, or bury their children. In every struggle, recognize that both sides lose something precious, and that the healing of the world begins when we honor the pain of others as deeply as our own.

Therefore, O listener, let Kingsolver’s words guide you: empathy is the opposite of spiritual meanness. It is the shield that prevents bitterness, the bridge that turns enemies into neighbors, the light that shows us that no war is truly won until the wounds of all are tended. Practice empathy in your speech, in your judgments, in your actions. For in doing so, you help weave the torn fabric of humanity back together, and you become not the heir of conflict, but the builder of peace.