{"id":4407,"date":"2013-06-16T08:41:29","date_gmt":"2013-06-16T15:41:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/?p=4407"},"modified":"2013-06-16T08:41:29","modified_gmt":"2013-06-16T15:41:29","slug":"plenary-its-not-a-room-full-of-danas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/plenary-its-not-a-room-full-of-danas\/","title":{"rendered":"Plenary: It&#8217;s Not a Room Full of Danas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>It&#8217;s Not a Room Full of Danas<\/strong> | <em>By Dana Lede<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Before writing I should probably introduce myself because most people won\u2019t know me. My name is Dana and I\u2019m a middle school teacher by day, secret UMC nerd by night.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes I wonder why people worry about debate at plenary every year (or focus sessions for that matter). I mean, either the legislation is horrible and should be voted down or it\u2019s amazing and should most definitely be approved, right? But then I remember that we aren\u2019t in a room full of Danas, we are in a room full of diverse, interesting people who have different life experiences and ideas. And that makes things much more complicated. Here\u2019s the issue: Sometimes, every once in awhile, I tend to get a little heated.<\/p>\n<p>I am very passionate about my beliefs, but I must remember that so are other people, who may also have different beliefs than mine. Having a healthy debate with someone forces me to clearly define my stance and could either strengthen my belief or change it. This only works though, if I can empathize with others\u2019 views, understanding where they are coming from even if I don\u2019t agree.<\/p>\n<p><!--more How can we empathize with others with different views? (More)--><\/p>\n<p>I want to challenge myself and everyone else at Conference this weekend to focus on that word: EMPATHY. When listening to points with which you disagree, try to empathize with the person speaking. I promise it will only either strengthen your opinion or let you see a different perspective. Let us strive for grace in all that we do, in all of our conversations today!<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Dana is a member of Kent UMC.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s Not a Room Full of Danas | By Dana Lede Before writing I should probably introduce myself because most people won\u2019t know me. My name is Dana and I\u2019m a middle school teacher by day, secret UMC nerd by night. Sometimes I wonder why people worry about debate at plenary every year (or focus [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":4409,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[245,6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4407","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-annual-conference","8":"category-conversation"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/OPINION_Dana.jpg?fit=600%2C307&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-195","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4407"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4407\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4415,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4407\/revisions\/4415"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}