We don't own the earth, we're just house guests sleeping on the couch.

So I was attending services at First Unitarian in Madison today.  One of the pastors Kelly brought up a quote by Barbara Kingsolver in "Animal Dreams" that could be paraphrased as above.  I really like that metaphor.

The lesson of it all is that we are stewards of the earth, not owners of it.  Just something to think about.

FUS is here:
https://www.fusmadison.org/

The entire quote is here:
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/566597-so-you-make-a-deal-with-the-gods-you-do

“So you make a deal with the gods. You do these dances and they'll send rain and good crops and the whole works? And nothing bad will ever happen. Right.'…

"'No, it's not like that. It's not making a deal, bad things can still happen, but you want to try not to CAUSE them to happen. It has to do with keeping things in balance…. Really, it's like the spirits have made a deal with US…. We're on our own. The spirits have been good enough to let us live here and use the utilities, and we're saying: We know how nice you're being. We appreciate the rain, we appreciate the sun, we appreciate the deer we took. Sorry if we messed up anything. You've gone to a lot of trouble, and we'll try to be good guests.'…

"'Like a note you'd send somebody after you stayed in their house?'

"'Exactly like that. "Thanks for letting me sleep on your couch. I took some beer out of the refrigerator, and I broke a coffee cup. Sorry, I hope it wasn't your favorite one."'…

"It's a good idea,' I said. 'Especially since we're still here sleeping on God's couch. We're permanent houseguests.'

"'Yep, we are. Better remember how to put everything back how we found it.'

What is the antonym of schadenfreude?

So today I was wondering, what is the antonym of schadenfreude?

What word means basically, happiness at the happiness of others? It had never occurred to me, that I did not have that word in my vocabulary.  The closest I could find on the interwebs was "mitfreude" or shared happiness. Mudita comes close, sanskrit for joy; especially sympathetic or vicarious joy. Also the pleasure that comes from delighting in other people's well-being.

There has to be a English word that refers to the pure joy of seeing someone else succeed, do well, be happy, etc, without any ulterior motive of personal gain.

After posting this, a poly friend suggested a word they had made up within the community for this: compersion.