If you want to grow in Christ, I can recommend Wayfaring by Margaret Silf as a discipline and discipleship that enabled me to use my imagination in empathy.
The (N.American) theologian I love to read is Molly Wolf - she has a weekly mailing called "Sabbath Blessings" about finding God in small things.

Also "The Road less travelled" and "further along the road less travelled" by M Scott Peck are good for learning empathy.

I've found that in those I look for God in small things before the big ones, and thus the big ones begin to make more sense from someone else's PoV, but they take on a different colour to them.

mostly empathy etc is about learning to be old, I think.