IT’S SIMPLE – BUT NOT EASY

Love one another. Be kind. Turn the other cheek. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. . . .” Love, kindness, forgiveness, and equality are simple beliefs we profess. But enter someone with different ethnicity, politics, or lifestyle, and the simplicity vanishes -- except during emergencies. Then, what unites us eclipses what divides us.  

Weeks after 9/11, Marcia and I traveled to England for Christmas, and our eyes glistened to see the Thames River lined with Old Glory and the Union Jack waving together. Strangers approached us to say they were with us in spirit. During the Covid pandemic, America and the world isolated together against a common peril. Nobility emerges when risks loom.

Compassion often evaporates as crises subside. Folks retreat to camps that vilify rivals they’d cherished as compatriots a short while before. Are love, kindness, grace, and equality foundations of society? Or are they convenient cliches that make us feel like good people?

Today, I am sad for our complex, conflicted world. We quarrel when we might unite to solve problems. We ignore the suffering of those we consider to be different or less. We debase our humanity by disregarding others. Our public discourse is vile and crude. What truths do we hold to be self-evident today?

Can’t we recognize that we are in the midst of an emergency that should draw us together? Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., recognized “the fierce urgency of now.” We must appreciate a crisis of spirit any time others are treated as less. Whether the perpetrator is government or a stranger in the supermarket, inhumanity is a calamity that touches us all and makes us all less. John Donne was right that no man is an island, unless we make it so. If we truly acknowledge this crisis of spirit, perhaps we can come together as we do during terrorist attacks or pandemics. The threat to humanity is just as vital.

Redemption starts, as it always has, with individuals who dare to love in the face of hatred, to be kind in an unkind world, and to shine in the darkness. I need to spend more time at BPNN, where people live ideals that others merely speak. No, we’re not perfect. No human institution is. But perfect is not the enemy of good.

Thank you for being simply good. It’s not easy.