It Takes A Village To Raise An Adult 8

I don`t think it`s ever going to happen, at least not in my lifetime.  There will always be enough evil in the world to keep the angels busy.  There will always be dishonest people, selfish, greedy and venal people, people who care about nothing outside of their own self-aggrandizement, and many of these people, because of their aggressive competitiveness, are going to control our world.  We seem stuck in this reality.  The most vulnerable are always going to suffer.  There will always be that jack boot of history stamping on a human face.

But is that all there is?  Should we write ourselves and our planet off as hopeless and doomed because of how little good we have accomplished as a species?  I like to think not, even if my common sense suggests that we may be living on borrowed time.

There is something about darkness that accentuates the light.  The shadow makes the brightness even brighter.  Throughout history we have had to live with the reality of evil in the world.  I like to think that things have improved, at least a little bit.  We have a near universal recognition of global human rights, even if the reality is far more dismal than the ideal.  But at least we have the ideal to hold us accountable and to inspire us to do better and to be better.  There was a time, just a little more than a generation ago, when capital punishment was the norm in all countries.  There was a time when all over the world sickness and injury meant that you would likely die very young if you were both sick and poor.  There was a time, in almost every country, when people of other races and creeds were not only discriminated against, but enslaved and killed for simply being outsiders.  There was a time when people with disabilities had no voice, and were often killed at birth.  There was a time when queer people had to fear for their lives, when witches were tried and executed, when life was indeed nasty, brutish, mean and short.

We have seen some absolute horrors in our world, and these horrors linger on.  But there is also a forward march of goodness, kindness, compassion and justice that still will not be stymied.  You can say Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot, and you can also say, Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama and Martin Luther King.

We are all a peculiar composite of darkness and light, good and evil, angel and devil.  We all have the choice to give consent to one and to deny the other.  This lies within everyone's purview.  For those of us who choose the good I have this to say:

Get out there and inspire others.

I think that by giving way to despair and cynicism we have already lost the battle.  We have to keep ourselves and one another alive with hope, no matter how remote it might seem.  Even one kind, selfless act can make a difference if we are willing to risk the good.  Every generous and caring act matters.  We have only to get the courage to continue to love, to continue to care and to continue to inspire.  To not be held back by the mean-spirited fear of others.

It takes a village to raise an adult.  None of us can do it alone.  Not only do children need nurturing, though they do have a special legitimate claim.  We all need this.  I think sometimes the cruelest thing to say to someone who is barefoot is that they have to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.  Yes, we each need the dignity of our independence but this is superseded by our interdependence.  Without one another we are nothing.  Here, in the West, where rugged individualism is worshipped, we need desperately to learn the humility of one another.  To open our hearts to one another.  To see our own face and the face of Christ reflected in the other's eyes.  To treat one another as something sacred and holy.

I think we, as humans are all icons of divinity.  Now I am praying and hoping that others will come to see this.  In the meantime I am also praying and hoping that my own vision of the eternal good in others will ever improve and will supersede and conquer the selfishnrss within.

We are in this together.