The Community Switch

For years I’ve been saying that there is no solution to the world’s troubles beyond the moment by moment personal choice of following the “Golden Rule” as set down by Jesus of Nazareth in the Gospels — i.e. “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” When asked by a listener, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “Whoever is near you who is need of something you can give; that person is your neighbor.” In my explanation of the above claim, I would say that ” … if God threw a switch that caused everyone in the world to continually choose to follow Jesus’ admonition, all the world’s ills would quickly begin to be solved.” I would bring to mind a crowded city street or suburban expressway at rush hour, and describe how everyone would be looking to their neighbors right where they were to see how they could be of aid to those in their immediate reach. All the material, emotional and spiritual resources within human control would begin to be distributed to where they were needed and the “valleys would be filled and the high places would be made low.”

I shared this thesis with a friend who had been in Manhattan on 9/11 and in the days and weeks following. She told me that this very thing happened there in the aftermath of that horrific event. Some might say that people went out of their way to help each other in whatever way they could all over that normally bustling global center of aggressive minding-of-your-own-business. But the reality was that the destruction of the World Trade Center was the throwing of a switch that shut down the ways and means of the respective personal businesses that everyone was collectively minding. And one might say that for a while the whole Country and the world, for that matter, also became a party to the neighborly spirit of those days.

I do not believe that it is God or Jesus or the angels who focus on our individual failures to fulfill the standards of behavior set forth in Scripture. Looking at the big picture, the real focus is on community, and everything that is destructive of true caring in community – these things the Higher Heavenly Powers are set against. So, adultery, murder, lying, stealing, coveting — all these threaten and destroy community, and therefore are listed as prohibited acts. No one who persists in these things can do well in the Community of the Neighborly Kindness of the Kingdom of Heaven.

But what about the credit and insurance industries? Aren’t these particular businesses that occupied much of the office space that was destroyed on that fateful morning good for the community? Then why does the Bible have at least as many references to the evils of these practices (usury and surety, in respective Biblical terms) as it does illicit lust and sexual activity? I believe it is because they also are destructive of community. While the island of Manhattan, or any modern city, is going full bore, its inhabitants are expected to use their own resources or borrow on lines of credit for their financial needs and endeavors. Financial risk is to be mitigated by paying premiums to insurance companies. And while these firms portray themselves to be near divinities in their all caring omnipresences (“Visa — we’re everywhere you want to be”; “You’re in good hands with Allstate,”) their legally enforced corporate self-interest is controlling, as the corporate officers have a fiduciary responsibility to seek, first and foremost, profits for the shareholders, a duty that if breached can and will bring, at the very least, a quick trip out the door and, quite possibly, stiff fines and lengthy prison terms. So the creative and secretive enactment of fees, predatory lending and denial of legitimate insurance claims for illegitimate reasons is standard operating procedure.

I wrote The Gospel of Pure Human Kindness hoping to illustrate that it is the pure kindness of God that keeps us away from Him, not His judging of our lack of love of others. We judge ourselves and say, “He’s too good, I can’t stand to be near Him for long.” We need the covering of His mercy, won with the outpouring of the life’s blood of His Only Begotten and Most Beloved Son, so we don’t succumb to the pain of our own selfishness which we inevitably experience in the golden purity of the Light of His Loving Kindness without that mercifully kind envelopment. But when enveloped in that Light, we find no impediment to enjoying the welcoming call of He who is Kindness itself, for ourselves, or for anyone else, for that matter.