On being community

This morning I wish to share the following thoughts borrowed from a wonderful book Golden Rules written by Wayne Dosick. Too often we forget we belong to the great “family of man” and as such must assume responsibility as a member. One of the “golden rules” is: Do Not Separate Yourself From the Community. The community is you and you are the community.

Two friends were out on a lake in a rowboat. One took a small hand drill from his pocket, and began to drill a hole in the floor of the boat. His friend was flabbergasted. “Are you crazy? What are you doing? You will make a hole in the bottom of the boat, the water will flood in, the boat will sink, and we will drown.”

The man with the drill replied, “Don’t worry. I’m just drilling the hole under my seat.”
What the driller forgot, and what we must always remember: all human beings are interconnected at the deepest level. What happens to one, happens to all. When one person hurts, every person hurts. When one person prevails, every person prevails.

Shortly after World War II–not long after his release from a Nazi concentration camp–Pastor Martin Niemoller, a German Protestant theologian, said, “In Germany, they first came for the communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Catholic. Then they came for me. And that time, there was no one left to speak up.”

We can teach our children and each other that one drop of human evil poisons every human being. One moment of human decency ennobles every human being. As the sages taught, “Every human being is responsible for– and is intimately affected by– the acts of every other.” The Bible teaches: “We are our brothers keeper.”

We must teach our children and remind each other that everyone’s’ commitment and sense of responsibility to the community is, ultimately, their commitment and sense of responsibility to themselves. The greater good is the good of each and every human being.
Every individual act ripples deeply into the entire human community. Every communal act reflects onto each individual.

In the 1950s, and into the early 1960s, most of our lives were centered around building up and maintaining communities. We knew all our neighbors and had village fiestas overflowing with friends. The 1960s brought upheaval and radical change. We were encouraged to “do your own thing.” Soon we became “every man, every woman, for him/self.”

The excesses of the 1960s led to the “ME Decade” of the 1970s, and then to the “Greed Decade” of the 1980s. Milken shouted to all, “Greed is good,” and we believed it. Today we are a community with few articulated values and little clear direction, constantly in fear of being swamped by the wave of narrow self-interest and militant self-protection of “ME ism.”

And at the same time, we are a people beset by the plague of “ NOT ME ism.” Time and time again, we see people unwilling to take responsibility for their actions, and unwilling to accept the consequences of their conduct.

The greater good has been crushed by self-serving selfishness and self-indulgence. How can we hope that our children will feel any obligations towards other human beings when we adults are so self-centered? Let us wake up and recapture community spirit. Have a pleasure day, neighbor.