OUR SINGULAR PURPOSE

I'm wholly consumed with courtesy this morning. Or, specifically, the lack of courtesy in the world... or even more specifically in each of our own lives.

As I'm forever saying, my golden rule is to try not to be as nasty as I want to be...which I picked up in the early '80s from a Henry Mitchell column in "The Washington Post," To which I've added as a rule of thumb for my own behavior: Just don't react in kind to incoming ugly.

The blinding flash of the obvious is that when we self-determine to not react in kind, we will rarely get a courteous response... or even a neutral response. The hook is in the self-determined. Attitude speaks louder than words, and a teeth-gritted, self-driven, silence-with-a-smile is going to fool no one, appease no one, and tick off most anyone.

That's why courtesy is on my mind. I'm beginning to think we need to teach classes in basic courtesy starting in kindergarten, and every step-up thereafter... elementary, jr. high, high, college. Good manners are simply learning to put another before our self.

And that simple stricture... putting another before our self...is the tip of the spear. For that's where the reasoning minded person and the spiritually minded person come together. Putting another first cannot be done by self-will alone. Or at least according to me. It goes against what we learn is the first rule of survival... self, take care of self.

There's our link. The reasoning minded having learned common courtesy, i.e., others first, is opened to love as a way of life. And here comes God to save the day.

It seems clear to me that if we're ever going to get into the spiritual growth thing, we will at some point need to simply hold our nose and take a leap of faith. We learn through doing that God does have our back. We can depend on God, rely on God, which cannot be done in our heads... from our eyebrows up so to speak.

We need to risk all for the singular purpose of being of service to God and others. The reasoning mind, standing all by its lonesome, is never going to go there. Again, and yet again... we must go beyond reason to love.

Thank you.