Over the past weekend Labor Day was celebrated across the nation signaling the end of summer vacations, although not the official end of summer, which arrives weeks later. The national holiday honoring working people is observed on the first Monday of September in the United States although differently in other parts of the world with European countries observing May 1 as Labor Day.
Although the holiday is celebrated equally throughout the nation there have always existed wide differences between the many and varied types of labor and especially between labor and management that remains in the news today as strikers cripple various types of industry. The key word is balance – mutual respect by each of the value of the other as opposed to a constant tug of war to prove who has the upper hand.
It is this constant competitive mentality among members of various households, communities, states and nations that keep the equilibrium of society upset through ever advancing stages.
War, often promoted as an equalizer of justice, has never been known to produce such balance. Instead it has advanced thorough the centuries from spears and arrows on designated battlefields to the sophisticated weaponry of highly advance science and technology that with the push of a button can wipe tens of thousands of people while poisoning indefinitely all surrounding air, land and water. Today the wisdom of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from a speech from some time ago resonates more clearly: “Now the judgment of God is upon us, and we must either learn to live together as brothers o we are all going to perish together as fools.”
The triune nature of the human body is physical, mental and spiritual. Over or under development of any of the three without the other creates an imbalance. Today mankind is fast approaching physical and mental (intellectual) maturity, but remains in spiritual infancy through a false sense of security presented by perceived physical and material wealth – that ends with earlier graves at best for more and more people. It’s high time to shift the balance.
Through the quantum leap in scientific and technological advance in the past 160 plus years alone – of a world reported to be millions of years old – the prophesied Lord’s Prayer: “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heave,” could become a reality but for the spiritual imbalance. This upset of the world’s equilibrium begets selfishness, greed, hate, envy and benign neglect of those placed in our trust, and any number of other clearly distinguishable characteristics of today’s modern society.
If there is anything more stupid than doing the same thing and expecting different results, as one famous philosopher stated, it’s doing the same thing and expecting better results. The time has unquestionably come to Shift the Balance – by charting new courses with a new attitude and new resolve. May we remind you of the Baha’i Holy Writings: All the virtues must be taught the family (of man) for indeed… “The injury of one shall be considered the injury of all, the comfort of each the comfort of all, the honor of one the honor of all.”
Investigate!
