A regular front page footer at the bottom of the Roanoke Tribune once read, “Civilization is the life-long process of learning to be kind.”
With the explosion of modern science and technology over recent years however, the practice of such process (and it takes a great deal of practice) is being constantly reduced as we become less in contact with real people with the increasing advent of automation—recorded messages, self check-out lanes, email, etc. Also, far too many of the remaining business human contacts unfortunately fall short of the mark when it comes to kindness or professional courtesy, once considered part of the training for owners and employees of large and small businesses alike.
One President often spoke of “a kinder, gentler society” while waging war on other parts of the world for which a number of changing reasons continue to be offered. It was former President Bill Clinton who made the classic statement that “America must lead other nations by example, not by force.”
In his Independence Day address of 1852, Frederick Douglass eloquently stated: “There is not a nation of the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States. Go where you may. Search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.”
It should be obvious by now that this revered nation is still heading full speed—in the wrong direction.
Couple this with the absence of parental loving care in today’s loosely knit homes, the absence of (former parental compulsory) spiritual training and the proliferation of unmonitored television, videos and other “entertainment” featured within every home and motor vehicle and you have the prescription for the poisonous venom of materialism that is contaminating the whole of society. By so doing we are abandoning our children and youth with the misconception that to succeed today, you must be tough, sexy, weird, win the lottery or on some get-rich quick TV show…all entertaining and exciting, but hardly models of true civilization, “the lifelong process of learning to be kind.”
In the midst of today’s hype, kindness, gentleness and humility are perceived to be attributes and virtues to die with, but not live by. Unfortunately we are allowing too many mirrors of the heart and soul to be tilted the wrong way, including our own. We all know that a mirror will reflect (and often magnify) whatever it is turned toward. If turned toward the soil it will reflect dirt and the transitory existence of every finite thing associated with it. If turned in the opposite direction it will reflect the sky—the solar system and magnify its warmth, brilliance and all associated with its infinite universality—the kind of warmth and brilliance that comes only through love.
In the Baha’i Faith can be found a divinely orchestrated plan for the unification of mankind, based on the principles of justice and love. And, in the words of Abdu’l-Baha (eldest son of Baha’u’llah) “There is a power in this Cause – a mysterious power, far, far, far away from the ken of men and angels. That invisible power…moves the hearts, rends the mountains and administers the complicated affairs of the Cause. It dashes into a thousand pieces all the forces of opposition and creates new spiritual worlds.”
The darker this material world becomes in the billowing smoke of confusion, the brighter will shine the unific Light of Reality beckoning all the sheep into one fold with one Shepherd as prophesied in the Holy Scriptures.
