There is no question that we all do care about something. The determining factor is what we each care about–and to what extent. When the world was younger and science and technology were in their infancy people were taught by example to care for one another with those families and territories with the least to share always more willing to do so. How odd that the more we acquire, the less we share or care about others.
Before the explosion in scientific and technological advancement, caring and sharing were means of survival and continue to be on an even broader scale today even in larger cities where soup kitchen lines continue to lengthen. Today the entire nation is instantly pulled together in times of disaster as are the communities and individuals that comprise each. As the crisis pales, however, we quickly return to our respective corners from which we continue to come out fighting.
A country gentleman once told me, “The only difference between people is they’re dumb about different things.” That is one of the wisest statements I’ve ever heard put so succinctly. Coming to grips with that simple fact will greatly enhance our ability to respect the differences in one another and subsequently learn to work more cooperatively as Webster defines the word cooperate in one simple explanation, “to act jointly with another or others.”
A primary factor to consider is, “That which was applicable to human needs during the early history of the race can neither meet nor satisfy the demands of this day, this period of newness and consummation …The gifts and blessings of the period of youth, although timely and sufficient during the adolescence of mankind, are now incapable of meeting the requirements of its maturity.”
One of the first Baha’i prayers that I was inspired to memorize states, “O God, refresh and gladden my spirit, purify my heart, illumine my powers. I lay all my affairs in Thy hands. Thou art my Guide and my Refuge. I will no longer be sorrowful and grieved, I will be a happy and joyful being. O God, I will no longer be full of anxiety nor will I let trouble harass me. I will not dwell on the unpleasant things of life. O God, Thou art more Friend to me than I am to myself so, I dedicate myself to Thee, O Lord.”
It would be most beneficial if people of all faiths (or of no particular faith) would not only memorize but internalize these lines as, whether inherently or by well calculated design, we seem prone to “dwell most on the unpleasant things of life” through which we can be easily programmed and manipulated to act and/or react accordingly. (I’ll be the first to admit that the memorizing comes relatively easy. The internalizing usually takes a while, depending upon one’s determination–“Man, you got to care!
These were the final words reported to have been uttered by a Black serviceman on whom President Lyndon B. Johnson posthumously bestowed our nation’s highest honor for having thrown himself on a live hand grenade tossed into a foxhole in which he was entrenched with several others of his regiment during the Vietnam War and was subsequently blown to bits while all the others survived!
Few of us will ever be faced with that degree of caring, but Man, we’ve got to care! We do not love because we care, we care because we love, and as examples of such pure love, we continue to become increasingly indistinguishable. It may behoove us to work instead on becoming as “a hollow reed from which the pith of self has been blown…” that God’s pure love might flow increasingly through us.
With the continuous quantum leaps in science and technology (being concentrated largely on war) we cannot survive by keeping hate alive. Therefore,“You gotta care! Man, you gotta care!” (Investigate!)
