Whether you agree with my views in their entirety, in part, or not at all...I appreciate your readership. My blog is the physical (digital) manifestation of my thoughts. My thoughts weigh on me from time to time. Many of those thoughts dwell on you all who live day to day with no security, safety, or have a firm footing financially. A significant number of us are a single paycheck from ruin, homelessness, starvation, and destitution.
I write what I write because my view of the world is that doing unto others extends to the workplace. And not the "preaching" doing unto others...but DOING the "do unto others". If there is no more important message during the holiday season is that we do unto others in all our affairs. Romantic, financial, business, political, and at highest: personal. Doing unto others is a value, most popularly expressed by Jesus Christ in Matt 7:12, as well as Mark 12:31, Love your neighbor as yourself.
Sure we hear the religious right spout off about how the "lefties are poisoning the moral fabric of the nation" or that liberals are "the Godless heathens who seek to secularize the entire country into forced-conversion agnostics or atheists." However, it is clearly evident that these kinds of people use religion, fear, and a fraudulent kind of patriotism called nationalism to twist and manipulate specific demographics of the public into believing that social welfare is bad, that guns keep government from taking you away to concentration camps, and that only a sick form of theocracy can preserve this nation from the hell-fires of damnation. They preach American exceptionalism, an ethnocentric view of other cultures, and teaches their followers to glare at those with other faiths with distrust and hostility. This is not how we should think of others and ourselves.
The celebration of the Winter Holiday Season by whatever cultural group you belong to has always had a primary, multicultural focus. The focus on charity. Doing good to your fellow man. I'm pulling this from memory, so bear with me, but St. Nicholas was a Hungarian monk who brought toys to orphans to bring joy into their lives. Later this figure was turned into the commercialized jolly man with rosy cheeks and a red robe with 12 reindeer pulling him in a sleigh. But, this intrinsic message of good will didn't persist because of some mass media event or some random significant event. It persisted because cultures throughout Europe, and now the whole world recognize that good will to men in our world is a positive force. That it's a force that persists in the hearts and minds of the every day Jane and Joe.
So let me wrap up with this: Do good to your fellow man because its the right thing. Good works without seeking reward, recognition, or praise is how blessings happen. Do good only to do good. Be righteous because it's right to be righteous. Be kind because it's right to be kind. DO UNTO OTHERS because that is how we would want to be treated if we were in opposite views. The grace of God falls on all of us, my friends. It warms our hearts, convicts our spirits, and nudges us to do good in the world. Listen in the quiet of your mind, how he whispers and prods you to be a blessing to someone.
I pray friends that all of you have a blessed, special, fulfilling, and safe holiday. That all your dreams are fulfilled, and finally...pray for our leaders. Pray that our leaders hear our voice, that they give up the spirit of power and control, and embrace a spirit of good will, compromise, peace, brotherhood/sisterhood and finally justice. Amen
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