When we act in accordance with inner principles of right action and forgive the frailties of ourselves and others, we can begin to create the kind of world that is good for all.
In this recreated world, we will act not out of fear but out of service to each other. For when we serve another, we do right by ourselves and by the God who made us and is within all of us.
Serving others demands nonjudgmental acceptance of their person-hood. In our present COVID-19 world, fear of the unknown is generating judgment, often severe, of others’ behaviors. But as any parent knows, modeling with love the behavior we want is the only way to teach our children. Right action is always based on love; never fear.
So rather than judge the actions of another, we must be the change we want to see. It is slow, demanding work. It asks more of us than we sometimes believe we can give.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Maíread Corrigan Maguire knew this well. Their words help us understand our power to create—or recreate—our outer world by recognizing our inner indwelling power, our spark of the Divine.
Our Frailty/Our Power
Maíread Corrigan-Maguire, won the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize for her work resolving The Troubles in Northern Ireland following the senseless deaths of her family members. She is co-founder of the Community of Peace People in Northern Ireland and she once said,
“We frail humans are at one time capable of the greatest good and, at the same time, capable of the greatest evil. Change will only come about when each of us takes up the daily struggle ourselves to be more forgiving, compassionate, loving, and above all joyful in the knowledge that, by some miracle of grace, we can change as those around us can change too.”
Right Action
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said,
“One of the great tragedies of life is that men seldom bridge the gulf between practice and profession, between doing and saying. A persistent schizophrenia leaves so many of us tragically divided against ourselves.
On the one hand, we proudly profess certain sublime and noble principles, but on the other hand, we sadly practice the very antithesis of these principles. How often are our lives characterized by a high blood pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds!
We talk eloquently about our commitment to the principles of Christianity, and yet our lives are saturated with the practices of paganism. We proclaim our devotion to democracy, but we sadly practice the very opposite of the democratic creed. We talk passionately about peace, and at the same time we assiduously prepare for war. We make our fervent pleas for the high road of justice, and then we tread unflinchingly the low road of injustice.
This strange dichotomy, this agonizing gulf between the ought and the is, represents the tragic theme of man’s earthly pilgrimage.”
Let us then pray together as we trod this earthly pilgrimage.