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As I silently commemorate the anniversary of 9-11, my mind
wanders towards peace.
Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) repeatedly said that as
long as there was a man in the world who was hungry, sick, lonely or living in
fear, he was his responsibility. Schweitzer
affirmed this by living this
belief; a life of the loftiest order elevated with dignity and love.
I believe that we are in tumultuous times. I also believe
that if we are to acquire any form of peace, man’s first responsibility is to
love himself. The Gospel statement, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,"
suggests that man shall love others to
the extent to which he loves himself. Suffice it to say that only to the depth
and the extent to which one feels responsibility to grow in self-love can he
feel this toward helping others do so.
Because of our interconnection with each other, the man
who comes closer to himself will come closer to others.
Unfortunately, society has not produced many who truly
practice the philosophies and beliefs of Schweitzer. To most, the idea of being
accountable for others seems inconceivable and absurd.
Herbert Otto (1897-1966) once said, “Only in a continuous
relationship is there a possibility for love to become deeper and fuller so
that it envelops all of our life and extends into the community." It is within
a deep relationship that we uncover the depth of our own love while becoming
sensitive to the needs of others.
Interestingly, in dedicating himself to humanity, Schweitzer
found it to be only an extension of the love he felt for humankind. Otto, on
the other hand, felt that one acquires enough strength to assume the
responsibility for the community of man. Regardless of which path is taken, one
finds that love is not selfish and
exclusive but selfless and inclusive. Sadly, society still finds this universal
truth difficult to understand. If one loves himself, he is labeled “a
self-centered egocentric." On the other hand, if he loves himself and family
and is active in his small community, society will praise him “as a good,
respectable human being." However, if one dedicates himself to humanity and
loves all humankind, he is
ridiculed and deemed foolish.
Antoine Saint-Exupery has defined love as “the process of my
leading you back to yourself." Here, he is confirming his faith in man’s
ability to guide another to love. Exupery suggests that a growing in self-love
brings a growing of universal love.
Pure, responsible love abhors the decay of mankind.
Responsible love is accepting, understanding and empathic. I don’t believe empathy implies a total
understanding of others but it does imply hope. We can never fully understand
others but we can be learn and accept each other.
Responsible love has, at its universal core, man’s humanity.
In the deepest sense, we all have a core of humanness. The greatest thing a man
can be is a human being tagged with all its strengths and frailities. The
world’s greatest figures have often been the most “human." On earth, Jesus Christ wept. He also
felt loneliness, despair, pain, and disappointment. By being “human" Jesus
understood what it was to be a man.
Gandhi felt humility, physical deprivation, illness,
exhaustion, frailty, torture and suffered from what he called “the temporal
accident of his own personality."
Buddha knew the most basic human characteristics:
egocentricity, pride, envy, and confusion.
In many ways we have all felt what Jesus, Gandhi and Buddha
had felt and, to that degree, we can have empathy with them and feel connected.
How often do we chant, “I’m only human." Instinctively, we
all know that being “human" shields us from perfection. It is our mutual
humanness that gives each of us the basis to have empathy for each other in
love. The African mother feels the same labor pains as a western woman. The
wealthy shed tears just as the poor.
We all get sick no matter what walk of life we come from. We, as human
beings, are all unconditionally like each other regardless of our diversity.
It is this “empathy" that makes us responsible in love to
all mankind.
Responsible love, however, rises beyond empathy and hope.
Norman Cousins (1915-1990) once said, “Hope is the beginning of plans. It gives
men a destination, a sense of direction for getting there and the energy to get
started. It enlarges sensitivities. It gives proper values to feelings as well
as imagination — about life as man might like it about the full use of his
intelligence to bring sanity and sensitivity to his world and to his art; and
the importance of the individual; about his capacity for creating new
institutions, discovering new approaches, sensing new possibilities."
As Cousins quoted, "hope is only a beginning" whereas responsible love
endures all things. Pure, responsible love is the pathway towards towards true inner peace. |
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