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This time of year
invites memory of a birth, and its simplest gift: the
Golden Rule.
Essaying
Differences honors
this rule, that we love our neighbors as ourselves.
But it takes
learning. Or we distrust, ignore, and mistreat our
neighbors. Especially this year, when we Americans have
elected those furthest from the Golden Rule:
They love the
rich, and will tax them less, so they may be more rich,
and we have the greatest national debts in our history.
They model killing
as solution – ideologues who avoided their own risks,
now eager for wars abroad, capital punishment at home.
They stir hatreds
in other cultures, with the dictators they sponsor for
our fossil-fuel addictions to SUVs, shopping malls, and
sprawl.
So we have voted
ourselves backward in evolution – with a man strutting
as homo erectus, posturing pro-birth as
pro-life. Homo erectus cannot see life
deserving public programs for all: health care,
schools, libraries, parks, clean air, clean water.
Jesus said no to love
of the rich, love of killing, and love of our isolate
selves. He saw "others." Homo erectus cannot.
Nor can our professors, who fancy themselves open, but
model specialization closures – while tens of thousands
of part-timers subsidize them, as more non-living-wage
thousands float the WAL*MART heirs.
Still the righteous
right, the elite left. And still, at Christmas, the one
Golden Rule. |
