Cultivate goodness
As Luke stated, I'm "the new guy" around here. My focus tends to be on what I'd call "earthy spirituality." I draw hope and inspiration from what happens around us in our everyday lives and how we are all inter-connected.
As I look at my life and at the world around me, I sometimes struggle with the slowness of change. I get frustrated at the slow changes that take place to bring about help to the people who need a hand up in life. I get frustrated at the slow changes in our society for healthy priorities in politics.
And then I look at my own life, where change is often even more agonizingly slow. When I want to make changes in how I speak or act or think, I find that old habits die hard. It seems difficult to root out all the old, bad habits personally and societally. Awhile ago I re-read some thoughts that Martin Luther King wrote nearly 50 years ago, and which I find helpful for our day as well. King wrote: "Concentrate not on the eradication of evil but on the cultivation of virtue... Evil will not be driven out, but crowded out."
This has struck a chord for me. If we focus on the bad things happening around us, we become problem-centered. However, if we focus ourselves on nurturing goodness and mercy, then these positive attributes become the center of our lives. It becomes overwhelming for us to try to root out all the evils around us, and we can lose hope. However, if we focus our efforts on cultivating acceptance, generosity, and understanding in little ways together, we will make a difference! We will, in effect, crowd out evil. Jesus Christ did not get rid of sin and evil when he died on the cross nearly 2,000 years ago. However, He crowded out their power by displaying God's deep love for us. We still deal with the effects of sin and evil, but we have confidence that they will not have ultimate power for us.
This focus on cultivating virtue rather than on eradicating evil seems helpful to me. This focus on crowding out the power of evil by focusing on joy seems more open to the earthy lives we lead, and more hopeful and realistic about what we are able to do in our day. This focus on cultivating goodness can help us to see the assets in our lives and the world around us, and then work to improve and build on them. Let us resolve together to focus not solely on rooting out evil, but on nurturing and cultivating goodness!
Posted in: on Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at at 10:02 PM
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Haha, first off, I love the banner on top. Made me laugh. :D
As for the post, I agree with you and we have talked a bit about this before. I love the quote by King as well.
It definitely is a fun twist on how to change.
I really like the sentiment, Gust. Don't so much strive not to be bad as strive to be good. I think the focus really should be on what positive things we can do for people. Sometimes I think the world just needs to cheer up a bit, for a start. :)
Interesting what you say about change, too. Our perspective on the speed of change is absolutely personal and arbitrary, especially where we can see what looks like an obvious solution for another, or even for the whole world.
'All good things come in time' might be an appropriate maxim to bear in mind. Even cheddar cheese. ;)
Keep writing!
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