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You cannot hope to build a better world
without improving the individuals.
To that end each of us
must work for his or her
own improvement, and at the same time
share a general responsibility for all humanity,
our
particular duty being to aid those to whom
we think we
can be most useful.
Marie Curie |
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community - community
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community 4
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My duty
towards my neighbors is to love them
as myself, and to do all people as I would
they should do unto me.
Book of
Common Prayer
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Make it a rule, and
pray to God
to help you to keep it, never,
if possible,
to lie down at night
without being able to say:
"I
have made one human being
at least a little wiser,
or a
little happier, or at least
a little better this day."
Charles Kingsley
Entirely by yourself as an
individual
you can go to hell,
but alone you cannot
go to
heaven,
for to go to heaven we
need what one may call
the
natural grace
of the mutual dependence on
each other here
on earth.
Francis Devas |
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Albert
Schweitzer
Whoever
is spared personal pain must feel themselves called to help
in diminishing the pain of others. We must all carry our
share of the misery
which lies upon the world. |
Love is the doorway
through which the human soul passes from selfishness to
service and from solitude to kinship
with all humankind.
Anonymous |
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What is
brotherhood? Brotherhood is giving to others the rights
you want
to keep for yourself. . . giving to the
individual in another group
the same dignity, the same
full appreciation that you want to have yourself.
Everett R.
Clinchy |
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Let us. . . touch
the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted
according to the graces we have received and let us not
be ashamed
or slow to do the humble work.
Mother
Teresa |
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We are born in relation, we live
in relation,
we die in relation. There is, literally,
no such human place as simply "inside myself."
Nor is any person, creed, ideology, or
movement entirely "outside myself."
Carter Heyward |
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For
a person to argue, "I do not go to church; I pray alone,"
is no wiser than if he or she should say,
"I have no use
for symphonies; I believe only in solo music."
George A. Buttrick |
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Martin
Luther King, Jr.
The
good neighbor looks beyond the external accidents and
discerns those inner qualities
that make all people human
and,
therefore, brothers and sisters. |
No one may forsake
their
neighbors when they are in trouble. Everybody is under
obligation
to help and support their neighbors as
they would themselves like to be helped.
Martin Luther |
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| Billy
Graham
The
most eloquent prayer is the prayer through hands that
heal and bless.
The highest form of worship is the
worship of unselfish Christian service.
The greatest form
of praise is the sound of consecrated feet
seeking out
the lost and helpless. |
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The true
foundation of the brotherhood of humankind is belief in the
knowledge
that God is the Father of humankind. For us,
therefore, brotherhood is
not only a generous impulse but
also a divine command.
Harry S. Truman |
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The worst
sin towards our fellow creatures
is not to hate them, but to be indifferent
to them: that's the essence of inhumanity.
George Bernard Shaw |
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I've
always had major problems with the concept of community,
for I've never felt a part of one. Even when I've had
great opportunities to meet people, to develop
friendships, to become a part of something bigger than
myself, I've pulled back, never feeling that I belonged.
The source of this feeling is very simple--since my
father was in the military, we moved around constantly. I
went to four grade schools, two junior high schools, and
three high schools. We never got the chance to be
included, and my father's desire to live off base
affected us, too, for we weren't even able to be a part
of the military community, and we didn't live in one
place long enough to be a part of any civilian community.
I don't say these things as a complaint, but as an
observation--because it's taken me many years to become
comfortable with the concept of belonging, to allow
myself to belong in spite of my fear of things coming to
an end, community is now extremely important to me. The
people I meet who have always been a part of something
often take community for granted, or even disdain the
"boredom" of being involved with the same
people for so long.
But our
culture values independence and isolation far too much,
it seems to me--we have a hard time making ourselves part
of things, of making ourselves responsible to others, and
trusting others to be there for us. Sure, there's pain
involved if we get hurt, but there's far more pain in
isolation. I love community because God gave us other
people to live with, not to pull away from, and I learn
so much from others that I can't imagine my life without
the learning I've gained from getting to know other
people. But community doesn't work without commitment--not
the lukewarm type of commitment that many see as the
ideal, but a strong commitment that lets others know they
can count on you.
In
retrospect, I see one of the greatest problems of my own shying
away from community as the fact that I didn't allow people to
get to know me--I kept myself hidden, isolated, and alone, and
all that I had to teach was useless, for no one ever heard it.
I've spent many years trying to develop the kind of confidence
and strong self-image that would allow me to share what I have
to share, and I'm glad to say that I'm much better at it now
than I was just a few years ago, but I do still have quite a
ways to go.
We
lose our ability to live fully if we neglect or ignore our
responsibility to the other people who share this planet with
us. We simply cannot reach our full potential without the
insights and observations that other people--our teachers--have
to give us. We cannot feel whole until we are helping
other people to reach for their potential and to grow as strong
as they can grow. We do need down time, and we do need
time to ourselves, but we very much need to acknowledge our ties
to our fellow human beings and act as if those people meant more
to us than our jobs or pets or cars do. They are much more
important than anything material that we ever can get our hands
on or strive for.
tdw
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When you ignore your
soul's destiny, when you get caught up in your own self-interests
and forget
to care for others, you will not feel "right."
Instead, you will feel empty and unfulfilled.
During these times, you are neglecting your soul--you
are depriving it of nourishment. . . .
seek something
outside your nine-to-five job as an additional source of
fulfillment
and as a way to feel the joy of helping
others. You can do any number of things
to fulfill
this goal--volunteer at a community hotline, coach a
Little League team,
donate your time to a public school,
visit the sick. Whatever you choose,
you will gain
a sense that you are giving of yourself, that you are
sharing yourself
with the world, that you are fulfilling
the destiny of your soul.
Rabbi Harold Kushner |
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Please
note: the above banners are presented strictly as a public service.
We are not associated
with these organizations and we aren't soliciting funds
for them,
but we applaud the work they do and wish them
all the best. |
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The race of
humankind would perish did
they cease to aid each other.
We cannot exist without
mutual help.
All therefore that need aid have a right to
ask it from their fellow human;
and no one who has the
power of granting can refuse it without guilt.
Sir Walter Scott |
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It is the
individual who is not interested in his or her fellow people who
has
the greatest difficulties in life and and provides
the greatest injury to others.
It is from among such
individuals that all human failures spring.
Alfred Adler |
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The entire population of the
universe,
with one trifling exception, is composed of
others.
John Andrew Holmes |
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A person is called selfish
not for pursuing
his or her own good, but for neglecting
his or her
neighbor's.
Richard Whately |
Believe, when you are most
unhappy, that there is something for you to do in
the world. So long as you can sweeten another's
pain, life is not in vain.
Helen Keller |
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A little
friendship, a little sympathy, a little sociability, a little human
toil. . .
is needed in every nook and corner. Therefore search and see
if there is not some place where you may invest your humanity.
Albert
Schweitzer |
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Perhaps
the clearest and deepest meaning of brotherhood is the ability
to
imagine yourself in the other person's position,
and then treat that
person as if you were him or her.
This form of brotherhood takes
a lot of imagination,
a great deal of sympathy, and a tremendous
amount of understanding.
Obert C.
Tanner |
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A
woman once told me that she did not feel the need to reach out to
those
around her because she prayed every day.
Surely, this was enough.
But a prayer is about our relationship to God; a blessing is about our
relationship to the spark of God in one another.
God may not need our attention
as badly as the person next to us on the bus or behind us in line in
the supermarket.
Everyone in the world matters, and so do their blessings.
When we bless
others, we offer them refuge from an indifferent world.
Rachel Naomi Remen |
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Treasure each other in the recognition that we do
not know
how long we shall have each other.
Joshua Loth Liebman |
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I am
personally thankful that we live together in a large moral house
even if we do not drink at the same fountain of faith. The
world we
experience together is one world, God's world, and our world,
and the problems we share are common human problems.
So we can talk together, try to understand each other,
and help each other.
Lewis
B. Smedes |
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More
than ever we are aware of the ties that bind us as opposed to
the things that keep us separate. The interconnection of all
humanity
grows clearer each day as the effects of the international nature
of the world grow clearer. Charles Dickens calls us "fellow
passengers
to the grave," as we're all here to do our best while we are
alive
to make this world a better place. What
does this mean to us?
Our generations, more than any that preceded us, are learning about
our responsibilities to our fellow human beings, no matter where
they are, what their race, or what their beliefs. We are
learning
the necessity of being truly human, of holding life sacred and
treating others as if they truly matter, for they do.
tom
walsh |
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The task that remains is to cope
with our interdependence--to see
ourselves reflected in every other human being,
and to respect and honor our differences.
Melba Patillo Beals |
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