Berkley Center

I am an old man now, whose lifetime has coincided with the transition from the Industrial to the Technological Age. I was around when people still drove Model T Fords, when they cranked their telephone to get through to an operator to place a call, and when they began dispensing penicillin to treat infections. I have witnessed incredible changes in what we eat and how our food is produced, how we communicate and entertain ourselves.

The catch-all term to describe all of the above would be “progress.” But progress implies forward momentum toward a destination, or development towards an improved condition, and this is where our progress as a species—as a human family—becomes a little murky. What is our destination?

For, while there can be no argument that we are devilishly clever when it comes to inventing things, there can be equally little argument that our emotional growth has been neglected… That we have allowed the pursuit of profit to shove fairness and justice aside… That, in the pursuit of profit-driven progress, we have dragged the earth and our family to the very brink of disaster…

What progress have we made when the rich are getting richer, and the poor are being left further and further behind? Where is the progress in spending billions of dollars on weapons to be fired at people who don’t look or think as we do? Or exploiting new reservoirs of fossil fuels when we know that continuing to use them will inevitably choke us? When the first waves of climate refugees are already abandoning their homes?

For all our cleverness, we have—quite remarkably—failed to grasp our need for each other. That those people, over there, whether they worship in synagogues or mosques or temples or churches, are actually our sisters and brothers. That we are made for each other. That we are interdependent. That we are born for goodness, and for love. All of us. And that we are all vulnerable.

There are more than enough resources in the world to sustain all members of the family. None need succumb to preventable diseases. None need starve. None need live in ghettos. None need live in fear for their security.

This is not Utopian. It is doable if we can apply some of our cleverness to finding the means to create greater equity among people.

The first step, in which we can all play a role, is developing the understanding, across peoples, continents, and classes that none is superior and none more entitled than any other. It sounds flippant, but we actually need to teach and practice it, in our families, in our communities, in our clubs and societies.

The Iraqi mother’s pain at losing her child to a sniper’s bullet is equal to the pain that the sniper’s mother feels on hearing that her child has been killed in a roadside bombing. And, while we’re about it, surely, if it’s possible to transfuse blood donated by a Jew to a Muslim patient, or vice versa, it’s difficult to regard them as anything but sister and brother.

I don’t want to blow my own country’s trumpet—and, 21 years into our democracy, we face more than our fair share of economic and social pressures, not to mention a poorly performing government. But, looking back, we did achieve some quite extraordinary, miraculous things.

Among them was our spiritual transformation. I grew up in a state in which God was said to most closely approximate a Westernized, white male. The apartheid government banned most of the organizations that opposed it, and faith communities were able to partially fill the void. Our interfaith movement was a critical building block in the conscientization of our people that apartheid was intrinsically evil.

One of the symbols of the extraordinary Mandela presidency that made my heart soar was to see other faith groups joining Dutch Reform Church clergy in blessing state functions. None were excluded. It remains government practice until this day.

It seems obvious that profound societal change must be accompanied by profound spiritual and emotional change. Yet, as the world has catapulted along to what is now termed a global village, we have made little progress—there’s that word again—in bringing people together.

We’ve created a global village in which to conduct business, a world market. But we’ve done it without breaking down the social, cultural, faith, and class divisions, and suspicions that have historically separated us.

Our grandchildren have Facebook friends in countries with which our country—“we”—are at war. Combatants on both sides of the conflict wear the same popular brand of sneakers.

Presently, much of the world is fighting—with the most deadly intent—against an ideology, as if you can bomb thought out of existence. As if there’s no necessity to change how we view ourselves, and one another, in a fundamentally changed world. As if bombing the hell out of Iraq or Syria or Afghanistan or Palestine is going to make the “baddies”—those who we consider unlike us—disappear.

If peace and justice are the desired destinations, what progress can we claim to have made in cementing our family ties?

African philosophy has a name for our primary obligation to each other: ubuntu. It speaks to our co-ownership, co-existence, and co-stewardship of our world. A person is a person through other persons. It’s about being part of something much bigger than ourselves.

We acknowledge people for who they are in all their diversity and integrity, with their conscientiously held beliefs. We walk reverently on their holy ground, taking off our shoes, metaphorically and literally. We respect them as we respect our brothers and sisters, for ultimately that is what we are: members of a family.

When we read the classics of the various religions in matters of prayer, meditation, and mysticism, we find substantial convergence, and that is something to rejoice at.

Indeed, the golden rule of reciprocity, which underpins many faiths, places us under an obligation to do unto others as we’d have them do to us. It does not restrict us to only being nice to people who look or live or worship as we do.

Mahatma Gandhi, the great soul, who was raised a Hindu, said of himself: “I am a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist, and a Jew.” It is that spirit we must foster if the village is to thrive.

The adherents of all religions I am aware of are enjoined to pay special attention to the needy, the poor, and the sick. There’s no fine print requiring a magnifying glass stating that this applies to certain needy people only.

Humans are moral beings. We are able to reason, to disagree, to be persuaded, to reconcile... We are naturally compassionate, though our compassion is often un-learned as we are taught to be prejudiced.

We are all God-carriers, beings with the natural inclination to live in peace and harmony with each other. It is the extent to which we are able to allow the goodness within us free reign that is important, not what we call or how we worship God.

When we can say that we are united by our common concerns for our family—the human family—and the world we share, we will have both reached our destination and improved our condition. That’s progress.

And peace will reign across the earth.