Chapter 4
Responsibility and Spiritual Growth
In the preceding chapters we saw how the quality of life has declined in my Camp Springs neighborhood. The decline is apparent on several levels. On the gross level, there's been a marked increase in crime, including acts of violence. At the same time, aspects of community life that touch on individual awareness and reflect finer qualities of charactercourtesy, respect, compassionhave also been affected. At the risk of contradicting myself, I must point out that this unflattering portrait is somewhat misleading. When you look at the big picture, the quality of life in these parts is not that much worseor betterin the late 1990s than it was in the late 1960s or even the late 1660s. With minor variations, the overall quality of life has been less than ideal throughout these decades and centuries.
You don't have to study history all that closely to see this. Civil war, slavery, religious persecution, genocide against native Americans. Witch trials, lynchings, the Klan, the Mob. Street gangs, riots, assassinations, bombings. The gibbet, the pillory, the rack, the stake. Society has been replete with violence and criminality since the earliest days. As children we were taught the explorers from Europe and their colonial descendants brought civilization to this continent, but it seems to me a strong argument could be made that civilization actually declined after the arrival of the European, that the quality of life on the coastal Chesapeake plain and elsewhere in the Americas was actually better during the age when the only inhabitants were indigenous people. Granted, the basic requirements for sustaining lifefood, water, medicinehave seen improvement, although the disparity in their distribution is troubling. What I'm referring to are the non-material elements we discussed in chapter 1awareness, courtesy, respect for the garden zone and safety. When you assess the quality of life not just for a privileged elite, but for all of society, you have to conclude that generally speaking, these core factors have remained at a fairly constant and distinctly poor level for centuries. Could we extrapolate and use the same criteria to assess the quality of life in Europe before America was even colonized? Yes, and I dare say we would come to the same conclusion, that with few exceptions, there is nothing particularly civilized about the history of man leading to the development of modern society.[1]
But what is the relevance of this assessment? Crime and violence have been with us throughout history. Do you think you're going to change human nature? Let's get real. Crime is a fact of life, so deal with it. Install the dead bolts and the window bars, activate the alarm system and when we catch the thieving little bastards, let's lock them up and throw away the key. There's the answer for you.
There are several things wrong with this argument. First, it's not useful to generalize about the nature of man. The word nature is not well defined in this context. Every person born into the world is unique. Some develop into good people, some into bad, and some of us hardly develop at all. Solutions are not going to come from generalizations; rather, they require that we recognize the supreme individuality of our species. Second, there is no disputing alarm systems and dead bolts still serve a purpose in our society, but we need to balance these reactive measures with something preventive, otherwise nothing will ever change. By preventive, I mean truly preventive. We need people working on the kind of prevention that incorporates the new mind- set we discussed in the first chapter (see section 1.2 ). As we saw, it's an approach that turns your perspective on the quality of life completely around, which brings up the third point. When you fathom true prevention, and see the full range of possibilities, your perspective becomes so broad, so all-encompassing that, yes, there is importance in knowing where you are relative to history, and there is importance in having a global view. It's a bit of a paradox. While you are striving to keep your attention focused at homeon your family, your neighbors, your communityyou are also cognizant of where you are in time, where you are on the planet and where you are in the universe. But how can your mind be oriented inward, on yourself and the immediate environs, while at the same time be looking outward, toward the distant reaches of time and space? If the here and now demands your undivided attention, how can there be room for universal applications?
It's a question that deserves closer examination, but let's leave it for now and get back to the practical consideration of what exactly we mean by these balancing measures of prevention.
Our discussion has raised a number of distinct concerns regarding the quality of neighborhood life. It's possible to conceive several prevention oriented schemes to address them. For example, we could address crime through a program of prevention. We could also design a program for humanitarian concerns such as homelessness. And there might be a third plan for issues related to green space maintenance. I suggest these programs could all become part of one package. We might still operate the community patrol, pen letters to pastors and prepare tree reports, but this activity could come under one umbrella, both practically and philosophically. What makes such a consolidation possible is the common element unifying these diverse concerns: awareness. In pursuing each of these avenues, our strategy is to refine awareness, individually and collectively. Refined awareness is the key because it sits atop the quality-of-life pyramid. When collective awareness is improved, the other factors follow suit. There is more courtesy, hence more respect for the garden zone and finally greater safety.
Let's take a concrete example. Consider juvenile crime.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .text truncated
I'm sure many Christians, Jews, Muslims and others will object to this abstract construction. Some will say this entire discussion should be set within a religious context, that it's dangerous to secularize a topic like this. But we must avoid getting tangled in debates about whose version of spirituality is the correct one. Our definition has to be as generic as possible in order to accommodate the diversity of beliefs and theologies that are out there. You can't make severe judgments about such things when you're trying to get folks involved in community affairs. When so many of us are living such isolated lives, we can't get picky about whom to recruit into our civic legion. At least not picky as far as religion is concerned. Apart from the obvious exceptions, the cases where acts of violence are committed by so-called religious groups, religion is generally speaking a good thing. Most religious doctrines stress the very qualities that are lacking in our communities: cooperation, charity, humility. An accepting attitude is crucial if there's to be any hope of finding common ground.
Aspects of Spiritual Growth
- Adopting a preventive mind-set
- Refinement of awareness
- Distinguishing the inner realm
- Growth of character
[1]. We won't attempt to define civilization, but I will say those in the scientific community who want to associate civilization types with energy use and information processing are off the mark. Civilization at its core has nothing to do with material factors. Certainly catastrophic events can wipe out a society, but they can't destroy the spirit of that society. There are, moreover, societies we would label as "primitive" where people live long, healthy and peaceful liveslonger, healthier and certainly more peaceful than ours. The Kogi of northern Colombia are an example. Their culture and lifestyle are examined in Alan Ereira's 1990 BBC documentary, From the Heart of the World: The Elder Brother's Warning.
[2]. The question of how enlightenment arises in human society goes deeper than you think. Looking at it from an historical perspective, one wonders how the first enlightened people came into beinghow this knowledge first appeared. Did the great creator descend from his heavenly station and confer a boon on early man? Did he tap people on the head and infuse them with intelligence? And what became of those first enlightened individuals? Did they have any descendants? If so, where are they now?
[3].Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, (New York, New Directions Publishing, 1972) ch. 2, p. 6
[4]. Ibid., ch. 11, p. 80
[5]. Philip P. Pan, "From kids in the basement to killers," The Washington Post, August 4, 1996
[6]. Philip P. Pan, "Teen sentenced to 25 years for gang killing," The Washington Post, November 19, 1996
[7]. When asked what was the one thing he wanted, Solomon asks God for wisdom:
" ... give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong." (1 Kings 3:9)
Solomon becomes wiser than the wise, the wisest of all men:
"God gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight ... Solomon's wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the men of the East, and greater than all the wisdom of Egypt." (1 Kings 4:29).
Despite this divine gift, Solomon shows he is yet capable of serious errors. His errors become so severe, in fact, that God threatens to "tear the kingdom away from you ..." (1 Kings 11:11).
The Holy Bible, New International Version, (New York International Bible Society, 1978)
[8]. Actually, this isn't quite accurate. One would logically assume that thoughts arise from the body, that thinking is a characteristic of matter, in particular the matter in human brains. But, in fact, it seems just the opposite is true. Incredibly enough, it appears the physical body aroseor arisesfrom thought, that the material emerges from the non-material. See the discussion on infinity, the big bang and the origin of intelligence in section 5.5.
© 2015 Alexander Gabis