Fr. Don's Daily Reflection - May 18, 2024
Psalm 62: “In you alone is my soul at rest. My help comes from you.”
"Porcupines . . . huddle together in order to avoid freezing, but stand far enough apart to ensure that none of them is impaled on another's quill." (Henry Hitchings) For us, this would be minimal civility. But say we've just had a painful argument or are in a bad mood and the phone rings. Most of us will not snap at the caller with some testy "whadduyawant?" If we are used to some basic civility, we at least mutter a “Hello” or "This is Bill Smith."
Civility is not the love that Christ commands but it may be the beginning or possibly a consequence of it. One of many definitions is that civility consists in the "'supportive interchanges,' the little rituals through which we acknowledge that we are connected to others, even if only by our shared humanity: we signal our awareness of the connection by acknowledging it.” (Quoted by Henry Hitchings.)
Louis Armstrong sings:
I see friends shaking hands. / Saying, "How do you do?"
They're really saying, "I love you".
Even if we don't see these customs as romantic "love", they express basic regard for other human beings.
Bon Jour, Buenos Dias, How do you do? What’s shakin? -- These greetings are civility, customs which rein in our feelings and treat other human beings as worthy of respect. Once internalized, such customs operate independently of our feelings. When we greet others we recognize that they too were created by this same God, have God's 'breath' in them. The Hindu greeting Namaste says it well: "I bow to the God within you."
Regular use of such conventions enables us to go beyond our feelings at the moment to honor and respect the other. Used frequently enough, they can even mean that we put others ahead of ourselves and of our moods. Such simple rituals tell me that how I feel should not be the prime consideration in my relations with other people. All this is getting pretty close to the love that Christ commands us to show every human being.
Psalm 27: “I believe I shall see the Lord’s goodness / in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord; be strong; / be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord!”
