The SoSA Perspective

If the world is wrong

When I was just old enough to know that there is a big world of ideas out there, I stumbled upon a comedian. He was from Jackson Tennessee, I think, and he billed himself as “Brother Dave Gardner”. There was much about Brother Dave that was profound and all of it was funny. He was like a southern Lenny Bruce, minus the vulgarity. Among the really profound sayings I picked up from him was, “if the world is wrong, then right your own self”.

You can take that as an invitation to conform and go along with the crowd, even though the crowd may be crazy. Or you can take the more profound point that the best, (only?) way to impact a world gone wrong is to go right in spite of it all. The latter is a better way of looking at it.

I believe a few things about the world. I believe that things as they exist are the result of millions of choices and decisions made every day, all the time, by all of us. For that reason the choices we make are of extreme importance. When most of us choose to “right our own selves” the will of God gets done. When not, then not. I also believe that things (including us) are always changing. Change is simply, all there is. For that reason the most important question to ask about our choices is, where are they leading us?

We are tempted to think that we don’t count in all this because there are so many “choosers”. After all, what could it matter if I “right my own self”? Who would care? Well, you could ask Gandhi, or Buddha or Moses or Christ, or any number of others. They all thought’ righting their own selves’ was worth the trouble, and they were all absolutely right about that. All of this gives me great hope. If you look at where we were as a species 2000 years ago, and where we are today, the trends (neo fascists, residual communists and religious fanatics aside) are in the right direction.