Between the Lines IX: The significance and power of individual goodness
Not for the first time in history, we have governments, armed groups and vengeful leaders feeling emboldened to commit the worst of atrocities. Neither shame nor fear, let alone a sense of what is moral, holds them back. Law, reason, guilt, force, religion seem to have no power to stop the hate.
The media – social and journalistic – play a role in this disaster, often hyping the sensational and turning their audiences into passive observers. That’s the opposite of what should be happening. The news should not just entertain us, but it also should not turn us into machines of outrage. It should inspire us to action, but action that makes the world better. It can be done.
In my book on the history of The Christian Science Monitor (it’s out of print, but a few copies are still available on Amazon), I spent some time profiling Takashi Oka, a Japanese journalist of superb reporting skill and compassionate insight. As a young man in the 1940s, Oka was looking forward to completing his education and beginning his career in the United States when Japan declared war on the US, trapping Oka at home. He was devastated, but instead of descending into anger or depression, he continued studying and became close to a teacher who gave him a simple message: “Never lose your joy.” He called her words “the bright light beckoning to me from beyond the miasma of shattered hopes.” As his daughter wrote later about him in a letter to a Ukrainian friend, published in the Monitor after the Russian army invaded in 2022, he began to understand that “God’s goodness is always present, even in the midst of devastation and war.” At one point during the war, she wrote, he “ran around dousing the burning embers that were falling on his family’s home” and felt “a powerful sense that he actually lived in the kingdom of God, that it was within him, flooding his consciousness with light.”
After the war, he was able to come to the US and eventually found his way to the Monitor, where, as an international correspondent, he captured the humanity of everyone from corporate leaders and struggling merchants to whole societies without losing the sober perspective of a good reporter. In the end, he produced volumes of inspiring prose that helped his readers understand some of the universality and power of goodness. He enabled readers to match their desire to do good with some understanding of how to do it. It was Oka’s writing that opened my eyes to the nature and possibilities of prophetic journalism.
I can imagine that, if he were writing today, he might note that blaming the leaders of Russia, Israel and Hamas for the mess we’re in, as justified as it may seem, is not addressing the main problem. A bigger problem is the moral haziness we tolerate in ourselves and others. We need to wake up and defend ourselves and our fellow beings, but we need to start by doing it mentally. Events may be happening “out there,” but hope, justice, peace have to become the bedrock reality of universal thought if humanity is to get control of events.
The journey to witnessing universal goodness as the reality has to start with each individual. Group thought and action evolves from individual thought and action. If you and I find a genuine peace in ourselves based on an understanding of moral and spiritual law, and if we prove that law in our own lives, we will have done something tangible to establish genuine peace for the world. Evil works through the fog of material mentality, putting people to sleep. The demonstration of individual goodness in humility, kindness, generosity, patience, intelligent prayer keeps us and others awake. They are powerful weapons.
Being good does not mean being simplistic or naïve. It means being moral. We have to handle evil through our own moral and spiritual strength, as Tamar Tsmindashvili discovered in Holy War. Deny agency and authority to evil by denying it agency in your thought and life. This is how you prove peace. The world desperately needs proof of peace.
There is a tradition of impartiality in journalism, which is fine to a point, but it is not helpful to be impartial concerning evil. One Bible writer described Jesus as someone who “loved righteousness and hated iniquity.” He is the best example of how to live and triumph. He controlled storms mentally. We need to do the same for every storm that comes to our attention. Take charge.
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