Reflections

~Love your neighbor as yourself  ( Mark 12:31) We applaud people who run out to save a child from an oncoming school bus, or rescue old ladies from thugs, or run into a burning building to save a dog or cat or a person.  They risk their lives for others  and we praise them for their altruism.  We think of them as heros.  But are they? Altruism  comes from the word "alter" (other).  Al truists are other-centered in their actions.  But w hen asked what they were thinking and why they did what they did, the altruist invariably says something  like,  "I didn't even think; I just did what I had to".   They felt compelled to do it.  What exactly is so heroic about that?  Isn't  altruism just as compulsive and blind to potentially self-destructive consequences as self-centered acts like self-mutilation or drug addiction? Of course it is wonderful to help others avert disaster when we can.  But w hy is it...

No wonder, then, if these waters be so deep, that we hover over them with a religious regard. ~Emerson There is a gloom in deep love as in deep water; there is a silence in it which suspends the foot; and the folded arms, and the dejected head are the images it reflects. No voice shakes its surface; the Muses themselves approach it with a tardy and a timid step, and with a low and tremulous and melancholy song. ~Landor Today my friend George told me about something that had happened to him when he was a boy swimming at the beach many years ago...   He and his friends were getting ready to go home when one of his friends started calling “Help!   Help!”   George thought he was joking- he was always teasing like that- and kept heading for the shore.   But the cries persisted and soon they sounded more like gurgling as his friend went under water.   George started swimming out toward his friend.   The sands were shifting underfoot and s...