Reflections 12
Conscience and Unenforceable Obligations
Continued
In my Building Your Own Theology program I invite participants to write their own Ten Commandments. I do likewise. Here are ten of my considered convictions, or should we say habits to be learned by highly ethical people:
1. Walk gently upon the earth as you would be a good guest in a neighbor's house. The cosmos does not make junk. Creation is fundamentally good.
2. Be gentle with your neighbor - none of us knows what it is like to be another. People are precious. Walk a mile in their moccasins.
3. Be gentle with yourself - aspire to be more than you are - but accept your finitude. You have a right to be here.
4. Love people, use things. Treat people as ends, not means.
5. Affirm the importance of being good for nothing. Do good for its own sake. Doing good is not about keeping score.
6. Be honest with yourself. Let the inner and the outer person be the same.
7. So act that your behavior speaks louder than your words. Deeds are more important than creeds.
8. Share with your neighbors so that everyone has enough, no one has too much and we share with maximum freedom & minimum coercion. This world is a neighborhood. All people are our neighbors.
9. And to show a little more humor than the Ten Commandments: Always be a little kinder than necessary.“Do unto others-better than you would have them do unto you - to correct for subjective error."
10. Be humble and realize that loving your neighbor will require all the strength you have to give. Remember that we are all toddlers in moral as in spiritual matters.
“Love is the doctrine of this church, and service is its prayer.
This is our great covenant: To dwell together in peace;
To seek the truth in freedom, And to help one another.” Amen.