Peace on Earth, Goodwill Toward Men

According to Christian tradition, the birth of Christ was accompanied by angels singing, “Peace On Earth, Goodwill Toward Men.” Whether or not you’re a Christian, these are inspiring sentiments.

Alas there has been little peace or goodwill driving most of human history.  Or has there?  It all depends on how we look at it.  Certainly on an empire, nation state, or societal level we’ve not had too much peace.  In fact some say human history is the story of continuous war with short interruptions of peace while we prepare for war.  But if we look at human life on a personal level, we see a different picture.  In terms of everyday kindness, compassion, selfless service, encouragement and care, we experience much of it and offer it everyday.  After living sixty years, I can report that in my personal life I bet 97 percent of my encounters with people are positive.  Or at least not negative.  And I’ve also benefited from gobs of love and goodwill.  Through the American Dream Project and research for my new book, Save the World and Still Be Home For Dinner, I’ve seen with great clarity the power that ordinary people possess to bless the lives of others at work, home, community, internationally, everywhere.  I’ve found that most people who aren’t overstressed are both reasonable and generous.  (I’ve also found that relentless stress makes us small, stupid and fearful.)  So while humans have an insane capacity for evil, I find that in my real life, the life that I live, that people’s will to do good is a far stronger theme.

This positive observation brings me to reflect on what we called growing up the Spirit of Christmas but might also be termed the Spirit of Love.  I am reading Mitch Albom’s wonderful new book, Have a Little Faith, about his personal experience growing up in the Jewish faith, abandoning it and returning to it through a series of conversations with his childhood rabbi.  He also writes of his relationship with a former drug-dealer turned Christian pastor in Detroit who runs a shelter for the homeless.  What he discovers is the universal spiritual epiphany that spirituality is centrally about love and little about doctrine.  His Rabbi is deeply committed to the tradition and validity of Judaism, and his new Christian Pastor firmly believes in Christian salvation.  But yet both are deeply respectful and even supportive of those who follow a different religious but similar spiritual path.  And maybe that’s really the point.

The Pew Foundation recently released a study of American spirituality and found that over a third of Americans who attend religious services attend in multiple places, often in different denominations.  Of course professional pastors and theologians hate to hear this because churches generally gravitate to specific doctrine and authority.  Most often they create exclusive interpretations of make or break beliefs and create a “chosen people” who will be blessed, saved or enlightened while others are lost, ignorant or damned.  This “one true church” doctrine is a problem because no one can agree on which one it might be.  At last count there are 39,000 Christian sects, 13,000 Buddhist, and Islamic beliefs vary from mosque to mosque.  The other problem with exclusionary religious beliefs is that it flies on the face of our personal experience.  All of us know good friends or have children who have strayed from our faith or have “unapproved” lifestyles.  Yet because we know their hearts and intentions, we know they are not bad in an evil sense, even if they struggle with good choices.  We somehow know they are not shut out of God’s family simply because they don’t conform or even misbehave.  And according to the Pew research, nearly half of us report we’ve had a direct spiritual experience that brought us into direct contact with an all-encompassing, soul-filling love from a higher source.  As a deeply committed Baptist mother two days before her death told her yoga-practicing, interfaith daughter,

“I was told in a spiritual experience to put aside all religious and political differences and just love each other” (USA Today).

That sounds a lot like “peace and goodwill toward all” to me.

The Pew research confirms that 92 percent of us believe in a higher power.  And nearly all who believe in a higher power believe it is loving and is driving a larger unseen plan in which our lives count for something more than we currently see.  I count myself as a Christian.  I believe that the majesty of Christ’s message to the world is that all of us are chosen.  He specifically sought out the disenfranchised, the sinner, the ethnic outcasts, slaves, women, everyone that the doctrine-obsessed Pharisees excluded.  His message focuses much more on what we should do to bless others (the Be-attitudes) rather than on what we should not do to save ourselves (the law).  This is not to say that morality and self-control aren’t important.  It’s rather that love is far more important than conformity to some man-interpreted doctrine.  I like that because it confirms my personal spiritual experience, which is similar to the previously mentioned Baptist mom.

So what’s the best thing we can do? First beware of people who insist they know something you don’t.  Beware of people who claim that God would be an advocate of unrestrained capitalism, guns and war.   Also beware of people who claim that God would be a socialist, pacifist or morally ambiguous.  What I’ve experienced is that the spirit of the Divine is calling us to a higher level of thinking, a level beyond today’s cultural wars or frustrating politics.  It’s a level of being and behavior based on the one motive that unites us together with the Divine.  The motive is love.  Our work is to be wise.  It is to encourage and empower self-reliance and work to eliminate the sources of avoidable suffering.  No, the world will never be perfect, but it can be a little better if we have the motive to make it so.  That is our work.  At least that is how, in my 60th year, I see it. 

Peace on Earth, Goodwill to All.

Will Marre