I find myself in front of a proper computer keyboard and some time to type a bit, so I thought I’d try a Thanksgiving post.

We don’t seem to suffer from any lack of instruction about how we should behave in this world. The number of schemes, means, methods, practices, rituals, hierarchies, and other assorted structures to insure right behavior between us stretches beyond count. The number of outrages perpetrated against humanity because of these methods stretches even further. How, with this cornucopia of information, can we fail so miserably and consistently to treat others as we would be treated ourselves?

I think we suffer from an embarrassment of riches. The source of this particular plight is not material goods. That’s another problem. This problem plagues us because we have so many ideologies from which to choose. We are like kids in a candy store of ideas and we run from aisle to aisle snatching and grabbing anything that looks tasty only to grab something else that catches our eye.

Entire industries have been developed to produce the most diverse and niggling solutions for modern living from satellite enabled telephones to the royal fridge (just Google it). There are also entire industries devoted to the design, testing, and marketing of ideologies. We can consume from a drop down menu any number of ways to think without leaving the comfort of our homes. And the marketplace for all those intangibles is fierce. Why not? The potential for profit is immense.

When people think they own something, they are usually willing to fight for it. Through most of human history possession of resources meant survival, and even though now for most of us possession means merely convenience, I don’t think a few thousand years of technological development has obviated that survival response. I also think there have been, and continue to be, a lot of people that depend on that response to make money. They are perfectly willing to sell us our ideologies and prompt us to fight for them for their own aggrandizement.

To be civilized is to be generous. Perhaps the height of civilized behavior is to give away that which we hold most dear. How civilized could we become if we, even for a day, set aside our most cherished ideas? If we could, even for an hour, just be? What would we see if we simply set down the armloads of ideological obligations that we carry around? What would the world look like if we stopped investing everything we feel in ideologies that were manufactured to absorb our humanity and instead invested it in each other?

As far as I’m concerned, given the opportunity, people will choose to do the right thing. I know a great deal of scholarship has been devoted to this subject. I am aware of it and I guess I’ve read my share of it. But the older I get the less I seem to need to collect and assemble all those bits of facts and figures into something against which to measure those around me. I try to just believe in them. For me, faith is just a prediction about how we will feel. I think our task is to believe that others will, given the opportunity, return the favor of our faith in them without compelling them to do so. It is not always possible and it is all too frequently unwise to try it, but our own faith in others might be the best the best way to bring out the best in them. The return of that favor is a rare gift to be savored and cherished. It is the gift of our humanity.