NATURAL GOODNESS... Why is, I wonder, that people like Anne Frank, Martin Luther King, The Buddha, Mahatma Gandhi, and Jesus seem to intuit something about human nature that many other people don’t ever understand? How and why is it that they could say such profound things about human nature as they did in the quotes I have included below?

“Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.


Anne Frank

“How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code what squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. referring top St. Thomas Aquinas in his “Letter from Birmingham jail.”

“True freedom comes when we follow our Buddha nature, the natural goodness of our heart.”

Buddha

“Man’s nature is not essentially evil. Brute nature has been known to yield to the influence of love. You must never despair of human nature.”

Gandhi

“You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!... If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? ... If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else?”

Jesus
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‘TIS THE SEASON...when Christmas tree lights begin to appear in shopping malls... when political debates morph into a speechifying run-up to the November 2012 election... when people begin to think about how they will live in a new year differently from the way they are living in this one.

You know how things come together... Every Thing That Rises Must Converge, is the title of a book of short stories Flannery O’Connor wrote during the last bout of an illness that took her life. That title has been a puzzle to me since I first read the stories... a good puzzle, but a puzzle none-the-less. I’m going to reread them this week, and I recommend them to everybody. I’m posting the titles of the stories because I know after you've seen them, you won’t be able to resist searching out the book (or finding the sories on the Internet). Remember that she was writing them as she knew she was dying:

“Greenleaf”
“A View of the Woods”
“The Enduring Chill”
“The Comforts of Home”
“The Lame Shall Enter First”
“Revelation”
“Parker’s Back”
“Judgement Day”

This BLOG writing isn’t about that book, but I thought of it when it became obvious to me that a bunch of threads of ideas, events, thoughts, literary and musical experiences, travel, and especially conversations with family and friends all converged into a revelatory insight when I came early this morning to a quote from the teachings of The Buddha. He said, “True freedom comes when we follow our Buddha nature, the natural goodness of our heart.”

These threads plaited themselves into a whole chord that has focused my attention on the importance of compassion. I’m going to work on being more compassionate, especially more thoughtful and compassionate toward people I haven’t especially liked.

I’m trusting, actually expecting to learn that Jesus and Buddha and those others were right. True freedom will come when I follow the part of my nature that doesn’t actually want to cause hurt to anyone. I am going to trust that there is natural goodness of my heart.”

The last photographs is a celebration of RED... and of the lady I see in church every Sunday who leaves no doubt about what is her favorite color.