Quote:
Originally Posted by Robert Sock
What will it take for our society to engage in the humanitarian values that our Holy Father preaches about? What is preventing the world from implementing humanitarian values worldwide? Why do the ills of the world, such as human hunger, persist?
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hi Robert Sock,
Several questions at once here: -
For our society to engage in the humanitarian values (as above) : -
Tom Peters (A passion for excellence -1984) states that
'whenever anything is being achieved anywhere, whether it's fortune 500 or a girl guide's group ....at the centre of it there is (a somewhat whacky) turned on, persistent and passionate champion'.
If that is true, and I don't doubt it, where are the passionate champions for humanitarian values ? and if they can't be found, how can they be created so that the rest of society can follow them? Who will start the ball rolling ?
The marketing specialists always tell us that society falls broadly into 'life-cycle sectors' in terms of their willingness to follow - roughly 20% early adopters (liking novelty), 30% early majority (need word of mouth reassurance), late majority (30%) need to always feel reassurance of the majority, and Laggards (20%) - (hmmm!!) and that each sector follows on across a time spectrum of perhaps a few years, relying on a ground-swell/wave of opinion - a bit like a tsunami.
So - how does the first spark or germ of an idea get started for humanitarian values ?
Firstly - take a look at how close the values of society are in relation to the values you are looking for - where's the differences ? What we see most of is a set of materialist junkies tripping out on self-gratification (generalisation, I know) - when what we need is a complete reversal for these values to work -
1. Fasting to begin the process of self denial (not fad dieting to look good) - exercising self-control over our lives for the greater glory of God without seeking acknowledgement for it.
2. Prayer - prayer /reconciliation - and more prayer ongoing - as frequent as brushing our teeth - to remove the tarnish and stains of sin from our souls in our daily lives, so that we can strengthen our spirituality and open our hearts to receive the Word of God. The big problem here is that self-gratification has closed our hearts to the love of our neighbours.
3. Practice 'loving thy neighbour as thyself' by first learning to 'love thyself', and it's difficult to do this if we are so consumed with guilt that we obliterate our conscious state with comfort eating, drinking or worse. We can start by looking around us to recognise those that could use a little help now and then, in any / all forms - our family, friends, as well as strangers - the sick, dying - treat this practice of self-giving like 'a gymnasium for the soul' - and 'use it or lose it' as the maxim goes.
The ills in the world will persist as long as there is a shortage of people who can open their hearts to selfless values - period
Hope this helps,
God bless
On the implementation of humanitarian values
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