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STORIES & RESPONSES We are always anxious to hear stories or testimonials regarding the Golden Rule from the various schools and institutions involved in our project. April 22, 2008 Recently (see story below dated January 31, 2008), Linton Dean participated in an essay contest sponsored by the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. Linton's essay was based upon the Golden Rule from one of our broadsides displayed at the museum. Linton is presently taking a theatre class at the University of Utah entitled "Grappling Diversity Through the Arts." As a component of the class, Linton is engaged in a project involving diversity/multiculturalism with the arts. He is working with a 6th grade class utilizing the Golden Rule as the theme. He has had the class develop their own formulations and had them perform improvisational scenes where they can apply the Golden Rule. We are excited that Linton has taken our project even further and incorporated it in his work with the class. February 8, 2008 We recently received the message below from one of our colleagues. This is one of those messages that circulates in the form of a chain letter making the source difficult to cite. Nonetheless, we felt the story was very indicative of the impact the Golden Rule can have in practice. When I drove up in my taxi cab at 2:30 a.m., the building was dark except for a single light in a ground floor window. Under these circumstances, many taxi drivers would just honk once or twice, wait a minute, and then drive away. But I had seen too many impoverished people who depended on taxis as their only means of transportation. Unless a situation smelled of danger, I always went to the door. This passenger might be someone who needs my assistance, I reasoned to myself. So I walked to the door and knocked. "Just a minute", answered a frail, elderly voice. I could hear something being dragged across the floor. After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her 90's stood before me. She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned on it, like somebody out of a 1940s movie. By her side was a small nylon suitcase. The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets. There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters. In the corner was a cardboard box filled with photos and glassware. "Would you carry my bag out to the car?" she said. I took the suitcase to the cab, then returned to assist the woman. She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb. She kept thanking me for my kindness. "It's nothing", I told her. "I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother treated". "Oh, you're such a good boy", she said. When we got in the cab, she gave me an address, and then asked, "Could you drive through downtown?" "It's not the shortest way," I answered quickly. "Oh, I don't mind," she said. "I'm in no hurry. I'm on my way to a hospice". I looked in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were glistening. "I don't have any family left," she continued. "The doctor says I don't have very long." I quietly reached over and shut off the meter. "What route would you like me to take?" I asked. For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator. We drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived when they were newlyweds. She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl. Sometimes she'd ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing. As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said, "I'm tired. Let's go now." We drove in silence to the address she had given me. It was a low building, like a small convalescent home, with a driveway that passed under a portico. Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up. They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move. They must have been expecting her. I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door. The woman was already seated in a wheelchair. "How much do I owe you?" she asked, reaching into her purse. "Nothing," I said "You have to make a living," she answered. "There are other passengers," I responded. Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug. She held onto me tightly. "You gave an old woman a little moment of joy," she said. "Thank you." I squeezed her hand, and then walked into the dim morning light. Behind me, a door shut. It was the sound of the closing of a life.I didn't pick up any more passengers that shift. I drove aimlessly lost in thought. For the rest of that day, I could hardly talk. What if that woman had gotten an angry driver, or one who was impatient to end his shift? What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once, then driven away? On a quick review, I don't think that I have done anything more important in my life. We're conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments. But great moments often catch us unaware-beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one. PEOPLE MAY NOT REMEMBER EXACTLY WHAT YOU DID, OR WHAT YOU SAID, ~BUT~THEY WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER HOW YOU MADE THEM FEEL. You won't get any big surprise in 10 days if you send this to ten people. But, you might help make the world a little kinder and more compassionate by sending it on. Thank you, my friend... Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we are here we might as well dance. January 31, 2008 Recently, the UMFA hosted an essay contest based upon inspiration taken from pieces on display at the museum. One participant, Linton Dean, discovered our Golden Rule Broadside and decided to base his entry upon the message of the Golden Rule. Our sincere thanks go to Linton for allowing us to share his essay on our website. His essay follows in its entirety: enclosed with a letter received 10/19/05 We recently received copies of songs composed by the 4 th grade classes at North Elementary School in Cedar City , UT featuring the Golden Rule. Although we have not enabled our website with audio capabilities, we wanted to share these. If you play an instrument or can read music, we encourage you to try these delightful pieces. To view the music sheets: click here. from a letter received 9/23/05 On behalf of the students and faculty of Bingham High School in South Jordan, Utah, we want to thank you for "The Golden Rule" which you have so generously donated to our school. I have read through it, and many who have seen it have stopped to read and ponder and reflect on the wisdom contained therein. Diena Riddle from an e-mail received 8/25/05 Please send us a broadside for our students to illuminate!! We have some very talented artists at Hobble Creek, and our Arts Coordinator, Carol Day, is very good at involving students from varied grade levels in good projects like this. We have introduced the idea of using the Golden Rule more prominently in our speech and actions to both teachers and students and have outlined some monthly themes for this work. We have encouraged teachers to incorporate discussions and activities about the Golden Rule within their regular curriculum activities and class meetings rather than making this an addition to their already full curriculum. Carol Day has established a website. On that site we will also publish monthly lists of simple classroom activities for our teachers to coordinate with the themes we have established. As a reminder, teachers receive the activities list in their school mail boxes, and we will send out periodic email messages as well. Our school psychologist, Phyllis Bushman, (Mrs. B.) has already begun to coordinate her very popular "Hive Been Sweet" award with our Golden Rule project (students report a good deed they have done at home or school. Their report is posted, and they receive a small treat from Mrs. B.). Our school will be working to implement skills and principles from BYU's Peaceable Schools program this year, and we plan to incorporate as many ideas from The Golden Rule as we can along with the behavior and study skills students can learn through Peaceable Schools. Carol and I are both excited about the possibilities, large and small, offered by working on this project.
from another e-mail received 8/25/05 We are doing a schoolwide golden rule project this year and have several other projects in the works. We are doing a school wide art show in March where each child in the school will do a piece of art with a golden rule theme and then will add a golden rule statement to the art piece.
STATEMENTS BY POLITICAL AND FAITH COMMUNITY LEADERS ABOUT THE GOLDEN RULE IN UTAH "As mayor, my job is to pursue the path that will benefit our citizens and leave no one behind. It is up to each of us to be compassionate and responsive to the needs and hardships of our neighbors." Mayor Peter Corroon "The obligation to 'love our neighbor' has an individual dimension, but it also requires a broader social commitment. Everyone has the responsibility to contribute to the good of the whole society, to the common good. It is contrary to the spirit of the Gospel to look after 'me first' at the expense of others, especially the most needy in society at home and abroad." Bishop George Niederauer
QUESTIONS RAISED BY CONSIDERATION OF THE GOLDEN RULE How do we offer others the benefit of our understanding while being receptive to the benefit of others’ understanding? We keep our work within and from here respond to the question – how can I serve? We ask, what are the needs of others among us? Who is in need and what are those needs? Who is most in trouble? This kind of effort, this external concern, brings each of us to a higher level of consciousness. We have expanded our vision beyond ourselves, but now we do this with our self, our inner self, the one that truly wishes, truly understands. Indeed it is evident that within each of us, within our hearts, something higher exists, speaks and understands that real emotion embraces qualities like respect, responsibility, resourcefulness and fearlessness. We have been filled with the constant inevitable pull to this side or that, always looking for the differences; putting ourselves in harm’s way with a limited view on ‘anything’. Now we need to become aware, to be able to recognize a simple truth. There must be many truths that can be discovered day after day. In order to accomplish this clearer realization we can incorporate the scientific method of inquiry, experimentation and verification in our striving to consider others more deeply. To strive to have compassion toward our neighbor is an attitude that will need to prevail even if it costs - and it will. But again deep in our hearts, with absolute clarity, we see that it takes experience to excel in any field of endeavor; that experience is earned by work, practice, perseverance, devotion and suffering. It is a useful suffering, if we can be so bold. Listening is an especially useful tool that can ripen with practice. Each of us in our hearts can bring forth an effort to see and experience our own sincerity with ourselves and with others. It takes time, which is on our side when we try and which is not when we don’t try. We need to become smarter and clearer about who we are and what could be the meaning and potential of our lives. We are not who we imagine ourselves to be. What would you really wish for in yourself? This is a lifelong question - hold it - keep asking it. Although other questions arise – notice which ones last. What can we return to? How can we verify that which we deeply feel? How can we aspire toward such an aim? What is actually possible, reasonable, useful and most importantly, serviceable? What greater wish can we have but to be useful, of value, toward others – to have our lives mean something – live our lives for humanity in the future? Do we want to be remembered as selfish, greedy, self-serving? Or do we really wish for the substance of the higher aim in our lives to be effective at some point in time? The time to act from conscience is now. Unless and until reason is brought in, out emotions will only be subject to narrow opinions and views, both from external circumstances and internal likes and dislikes that we have of ourselves or of others. It is time to come to our senses and incorporate all we can to reach a bit higher, more objective place in anything in our lives we are engaged in - with the next person I meet. I can begin remembering to practice the golden rule. Begin again and again. |