The
caring so needed in our shrinking world must go beyond caring for
those we know and have actual ties to and investment in. The call is
for caring for the collective human family and especially the most
vulnerable and disenfranchised among us.
We
need to resist in ourselves and our leaders that strong evolutionary
survival tendency to achieve quality life only for ourselves and "our
kind." Evolution was once necessarily and unconsciously barbaric
in its survival of the most physically fit.
That
need has changed. Human consciousness, not evolved to its present
potential in past epochs, is now called on to shape the future of
evolution. This shifts the need from viewing life as the "great
competition" to the new epoch of cooperation and compassion
toward all people and nature.
The
hope-filled potential for a world-embracing compassionate
consciousness I think has made a giant leap in the last century. Only
humans can supply this feature to nature which alone leads to a more
healed world. But we're not forced to embrace such a compassionate
consciousness. We can instead stick to the well-worn paths of smaller
mindedness.
'Times
are a changin' and new times call for a tough but compassionate and
wise consciousness. These are the new key for the survival of our
species and planet. The great world religions all point to such an
era of surviving compassion. Are we already too late in receiving the
saving compassionate consciousness which has been a cosmic goal of
evolution for millennia?