Do The Right Thing/The Moral Self. This morning I was doing some reflective reading and came across this lecture/sermon. I pulled out some paragraphs that speak to me. Maybe they'll speak to you, too.
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"Doing the right thing. It is astonishing how hard this can be. When we get right down to it, most of us are stuck with Pontius Pilate, asking "What is truth?" We live in a morally ambiguous world, filled with contradictory emotions, contradictory desires. What is truth? What is the right thing? What is moral choice for us?

I think a lot about love. And as I consider our human condition and how we may act in this world, I find myself constantly returning to love. But, also we need to ask, "What is love?" I hope we reject cheap or easy answers. I hope we seek the core of what love might be. And, from there explore how we may find a moral imperative, how we may do the right thing.

These are the questions we engage as we make our way through those restless nights. And, within these questions, what is harmony and what is love, I think we even find what can ultimately lead to an answer to Pilate's question, what is truth.

One of the most ancient of the Buddhist moral summations is "Cease from evil. Do good. Do good for others." I suggest the Golden Rule helps us understand why we should cease from evil, cease from doing those things that might harm another. In human society we need balance and harmony. Disharmony, imbalance affronts human values, is incompatible with the very way we think.

But, the second two assertions: do good, and do good for others, demand something more. I suggest we find this in a consideration of "Love your neighbor as yourself." On first blush it is another assertion of harmony. But, I suggest it is quite a bit more. Here we may find a way to doing the right thing.

What we have here is a dynamic of care and passion. Here we find the cool reason of harmony given life and breath. When we take the great eros, the grand attractions of sex and family and friendship--all rolled into that grand grand thing we call love: then we may find a way through. Here, I suggest, as we consider our loves, great and small, we find the passion that gives life to harmony. Here we can find the right thing.

We are called to love ourselves--passionately, deeply. And, we are called to love others just as truly. This love is passion. This is what it takes to face evil in our own lives, and to face it outwardly into our communities. It is love that demands we step beyond merely avoiding the ill around us. It is love that, when we allow it to live within us, shows us how to engage each question, each concern, we find arising.

This is no easy way. I'm not claiming it is anything but hard. But--oh, the buts! But, I suggest we have here a law written on our hearts. That law is love. When we have love, we may find ways through, even when at first it seems impossible. This I assert.

Saying love is the great principle upon which we should base our actions is not to suggest that we must be everyone's sheep, or lay our heads meekly on the chopping block. No, love is powerful and dynamic. It is a call to full humanity. It is a call to use our wits. The ways that are the right thing are multitude.

With love we directly face the horrors of life for so many, and we find there are ways through. As we come to understand love within our being, within our families, and among our friends, we discover a mystery that may be called God. The dynamic harmonies we can discern as human beings, and the actions they allow, are holy.

And, this dynamic, crafty, harmony that is love, is a God in which I can believe wholeheartedly. This is the God living in each of our hearts, revealing possibilities, revealing alternatives. The human way is one of cleverness. We seek alternatives. Our very creativity is the sign of the divine. Our minds and our hearts, when joined, may genuinely show us how to act in a sacred manner on this planet and among the human family. Of this, I am certain.

And, here we may find how to do the right thing."
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Damn. That's some good shit.