Fairness
“...the
Hindu tradition has a deity know as Vishnu, who both destroys and
bestows life, often in that order. Although fairness and justice are
beautiful gravities by which we human creatures try to live with one
another, the storm and the germ, the termites eating the foundation
of your home, the errant stone breaking your windshield, the wave
swamping your little boat—these molecules of experience do not
understand what is fair. They just bombard us in the endless cosmic
dance of life that just keeps happening.”
Mark
Nepo (The Book of Awakening)
The
first sentence in Scott Peck's book, The Road Less Traveled,
is: “Life is difficult.” It is stated in the Gospel of Matthew
(5:45) this way: [your Father in heaven] “makes the sun rise on the
evil and the good, and sends the rain on the just and the unjust.”
Fairness is not part of the contract we have with the divine realm.
The idea of fairness only occurs to humankind. I watch the girl-dogs
in my care (all 5 of them) sort things out by way of who is the alpha
dog—and she may not be the largest one of them. They think nothing
of snatching each others toy or cookie—if you get there first, it's
yours. Fairness comes into the equation only when I impose it.
We
humans claim to have a deep sense of fairness—we don't always live
by it, but we know fairness when we see it, and we know injustice
when we see it. We're perfectly capable, however, of being in denial
about what is and isn't fair. We're known, in fact, to call what is
best for us fair, and what is best for someone else unfair. We know
how to parse these complicated human-only concepts in ways that
benefit us—we just have a bit more finesse than the dogs. It is our
religious beliefs and our societal norms that say we should treat one
another fairly. Commandments like “Do unto others as you would have
them do unto you,” and that long string of “Thou shalt not..”
come into play mostly when they agree with our own wants and desires.
If that sounds cynical, it is, but it's also true.
Life
is going to be unjust for each of us in different ways. I may have
some random illness that you do not. I may be struck by a drunk
driver who narrowly misses you. You may have someone hack your
accounts and steal all your hard-earned cash, while I don't. What
happens to any of us may seem unjust, but truly is just the luck of
the draw, being in the wrong place at the wrong time. There are, however, injustices in this world that we have some control over. Prejudice,
for instance, especially institutionalized prejudice based on all
those categories we quote—race, gender, sexual orientation,
religious belief, nationality—are things we can do something about.
These are behaviors on our part that can be addressed and changed. As
people of conscience, we owe it to our souls to root prejudice out of
our own hearts, and free ourselves from its toxic influence.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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