For nearly the past six months, we have been examining the varied aspects of the intriguing subject of “Goodness”:
Mankind Was My Business
A Working Definition of Goodness
Are We Ready for some Goodness?
Not a New Concept
Goodness is a Choice
The Awesome Invitation
Goodness Produces Agents of Change
I Want to be a Changemaker for Good
The Longing for Goodness is Universal
Goodness Promotes Civility
Goodness is Contagious
Goodness Pays Double
Goodness is Authentic – But can be Counterfeited
Opportunities for Goodness are Everywhere
Goodness and Governance
Goodness is the Correction Mechanism for Civilization
Expect Counteraction to Goodness
The Results of Goodness are Forever
Goodness Demands Nothing in Return
Goodness is Usually Sparked by Insight and Awareness
Goodness Doesn’t Cost Anything – Just Everything
Our attention has been drawn to the fact that goodness can dramatically change the behavior and the history of our world. During our study together, it was not unusual to get responses from our readers regarding either the varied aspects of goodness or the different examples of people around the world who had experienced the life-changing effects of goodness in their lives.
Example: “I feel strangely drawn to this idea of goodness. How can I make it more of a consistent part of me?”
Example: “I would like to know more about how this “goodness” happens. Where does it come from? You’ve mentioned the ‘author of goodness’, what does that mean?”
Example: “I’ve brought up this subject of goodness with my friends. The idea makes sense, but I have a difficult time trying to explain it. Can you help me understand it better, in simple language, so I can explain it better?”
I fully appreciated those, and other comments and responses. In fact, some of my close friends and family began a respectful inquisition that sounded a bit like this: “You have written 24 books in your lifetime that have been published, with copies of each sitting in the Library of Congress. When you wrote the two books on Economics, that have been used in Colleges and Universities as textbooks, you put a “stewardship” and moral slant to the economic principles. Your writings on “goodness” are filled with philosophical and spiritual insights. Your 6,000 pages of Journals covering your travels in over 150 countries around the world for Project C.U.R.E. are packed full of subtle philosophy and theology.
Then came the big question – “You are now eighty years old – When are you going to write a simple book stating ‘This is What I Believe’? It needs to be a book that all your friends, family, and readers can understand, without first needing to become seminary graduates.
As I thought about the “inquisition”, the words of C. S. Lewis jumped back into my brain: “If you can not turn your faith into the vernacular either you do not understand it or you do not believe it.”
Ouch!
Then came another question: “Dr. Jackson, in the section on Goodness is not a New Concept, you say, ‘Stop being so stinking selfish and greedy and start focusing on the attitudes and actions of goodness. Start saturating your life with excellence’. Well, I’m finding that I can’t do that on my own – I need help.”
Double Ouch!
So, . . . here is what we are going to do. In the weeks ahead, you are going to be able to sit in and watch the formation of a manuscript in real life. Every week, I will try to put together in the vernacular, the concepts and beliefs of our Faith. I have come to believe that we receive knowledge and wisdom on the installment basis. Life presents us with millions of dots, sometime referred to as alternatives, or experiences, or facts, or data, or reality. We have a magnificent opportunity of applying our accumulated knowledge and wisdom to figuring out how to connect those various dots with perceptible and sensible lines. We begin to gain understanding, and more knowledge, and more wisdom.
As we begin this new adventure, I would request that we take on the posture of being on experiential tip-toe. I want us to be eager to learn all there is to know about everything that is possible. I want us to live our lives to the fullest and discover all that God has in mind for us to learn. Let’s cultivate the desire to be life-long learners, wide open to all the knowledge and wisdom God makes available.
I have no idea where all this adventure will take us, but in that tip-toe posture, we can take courage in the knowledge that we will be learning and discovering now, so that tomorrow we can rejoice in who we have become and in what we have experienced and learned.
Next Week: (I’m Working on It)