Now for a two-part test. Part A: What is the Golden Rule?
A cinch for most people, I expect. No need to ask an expert, phone a friend or use any other lifeline.
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” is the collective response.
Correct.
Now Part B. Do you follow the Golden Rule?
A trickier question, one which requires honesty and demands an answer not easily verifiable. Perhaps it makes some of us wriggle in our seats, clear our throats and reach for a glass of water. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking.
Can I have your answer please? No? Well, I’m sorry, you are out of time …
Of course, it’s easy being the quizmaster, sounding smug and holier-than-thou. The fact is many people in Barrhead do appear to follow the Golden Rule, going way beyond what can be reasonably expected of them.
It is also a fact that I flunked the test recently.
Terry Colborne, president of Barr-head Animal Rescue Society, was telling me about Bob Nelson, an 83-year-old he found living without water or adequate heating in a trailer in Rich Valley.
Bob’s eyesight is impaired, he cannot walk unaided because of a spinal disorder and he has no family, except a brother in Red Deer.
Colborne made it his business to help Bob. He virtually ordered the old man into his truck, drove him to Barrhead and booked him into the Neighbourhood Inn, where staff treated him with the compassion one associates with a hospital. Meanwhile, a philanthropist paid for a discounted hotel rate.
“So why did you do it?” I asked Colborne. “Some Christian motivation?”
“It’s the Golden Rule,” he replied.
“The what?”
“You know. Do unto others …”
Oh yes, of course. I knew the saying, but not by the term Golden Rule.
It set me thinking: how far would I go – how far would any of us go – to help a stranger in distress? To be the Good Samaritan? To be proactive? To get hands dirty?
After all, there are so many off-the-shelf excuses on offer.
Let someone else deal with the problem. I don’t have time or the money. It’s none of my business. Family and friends come first. One person can’t do anything.
Yet how far should I beat myself up over this?
As I spoke to Bob Nelson it was too easy to envisage myself in that trailer. We live in a fearful world that urges us to keep feathering our nests and building up assets, just so we don’t go without in our old age. We never have enough, so we keep acquiring more to be safe.
It can make us selfish until the Golden Rule becomes more of a fanciful aspiration than a guiding principle. Altruism loses out.
Would I have acted like Terry Colborne or the philanthropist?
I doubt it. Maybe I would have raised an alarm to salve my conscience, while Bob shivered for a few more nights.
Am I ashamed enough to change my behaviour, now that Colborne has raised the bar of human compassion?
Why yes, of course. I mean maybe.
Okay, I hope so.
But I needn’t worry about answering today, for there are probably many others like Bob Nelson, living somewhere in distressing conditions, praying for an angel to come by.
One day I will have the option to help. Or just keep walking, looking the other way.
