Individualism or the Common Good?

If we were given a choice between these two opposites, I’d wager that most of us would choose the common good! Even the words sound out their meaning: three syllables with four rounded letters that sound warm, as if arms were suggesting an action! On the other hand, “individualism” has seven syllables and four pointed “i” letters that seem to sound staccato and easily pronounced that way too! Words matter!

And so do actions! If we were to consider how we act, how many of us reach out toward another? Think in terms of the other? Plan and act as if we could lay down our ego and automatically think, plan and act for and with the others—the common good? My observation is that good parents will think, plan and act for their child’s good. Even children, if taught to do so, will share their toys, their lunch or their color crayons, even if done under parental or faculty duress!

But what happens to us later on when we reach the age of reason and discover our own power to choose and to control rather than to listen to, respect and work with and for the good of the whole? Have we reached again a shallow and selfish age? Do we need conversion? Is it a time to reclaim the neglected common good and learn how our faith and love of who we really are and what we can be? Might we help instead of hurt? Heal and transform our personal and public lives, our political decisions, our ideas for Western civilization which, in my opinion, is losing its sense of the golden rule—the mystery of our innate connectedness with God among us and between us?

I often find myself singing a song from yesteryear about this theme:

Lord, teach us to pray.

It’s been a long and cold December kind of day.

With our hands and hearts all busy in our private little wars,

we stand and watch each other now from separate shores.

We lose the way!

What do you think? Tell me, please! What shall we do, you and me?

Renee Domeier, OSB

Photo: (Left to right) Sisters Lisa Kittock, Pat Ruether, Dorothy Manuel, Lisa Rose, Janine Mettling, Susan Rudolph, Jean Schwartz and Mara Faulkner cleaning a house for Habitat for Humanity in 2017.