Civility: Making a comeback or the topic de jour?

Ah, civility!  Once the hallmark of the Western world, the trademark of the elite classes.  Civility, we hardly knew ye.  It is gone, lost in a world where shrillness, absurdity and vulgarity have obliterated respect for truth and pass for clever communication.  As long as the message is received, who cares what it looks like, sounds like or who it embarrasses or ruins!  The point must be made, at all costs. Not only that, but isn't schadenfreude a delicious treat?

Today, I see that the University of Arizona is opening a National Institute for Civil Discourse, a center for the debate and study for civility in our culture.  The fact that we need such a Center is embarrassing enough, but even as the announcement of its opening is being made, the discourse regarding the Institute for Civil Discourse is rash with sarcasm, scepticism and out right incivility (see the comments on the link above, and just about any other source of this news clip.)(Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/21/national-institute-for-civil-discourse_n_825825.html?ir=College)

The biblical lectionary for the Seventh Sunday after Epiphany, read yesterday in most liturgical churches around the globe, presented a very timely bit of gospel on this subject.  Jesus is teaching the beatitudes, the very heart of the message of God and is quoted thus:

43 ‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” 44But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. 46For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same? 47And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Matthew 5.

There are not many ways to look at this and come away with a message that does not promote civility, if not compassion, forgiveness and acceptance of others, enemies included.  What could today's world, or any other time in the history of mankind, do with a widespread acceptance of this message?  Not an acceptance of Christianity, or even of Jesus as Son of God- just this message alone?  Why is it so difficult?

It certainly isn't difficult to think of civility and to profess that civility may be achieved by having the right person or people in power.  Plato certainly thought so, as did St. Augustine.  The Muslims of the world see it in their cultural way of thinking.  So why is it so hard?  And why is it so easy to make fun of this idea and the people who sincerely pose the idea in our time?

Could it be that our foundation as a culture and of species is so soft that belief in the motives of others to extend beyond personal survival, fear and selfishness is just not smart?  Doesn't everyone want to take what I have, hold me down, push me away, impose on me, eliminate the very threat of me...?  And even if I began to look at the world the way that this message suggests, that doesn't mean that anyone else will!  I'll be a laughing stock, a target! 

I don't know how to solve this problem and I don't believe that the centuries of contemplating it  will culminate in utopia this week.  But I do know that I can try, and keep trying.  I can comment and I can see that God lives in every thing and everyone, and that alone is enough to give it a shot.  I don't have to find my enemies and get smoochy with them, I just have to be willing to try and leave presumption and fear behind when we are walking the second mile, remembering as Father Thack said yesterday, we have to be willing to walk the first mile to get to the second one.   I must remember that I alone don't have to twist facts, or lie, or make absurd points using extreme examples just to have my voice heard, I just tell the truth, over and over again.

Thank goodness people are trying.  I pledge to try as well.