Back together again

I have mentioned before that I am currently reading David Korten's book, The Great Turning. I am now about three-fourth of the way through the book. It is a difficult, but exciting book. His thesis is that for the human species to survive, we must replace the domination systems of empire with systems of cooperation in a World Community.

Korten says that to make the change, we must change the stories by which we live. He uses a number of examples from nature to show that we evolve to a higher form of existence, not by competition and dominance, but through cooperation.

I would like to share a simple story of cooperation from this past Sunday morning. We were waiting for the morning discussion in our Sunday School class to begin, when one of the lenses of my glasses fell out. This has happened to me before, but it always happened at home where I have a spare pair of glasses to use in the process of repairing the ones that came apart.

My wife, who was sitting on my right, produced a kit from her purse that contained a screw-driver and some spare screws. I tried to fix them, but of course, I couldn't see what I was doing. Mary is of little help with such a project, because working with screw-drivers is not her forte'. Now, the lady sitting to my left grabbed the screw-driver and had me hold the lens in place while she inserted and tightened the screw. She also directed me verbally to readjust the position of the frames so that she could insert the screw. Without the cooperation of my wife with the repair kit, the lady who fixed them, and me to hold them, I would have been without glasses for the rest of the morning. It would have even been difficult for me to drive home without the glasses.

This is just one small example of two or more organisms working together to solve a problem. There was no coercion or domination, but only cooperation. If we can work this way on simple problems, why can't we work in a spirit of cooperation to solve larger problems? We can, and we must if our civilization is to work out its purpose here on this planet. Could it be that God is simply that spirit of cooperation that makes us altruistic and spreads caring and love around this lonely planet? To me that is what Jesus tried to teach us. With love to all of you,