Treasure

March 21, 2020

When I was a little person, I remember my mom talking a lot about the Golden Rule.  At first, the idea of gold really grabbed me.  I imagined a cavern of treasure; gold blocks and precious stones piled as far as the eye could see.  Then as I got older I got a firmer grip on the idea.  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  If there was one ethic my mother lived by it was that.

There’s nothing that touches me more than strangers being kind to each other.  When there’s no personal gain, being willing to help or just to sympathize or even just to smile at someone you don’t know, who you don’t love (at least specifically), this has always seemed to me to be the grandest gift.

Right now, all across the world, we are giving that gift to each other.  We’re doing it by staying home.  We’re doing it by temporarily shuttering our businesses, by forgoing income (voluntarily or involuntarily), by sequestering ourselves from the people we love, by being lonely and isolated and worried.  Even if you’re just sitting on your couch, this is hard work.  Not hospital-hard, not fighting-for-your-life hard, but hard.

We are staying home so that the person we don’t know - the cancer patient, the octogenarian, the boy with cystic fibrosis - doesn’t die, at least not from this virus.  And an enormous amount of people - the majority of those asked - are doing it with good will.  This, more than my own worries of the survival of my small business, of how I’ll pay my mortgage, of how I’ll support my kids, this makes me cry.  Because it’s beautiful.

The virtual happy hours, the virtual cooking classes, art classes, songs sung, just even the texts flying back and forth - “How are you holding up?  How are you feeling?  I miss you.  I love you.” - is heart-stoppingly beautiful.

I have to believe - really I have to or I’ll sink below saving - that, for the most part, we operate out of love, out of connection.  Our humanity wins over our selfishness, our ego, our fear.

There is treasure, it turns out, in the Golden Rule.  That treasure is love.