Community
Preparing Ourselves by Preparing Others
Communities are made up of individuals, but individuals are procreated within the family. For communities to survive and prosper they must strengthen the family. Modern societies, like some more ancient times, often weaken and undermine the family while claiming a purpose of aiding it.
The ancient proverb, "Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, you feed him for life", only bears truth if the man actually goes out and fishes. There is no need to fish if someone is giving free fish and bread to him every day.
As societies banded together for common protection they had two basic choices. Form a society where the leaders could exercise authority, one over the other, or form a society where the leaders are titular and all fundamental and natural power or right of choice, e.g. liberty, remained with the people.
For any society to become and remain free the people must practice service in a selfless process of doing for others with nothing but a hope of reciprocating return from others. This is the antitheses of modern Commerce.
The true free enterprise is rooted in the perfect law of liberty. It is established in a society ahere the people willingly and daily cast their bread upon the waters in hope that it comes back to them rather than forcing their neighbor's to contribute in a socialist state.
The Golden Rule is to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. If we want justice and mercy we must be a source of justice and mercy for those around us. If we want knowledge and understanding we must offer our own knowledge and understanding as a gift to others. If we do not seek and learn to be a society of givers, we will become a society of takers.
Teach and Learn
- "Teaching my own Children has taught me more about life and learning than all the teachers I had while I was growing up.
- The one room school house on the prairies of South Dakota where my own father learned his first lesson was based on the precepts of community and family. They were not single age incubators but cascading communities where the older taught the younger knowledge and the younger taught the older patience and responsibility."
- --Brother Gregory
Preparing University is based on the precept that giving knowledge will bring more knowledge and understanding and the virtue to use both wisely.