The Republican Governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan, made an interesting statement to focus what he feels his party should be doing going forward. He commented on the “Meet the Press” TV program on May 9 that, “Successful politics is about addition and multiplication, not subtraction and division.”
I think that he has also described what the moral life should be about as well. Our goal is the value-added life. The good moral life is about adding and modeling moral behavior for others. We should be about being value added people. Value added is the difference between the price of a product and the cost of producing it. It refers to extra features that are gained. Dietrich Bonhoeffer described this cost in his book, The Cost of Discipleship. The cost is that your belief and behavior should be one and consistent as possible in your life. Bonhoeffer displayed this truth when he was imprisoned after his stance against Hitler and was killed by the Germans during the last days of the war.
When you are interacting with someone, they should feel that they are seeing that spiritual dimension of the ethical life. The expression “practice what you preach” defines the moment. I am reminded of the saying in the Christian community that, “they should know that we are Christians by our love.” People should feel and see the “soulful” life of another regardless of our religious or secular orientation. Christians don’t have a corner on the market on authentic goodness. You are not something just because you identify as such. You are something because your behavior to others matches your belief. particularly when others aren’t looking. This authenticity produces a special soulful extra.
We should multiply the number of times that we create a great moral model for someone else by demonstrating that they are a holy earthen vessel as St. Paul describes this belief and behavior connection as “having a treasure in earthen vessels.” (Corinthians 4:7) Each person that we meet along life’s way becomes a part of us.
Adding and multiplying enables us to orient our lives moving forward with a positive spirit. I picture the soul as a vehicle to practice inclusion and to bring people into our lives not to subtract people by emphasizing our differences. We can’t cancel people when they are seen as outliers from our experience. This creates less people in our world of experience, but it also leads to misunderstanding that leads to division.
We need to take responsibility for combining our beliefs and our actions. Today a judge ruled against one of the insurrectionists from using Foxitus as a defense for his client. The judge reflected that the people who stormed the capitol had to take responsibility for their actions. They could not appeal to the Fox Network’s primary defense that “no one takes Tucker Carlson’s show seriously as a news program.” It is not a silo of information that is value added. It is an experience of value subtracted. That subtraction promoting the Big Lie and Trump’s followers have created the division that we are experiencing.
The Black Lives Matter Movement and addressing the deadly Pandemic are really a reflection of the need for addition and multiplication, not subtraction and division.
The death of George Floyd and other black people at the hands of the police caused many to add to the ranks of protests and a demand for justice. What started as a small group on a curb on a street multiplied into a movement that went to all parts of the world. Subtraction of the values of people seeking justice has led to division here as well as abroad.
We literally spent a great deal of time adding those who became ill and those who died by the hidden hand of the Covid-19 Virus. Those numbers were part of our daily news. We multiplied our efforts to reach as many as we could during the vaccination process. Still others chose division even over that. Those false prophets subtracted from our efforts to add to those who were helped and in fact saved. The only subtraction worthy of mentioning is the reduction of the cases of Covid-19 as a result of the vaccinations.
It really is not new, but addition and multiplication are a better calculation of hope and the ethical life moving forward.
Time to learn our metaphorical addition and multiplication tables better to prevent further subtraction and division. Human beings can choose the value-added soul and life. We are empowered by the authentic merging of belief and behavior. That has always been our truth. We see it on the cross on the hill of Golgotha as a prisoner dies and His Resurrection shapes goodness in the world in the years to come. We see it as well in the life and death of a witness to that Resurrection in a Nazi concentration camp. The cross has given us the gift of having a value- added life filled with something extra needed to make the world a better and safer place. But remember. That gift comes with a cost!
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