Letter 15; the one about the Golden Rule

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you? Exactly?

Heeey!

How are you? I hope you’re doing better than I am (or at least your hair is doing better than mine).

As you may have guessed, I’m having a bad hair day (actually a bad hair weekend). If you know of a curl-defining product that works on 4C hair which has been treated with Hollywood Curl (incredibly specific but who knows what will echo when I scream my specific need into the void), let me know.

Today’s letter is about the Golden Rule. It’s also known as the ethics of reciprocity.

Matthew 7:12

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

These are the words of the Saviour, Emmanuel Jesus Christ Himself, in the flesh.

I feel that the Golden Rule invites us to take a critical look at our actions and how they could impact others, which is basically like a call to empathy. It also causes us to consider our values, so we can ask ourselves questions like

What do I want others to do to me? Am I willing to do that for others? Why, or why not? Why is this even important to me?

And that is really great becuase fundamentally, we matter, and so using ourselves as a starting point, knowing what we want can actually help us to navigate the full extent of the duty of care that we owe our neighbours.

But there’s a bit of a hiccup somewhere. If we were to treat others exactly as we want to be treated, we’d run into some problems.

First of all, everyone is different. We value different things, and even when we value the same things, we value them to differing degrees.

Imagine if you loved hearing loud music on Saturday mornings, and you lived with someone who wanted peace and quiet on Saturday mornings.

If they woke up at 6am on a Saturday and started playing worship songs, you would be pleasantly surprised, because that is exactly what you want. But if you tried that, they’d be understandably upset. What’s the problem? You did to them exactly what you wanted to be done to you. But because they aren’t you, they didn’t appreciate it in the same way.

So a literal interpretation of the Golden Rule is not always very helpful.

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Some people interpret it a little differently, however.

They interpret the Golden Rule like this.

‘Treat others with the same degree of love, consideration, understanding, care and graciousness that you want to be treated with.’

I like this interpretation a lot. We tend to be experts in giving ourselves a high degree of understanding and consideration.

When there’s an intepersonal conflict and someone explains their side of the story, they tend to do so with a lot of self-love, self-compassion, and understanding for why they are not a horrible person even though they may have done a questionable thing or two in the course of the disagreement. Despite their doubts about whether or not they are the one at fault, people (normal people that is) are often quick to understand themselves and give themselves grace.

And to prove that, there is an entire Reddit community of 22 million people dedicated to helping people make sense of the conflicts and moral dilemmas in their lives (it’s also spawned a subgenre of TikTok videos, often with a woman applying her makeup while she narrates the convoluted tale). If you ask me really nicely I’ll show you the subreddit.

I think that ultimately, the Golden Rule is an invitation to actually look at another person and recognise their humanness, and to care about that, knowing that this person, although they are wildly different, is in many ways just like me.

Andy Mineo has a song called Formerly Known that starts like this

Everybody wanna be heard. Everybody wanna be seen.
Everybody wanna be known, and everybody got some dreams
We wanna be understood, not overlooked
And when we fall, who gon' carry (Carrie) us? Underwood.
We need love and affection, time and attention
Affirmation, acceptance, someone to give direction

On a very basic level, despite our differences, it’s amazing how we all want the same things. And the Golden Rule invites us to recognise that.

Have a great week!

Best,

Nana

P.S.

1. Here is the song.

2. The funniest Christian on Instagram is Shama Mrema. There, I’ve said it.