To Be Indifferent…

The problems of our time, whatever they are, are partly our problems. Albert Camus expressed this thought in this significant sentence: “Conscious of the fact that I cannot separate myself from the time in which I am living,” he said, “I have decided to become a part of it.” And, he might have added, that in becoming a part of it, there is nothing that pertains to people or principles or their problems to which one could properly be indifferent.

Every creature is happy when he is fully using his powers,” said Herbert Spencer. “To have something to do that . . . broadens and develops our powers, is the only way to be happy.” “The most distressing aspect of the world into which you are going,” said Robert Maynard Hutchins, “is its indifference to the basic issues, which now, as always, are moral issues. By shutting ourselves away from the things over which men fret and agonize we shut ourselves away from the very involvement and responsibility by which character grows.”

Centuries ago, Terence said: “I am a man, and nothing that concerns a man do I deem a matter of indifference to me.”

One cannot imagine the Savior of mankind, or the Father who sent Him, being indifferent to anything that pertains to people or their problems, or being indifferent to any moral issue, or any law, or any relationship of life⎯He who challenged every evil⎯popular or unpopular⎯He who had compassion and concern for all people.

“The greatest sin against mankind,” said George Bernard Shaw, “is not to hate them⎯but to be indifferent to them.”

Conscious of the fact that I cannot separate myself from the time in which I am living, I have decided to become a part of it.”