CIRCA The Golden Rule
A Text on Reciprocity
You have heard it said, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." You have received this as a golden and perfect rule, a fixed point of light by which to measure your spirit.
And so, your mind, which longs for opposites, creates a new burden. It creates the 'righteous' and the 'unrighteous,' the 'pass' and the 'fail.' You hold this perfect rule against your imperfect heart and find yourself lost in confusion, for in making this distinction, you are as far from the Way as heaven is from earth.
I say to you, the Kingdom is not a destination you reach by following a perfect map. The Way is not a sharp line, but a mystery you move around.
This "Golden Rule" is not a law to bind you; it is the grace that frees you from the illusion of perfection. It is the spiritual permission to be a work in progress.
For where is the "self" that does, and where is the "other" who receives? See the plank in your own eye—this very idea of a separate self. This is the mind that splits the world.
To live a spiritual life is not to arrive at the 9:59 "deadline" of perfect action. It is to live in the soft focus of faith, knowing you are circa 10:00 PM—always around the sacred, always near the heart of compassion, even in your stumbling.
Let go of the need for sharp edges. The ethic of reciprocity is not a call to perfect action, but a call to presence.
It is the humility to say, "I do not know the exact, final way to love. I am not yet my future, nor am I my past. I am here, in the 'in-between,' moving around this mystery of connection."
Therefore, let your ethic be this: When you are kind, you are circa the one heart. When you forgive, you are approximately your true self. When you show mercy to another, you are around the kingdom of heaven.
This is the Golden Rule of the 'circa' life. It is not a demand, but an unfolding. Live gently within this soft, approximate, and ever-present grace.