Scripture: Exodus 23:2a (TNIV)
Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong.

Thought for the Day: Many people decry the individualism that seems rampant in our society. They say we’ve become a civilization of people only concerned about themselves. But humans do tend to form into groups, online no matter how individual we may think we are. Government systems like Democracy don’t develop because everyone is going their own way. Civilizations don’t form because everyone is doing their own thing.

Humans realized early in our evolution that we needed to group together. When we were just learning to walk upright, buy it took a village to hunt and gather enough food to survive. As our skill at food production increased, medical we were able to spend more time creating art and music, and contemplating the big questions of existence. In a rather unbelievable ironic twist, the only real threat to our existence today is each other.

Crowds. They can be a force for good, as when we protest against injustice and hatred (or when we gather together for protection from those things). But crowds also have a way of following the least common denominator. “The ugly crowd” is a term we’re all too familiar with. People spouting hate infect crowds like the flu. Democracy doesn’t develop without a crowd, but neither does Fascism.

I’m praying that we start seeing each other as a different sort of crowd—a crowd of God’s children, all of us. These petty differences we find between us only drive us farther away from God. We are a human civilization, from Bangor to Bangladesh. We truly need to start seeing each other as one human family, rather than people over there and people over here; red state or blue state; Christian or Muslim or Jew or Buddhist; immigrant or native. Because once we start seeing each other’s similarities, rather than our differences, then we’ll truly have the beginning of the kingdom of heaven, here on earth, as it is meant to be.

Prayer: God of Infinite Bliss, may your Spirit touch the heart of every human on the planet, awakening us to the knowledge that the very essence of our being is your energy, which creates and unites us all as a single crowd, all of us brothers and sisters, all of us your beloved children. Amen.