The Bond of Brotherhood – Sunday, July 11, 1982
Not long ago a group of American college students arrived in an Eastern European city somewhat apprehensive. The country was not known for its political friendliness to America, and in addition, there were representatives from several other countries—some of which also were not particularly friendly to the United States.
But the apprehension soon faded. The tentative smiles on the faces of the young Americans were matched by the smiles of the multi-national crowd about them. It was an international folk dance festival, soon the music was playing and the students dancing.
Though there was no common spoken language, the young dancers from all over the world were soon so intermixed that it was nearly impossible to tell who was from where. Nor did it matter. They were enjoying the common bond of brotherhood, the association as members of the same human family.
They had learned a truth that all of us would do well to keep in mind. Beneath the screaming headlines, the political propaganda, most people are pretty much the same. They help their neighbors, love their children, want to be appreciated, and would like to make the world a little better than they found it.
Today it is important to emphasize our human similarities because we are rapidly being pulled into what some social scientists call a “global village.” Jets move people from one culture to another in a matter of hours. Orbiting satellites send words or pictures to virtually any corner of the earth instantaneously. The barriers of time and space are coming down. Our separate roads are converging, and we must learn to live together on our shrinking planet.
“There is a destiny which makes us brothers,” wrote Edwin Markham. “None goes his way alone.”1 We, like the young dancers, need to enjoy each other’s company, bury our hatreds, forget our prejudices. Our eternal destiny is to be one in the human family.
Let us work to catch that vision of oneness; to build what Charles Richards calls “The brotherhood of man;” to build a bond of brotherhood that will bring us together as children of global family, as children of an eternal Father in Heaven.
1 Edwin Markham, “A Creed”, Thesaurus of Quotations, Rhoda Thomas Tripp (Comp,), Thomas Y. Crowell, New York, 1970, p, 64
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July 11, 1982
Broadcast Number 2,760