Being Responsible

“Who’s responsible for this?!” asks the teacher none too happy, “He is,” all students pointing at me.

“Michael, are you responsible for this?” “Well, uh, you see, I…” my voice evaporates into a soft inaudible wisp of breath. Sigh. “Yes.”

“Get him, snatch him, grab him and take him to the closet where he is to be tortured!” Or so her voice seemed to say to me. “To the closet you go, young man. And you shall stay there until you have thought over what you did.”

“Okay, sure, send me to the closet. Yeah, I’m the responsible one, guilty as charged. But it’s not like I’m going to beg for mercy or anything,” says my defiant spirit in my heart. It was a walk-through closet so it wasn’t scary and it actually gave me some down time. I didn’t mind. I was in Kindergarten. But my second grade teacher? Well, I’ve no doubt she’d die of shock, have a heart attack or something, if she learned that I grew up to be a preacher. I’m sure in her mind I was headed for the gallows. But I digress.

In short, as a kid, to me “being Responsible” meant “being The Guilty One.” “Taking responsibility for my actions” simply meant, “admitting guilt and paying for it.” Yet adults would praise me as being quite the responsible kid if I managed to stay OUT of trouble, which wasn’t always that easy for me. This was confusing.

Then one day in my late teens, I heard a preacher say that being responsible is “Being able to respond, response-able.” That is, if I am able to make a difference by “responding” positively and constructively to a situation, doing something helpful, supportive, or encouraging, etc., then I am being “responsible.” This did not fit my childhood’s definition of responsibility. It was worse. Indeed, this new definition was far, far more demanding and scarier. Why? It meant that just being indifferent can make me guilty, if it is in my power to make a real positive difference for the good of others and I choose not to.

In short, if I have the power to do good by helping others, for example, and choose not to, I do harm. I not only may cheat others of a necessary benefit that is in my power to provide, I may even cause them damage, heartache, and suffering by the good that I have refused to do for them. Thus, failing to respond for the good, ignoring a needy situation, knowing that it was in my power to have made a positive difference, is being irresponsible, and I will have to answer for it.

Do you get the feeling that we are becoming more and more irresponsible as a people, a nation? Is it not simple and stark naked irresponsibility that led to the financial crisis in Wall Street and our Banking industry? Is it not irresponsibility that led to BP’s infamous Oil “Spill” in the Gulf of Mexico? Profit margins, “Bottom Line” thinking, quick and immediate payoffs, looking out for “Number One” while the rest be damned, is this not the height of irresponsibility?

We do damage when we choose to ignore and NOT care about, or concern ourselves with the needs of others, be they our family, our neighbors, our community or nation as a whole, while focusing only on our own quick and immediate gratification and gain. Yet this is exactly what companies and corporations ask of their employees over and over again: What’s in it for us, the company, our business, our profit margin, our stakeholders, our monthly/annual goals, and especially our bottom line? The rest will take care of itself.

NO, the rest will not take care of itself. If we are going to stay strong as a people, Companies and Corporations, like individuals and households, must actually see themselves as responsible members of the community, looking out for the good of others within the community, and not simply focus on their own well-being and/or public image. Indeed, the more powerful they are the more responsible they are, given their financial muscle and the ability they have to make a positive (or negative) difference in the lives of others.

People count. Corporations are made of people. And so, passive interest in the local community, with a “business is business” attitude is not good enough. Corporations must care and must engage in the positive construction of the health and welfare of the communities within which they do their business. The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that everything is winding down from order to disorder, from complexity to chaos. In other words, everything moves from brand new and perfect working condition to old, broken and run down condition. Thus, doing nothing for a community is the same as working against it; it is equivalent to contributing to its rot and decay. He who does not help to maintain, helps to destroy.

Big Business, Large Corporations, and Multi-National Companies need to remember some basic simple principles that go into the making of (economic) dynamic and healthy societies:

1. People count. The most valuable asset than anyone can have is another human being by their side, working with them, helping, serving, caring, and loving them. Never throw away, discard, minimize and/or waste a human life.

2. We are responsible for one another; it is called community. We must contribute where and when it is in our power to do so for the good of our community. It is as much for our own good as well as for the good of others. All are to benefit and gain from one another.

3. Those who have are to bless those who have not. We are born for a reason, to reach beyond ourselves and to bring up others, not just to please ourselves. All great gifts should benefit the many, not just the few. Thus, those who are gifted with special talents, skills, ability, money, and/or power, are to use those gifts for the good of the many.

4. We are to hold each other accountable for the above principles. It sometimes takes courage and bravery to stand up to powerful individuals and/or corporations and governments and remind them of their need to behave as honorable citizens of the community and be responsible to do what is right, true, good, and just—even in the face of pain and loss.

5. It is a matter of fidelity and faith. Fidelity because it relies on mutual trust and respect. Faith because nothing that is of any significance has ever been done with a prior guarantee of its success; defeat and failure is always a threat. That is, all great feats in history were accomplished by human beings with a certain amount of faith and trust in others, in one another, not to mention a faith in God. In this light, Large Corporations must learn to act more human and less calculatingly machine like and impersonal. They must become personal, humane companies that care for, engage with, and interact with their local communities toward a greater purpose and higher calling, other than mere profit.