Matthew 7:12

“Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.”

King James Version (KJV)

This morning I took another trip to Wal Mart which I had been putting off for a few days. I wasn’t thinking this trip to be any different from my other trips to Wal Mart, but as it turns out it became an important trip for me. My story begins before I entered into the Zero Street Wal Mart Supercenter. Zero Street, a five lane busy street runs along the side of the Supercenter. The Supercenter faces South 24 th St. which is where I always enter Wal Mart, I turn on Xavier St. to enter Wal Mart side entrance. As always, on the corner of South 24th and Xavier there was a couple of homeless people on the corner. Remember, I’m in Arkansas the third poorest state. The good people of Arkansas can always say, “at least were not as poor as West Virginia or Mississippi”. There’s always one or two at that corner and down at the main entrance and a couple more on the Zero Street entrance. The City of Fort Smith, AR has tried with a city ordinance to keep panhandlers from standing at the corners of all the Wal Marts and the cities busy intersections, but the courts determined that the panhandlers had a right to “free speech” so anytime day or night they are there with their cardboard signs asking for help. Some claim that they are veterans, I think they must be true after all they wearing a cap that says Vet on it and what looks like an official government issued piece of card board. You could call these people beggars or as in today’s song a vagabond. Today when I arrived at the intersection there was a SUV stopped at the corner, in the SUV was a African American couple the woman on the passenger side was handing the panhandler some money. The SUV this couple was in wasn’t a new Cadillac Escalade with a side rail that comes down when the door is opened. No this couple SUV was old and beat up and missing the front bumper, and yet despite of their own condition, or maybe because of it, they choice to give a portion of what they had to others that were worse off than they were.

I parked, put on my American flag mask and went into Wal-Mart and begun my normal shopping trip. I was almost half done with my list when I was walking down the next aisle when I saw something in the middle of the aisle. It was a twenty dollar bill. It turned out it wasn’t just a twenty it was three twenty’s folded up, yes $60. I called out to the couple ahead of me saying did you drop this? They said it wasn’t theirs, how can you walk by $60 and not notice it? So my task ahead was quite simple I thought, all I had to is find is walk among the hundreds of people at Wal-Mart and find whoever dropped it. All I had to do is find someone really upset,( because you know everybody in Wal-Mart are super happy after all their at Wal-Mart!) I spread out the three twenties on the shopping cart shelf in case someone came by and said that must be their twenties. I went up and down about four or five aisles and I stopped and asked a Wal-Mart Associate, that’s what you call people that work at Wal-Mart, if he saw anyone that lost three twenties. He told me to take them to the service desk and they would look threw the tapes and find who dropped it. That seemed to be a good idea, after all whoever dropped it may not know it until they were at the checkout. I took the $60 to customer service, the girl took it and wanted to know which aisle I found it on. And I told her I didn’t for sure I think it was on the flour aisle. She said OK thanks and went to the back. I guess making an announcement saying: Attention Wal Mart customers Will the person who dropped $60 please come to the service counter? I bet at least one person would come, but I guess for some reason they don’t do that. Well that was that I don’t know what happened to the $60. Don’t you hate it when you don’t know the rest of the story? I do know on thing for sure, whoever lost that $60 was devastated, it would mean whoever it was will do without $60 of food and yes that’s a big deal! Some may had found the $60 and said it serves whoever dropped it well, it would teach them to take better care of their money. I suppose that these people who would say something like this have never re added what they had in their cart and then have to decide what they needed to put back on the shelve, I have.

I don’t know if whoever it was ever got their $60 back but if not I know who it should go to. The couple in the beat up SUV, yes you might say they could help them buy a front bumper. Of coarse they don’t really need a front bumper, except maybe for that fast approaching tree! Here in Arkansas license tags are only in the back, there is a law that says you have to have a front bumper, but there is also a law that says you can’t drive barefooted, no one pays any attention to these laws anyway. In a perfect world their the ones who deserve the $60.

As long as it took at Wal Mart, it was already happy hour at the Sonic, so I was on my way to get me and my sister’s route 44 diet Dr. Peppers when I turned on the radio and the station was playing Christmas music so I changed the station and the end of today’s song, Forever Young by Rod Stewart was playing on the radio. I thought I should made a brief post on Face Book about my trip to Wal Mart, then after I heard this song playing on the radio I thought maybe I should use this as my song and make a complete blog post. When I I arrived home I put my Sonic drink on my desk and sat there a while listening to the music steaming on my computer and after a couple of songs played and I’m not making this up the next song; Forever Young by Rod Stewart. This has always been one of my favorite songs, and since The Golden Rule: Do unto others as you had done to you. is one of the opening lines I knew I would one day do a post on it someday so as things turned out that someday is today. Do unto other as you had done to you is known as “The Golden Rule” but if you notice it’s not known as the Golden Suggestion. And Jesus in today’s Bible verse Jesus says it’s the law not something that you do because your such a good person. It seems to be about as simple as it can get, just treat others as you want to be treated. So what’s the problem? I think the basic issue is that a lot of people believe the golden rule is: Do unto others, who are your equals, as you had done to you. In order to treat others as yourself, they have to be equal to you. I’ll use the people on the corner at Walmart as a classic example. You may say suppose it was you that was standing on the corner. And here’s the biggest problem with The Golden Rule, Their reply will always be: I would never stand on the corner and beg for money! In order to do unto to others one must put yourself in their situation. In today’s world of extreme arrogance, it’s almost impossible to have any piety or empathy for anybody. Sad to say but the examples I could use here seem almost endless, I don’t know where to begin. It seems to me that the belief that If I can’t place myself in others position, that I’m in no way obligated you to help. So here’s what all of us should try to do. Next time we see someone in need instead of thinking of all the reasons we can come up with not to help them, let’s put aside all of our prejudices, yes I know that is hard to do, place ourselves in their position and treat them the same as we want others to do for us.

I have a lot more to say about following The Golden Rule so I’m going to write on my next post another example of how to follow The Golden Rule. I’m going to use another Rod Stewart song The Killing of Georgie, which is a great song to use because I’m going to focus on Pope Francis statement made the other day where The Pope refused to condemn same-sex marriage. Refusing to condemn others is maybe the first thing to do in order to follow The Golden Rule.

Maybe one of the best new years resolutions to make would to follow the Golden Rule in the new year.