Everyday ethics

“Keep calm and carry on.”

These words were one of the slogans created to prepare the British people in 1939 for what was to come — hard wartime conditions.

As someone with family in England, I heard their stories about fleeing to shelters during the bombings in London. I often used the words about keeping calm whenever I saw hard times descending, whether on me personally or the society in which I lived.

The phrase did not change situations I was in but did help me feel differently about how I dealt with them.

If you think about it, the guidance makes sense.  Sometimes we rush into action without much thought.

The concept of unintended consequences — bad results from what was intended — is a warning. Often the issue is lack of impulse control. We jump into action based on feelings, not facts. It’s the old concept of there being a stimulus and then an immediate response without thought to the potential consequences, some of which cause suffering.

Don’t get me wrong, being calm and patient is not always the best or most ethical decision. If your house is on fire, get out. If someone threatens you with harmful behavior, get out of the way sooner rather than later.

But as a general rule, being calm and carrying on provides time for reason to offer guidelines for a decision. That’s what it means to claim we are rational creatures.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about gratitude. Chalk that up to the approach of Thanksgiving, but I think the question is deeper about how I live my life. Is it living in fear of the future, wondering how best to live in a world that sometimes seems hopeless? Or can I learn to be thankful for the gift of life I have now and spend it wisely?

Strange, how the image of light keeps returning. And how it is often contrasted with darkness. Light symbolizes qualities that enhance life; darkness with ones that connote the opposition to life-affirming qualities.

The slogan of the newspaper The Washington Post — “Democracy dies in darkness” — offers a word of caution for us and a charge as well to shine a light in those corners of our world where its cleansing power of truth is needed.

But I am most grateful to the words of poets about the image of light. They hit home emotionally as well as intellectually.

Sarah Williams was a poet and novelist whose poetry I stumbled upon while reading in a library in Wales. Born in 1837, she died in London during surgery for cancer in 1868.

I used her satirical words in one of my books about philosophy because they supplied a dose of reality to what sometimes can seem abstract and removed from everyday life.

As I heard a clever man say he had once,

for three months, doubted his own existence,

but it was in his youth, before he had rheumatism                                      

Her second book of poetry, “Twilight Hours,” was published later in 1868. This collection included the poem “The Old Astronomer,” which included these words from him to his student:

Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;

I have loved the stars too truly to be fearful of the night.

And, then, there is the same image captured in Leonard Cohen’s song, “Anthem,” written in recent times:

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That’s how the light gets in.

Maybe that’s enough to be thankful for — the light within and without that gives hope and courage. According to the Book of Genesis, in the beginning God said, “Let there be light” and pronounced this good.

John C. Morgan is an author, columnist and teacher. His email: [email protected] A note to those who asked about my cat Tux I wrote about in a recent column, he died earlier this month, purring to  the end. I am grateful for his life.