Learn from your Elders

I have googled long and hard but still not been able to find an online copy of William Ellery Channing's "The Father's Love for Persons" that I could copy and paste for wizdum.net's online library. So, out of desperation, I've begun transcribing from paper to kilobytes. (If you knew how poorly I type you would understand how big a commitment this is.) Which means that I'm rereading Channing's essay rather thoroughly.

I've also been feeling pretty self-satisfied lately about my growing realization of the true depth of our Seventh Principle, how it is the basis for the First, and feeling that it is my interest in and knowledge of Buddhism that has helped guide me to these realizations. And then I read Channing...

There is a simple truth, which may help us to understand, that God does not intermit His attention to Individuals in consequence of His inspection of the Infinite Whole. It is this. The individual is a living part of this living whole, - vitally connected with it, - acting upon it and reacted upon by it, - receiving good and communicating good in return, in proportion to his growth and power. From this constitution of the Universe it follows, that the whole is preserved and perfected by the care of its parts. The General good is bound up in the Individual good. So that to superintend one is to superintend the other; and the neglect of either would be the neglect of both. What reason have I for considering myself overlooked, because God has such an immense family to provide for? I belong to this family. I am bound to it by vital bonds. I am always exerting an influence upon it. I can hardly perform an act that is confined in its consequences to myself. Others are affected by what I am, and say, and do. And these others have also their spheres of influence. So that a single act of mine may spread and spread in widening circles, through a nation or humanity. Through my vice I intensify the taint of vice throughout the Universe. Through my misery I make multitudes sad. On the other hand, every development of my virtue makes me an ampler blessing to my race. Every new truth that I gain makes me a brighter light to Humanity. I ought not then to imagine that God's interest in me is diminished, because His interest is extended to endless hosts of Spirits. On the contrary, God must be more interested in me on this very account, because I influence others as well as myself. I am a living member of the great Family of All Souls; and I cannot improve or suffer myself, without diffusing good or evil around me through an ever-enlarging sphere.

A hundred and thirty years ago, at least, Channing understood karma and interdependency without the aid of any lessons from the Buddha. He got it. From out of his Christian tradition, he got it. The individual and the whole are one and the same. Channing doesn't spell it out here, but I'm sure he also understood the corollary of this: that the first and second greatest commandments within the Judeo-Christian tradition are one and the same. Love thy God and love thy neighbor. You do one by doing the other.