A Search for Universal Values

The people of the United States are divided by many things, but I believe that our core values—values that must unite us—are similar enough that we can find common cause in taking our country back from dark powers in high places. The banksters and the military-industrial complex have found myriad ways to divide the people of the world against one another to promote their war profiteering agenda. I believe, though, that the values we share may yet bring us together to save our world from the imbalances of the "New World Order" and restore balance in the natural order of things.
Probably no one will agree with every word in this article. If you did, this article may be unnecessary. I'm sure that many of you will disagree with my inclusion of Christianity in this list. I include it as a pillar of Southern culture. Other cultures may claim other pillars. Please, though, try to look beyond my clumsy attempt to find the truth and seek the truth for yourself.
Lao Tze spent his entire life searching for something he called the Way. Toward the end of his life, he admitted that he hadn’t found it but said that our lives would be better if we searched for it ourselves.
Buddha spent his entire life searching for the Truth. Toward the end of his life, he admitted that he had learned many truths but had never really found the Truth.
The legendary Eight Immortals typify man’s search for Life. Yet even the Eight Immortals of legend must die.
I may tell you that I’ve found the Way, the Truth, and the Life; but it means nothing to you unless you find it for yourself. Please be patient with any errors I may have made. Those of us who desire peace among ourselves and with all nations are on an uncertain journey.

Fourteen Counsels of Excellence
1. Chivalry: a code of conduct and way of life that seeks to embody all other virtues. In times past, it supported the aristocratic regime. In today’s egalitarian climate, it places more responsibility more broadly upon its adherents.
2. Integrity: Being true to one’s values regardless of unpopularity or other difficulties. Depending on what those values are, it may be positive or negative.
3. Simplicity: Desiring what we need for ourselves and others and accepting only the embellishments that actually improve the quality of life.
4. Patience: Patience with ourselves and with others.
5. Temperance: Balance in all things. Desiring the right amount and to the right degree.
6. Humility: The recognition of our true value and the True Source of our value. It’s neither putting ourselves down, which would be an affront to our Creator and the natural order of things, nor vaunting ourselves to a supposed higher place in the order of things.
7. Fortitude: Courage and industry. Doing the best we can and leaving the outcome to heaven. Knowing that everyone dies of something eventually, it means not fearing death. Heaven has determined the number of our days and the hour of our deaths. Recognizing that, until that time, we’re as safe in battle as we are in bed.
8. Prudence: Thinking things through to determine outcomes before we act.
9. Reverence: Recognizing that all things work together for good, but we may experience that goodness only by seeking the will of heaven first and finding our responsibilities in the order of things. Unhappiness is always caused by not getting the results we desire; sometimes our desires, while good in themselves, may be inordinate. In the end, it’s heaven, not we, who determine what is good in our lives, how much we should receive, and under what circumstances we should receive good things.
10. Justice: Finding and maintaining balance. Sometimes justice requires mercy; sometimes punishment, sometimes something else. Injustice is a condition of disharmony in the natural order of things. Establishing justice is re-establishing equilibrium.
11. Gratitude: Being thankful for whatever heaven sends our way, recognizing that it’s all for good. Wisdom never came from convenience, and creativity never came from an abundance of things to do.
12. Faith: Faith isn’t the belief that you’ll receive the things “hoped for;” it’s the “substance of things hoped for.” We may not receive the commodity we wish to receive, but heaven knows better than we the benefits we need.
13. Hope: Not knowing the future but knowing Who holds the future.
14. Love: Desiring the best for others and for ourselves. Love is not just an action verb; it’s a transitive verb. It requires an object. Since love is a commitment and not a feeling, it requires a commitment to that object even when the feeling is absent.
Three Responsibilities
1. Obligation: The responsibilities we take upon ourselves by our words or actions. We have, for example, obligations to our spouses and children.
2. Duty: Responsibilities we never chose, but which we have nonetheless. We never chose our parents, siblings, nieces and nephews, or our country. For that matter, we never chose to be created. We do, however, have responsibilities in those areas and more.
3. Integrity: This has been called the responsibility we owe ourselves. Since all responsibilities are ultimately to our Creator, integrity is the responsibility we owe directly to the Ultimate. For example, we don’t owe good manners to any other person, but good manners help us to become better people.
Three Forms of Goodness
1. Morality: Right behavior in our treatment of people including ourselves, animals, and other living things. It involves doing no harm, but it also involves actively doing good.
2. Ethics: Honesty and reliability in our behavior toward other people.
3. Virtue: Forms of behavior that strengthen an individual, a family, a community, a state, a nation, or the world. Examples are filial piety, community spirit, patriotism, and reverence.
Four Pillars of Southern Culture
1. Christianity: A commitment and expression of seeking first the will God through Jesus Christ, and making Him known. Christians believe that faith in God gives meaning and purpose to all the good we may do. Absent that, all is vanity.
2. Chivalry: a code of conduct and way of life that seeks to embody all other virtues. In times past, it supported the aristocratic regime. In today’s egalitarian climate, it places more responsibility more broadly upon its adherents.
3. Stoicism: a body of thought that includes, among other things, a desire for simplicity and an acceptance of joys and sorrows with equanimity, knowing that both joys and sorrows can work to our benefit or to our detriment.
4. Agrarianism: the recognition that we are part of nature. We came from the soil. Directly or indirectly, we’re nourished and sustained by the soil. We’ll someday return to the soil. Much of our contentment comes from maintaining closeness to the soil and the cycle of life, even if we live in a large city. This outlook affects our sense of responsibility to nature, to one another, to ourselves, and to the Creator and Sustainer of all things.