Live your life as if you were in kindergarten . . .

Last evening I attended a Baccalaureate Mass for the seniors at St. Ignatius College Prep in Chicago. The church was overflowing with the graduating seniors along with their family and friends. Fr. Paulson, who is a Jesuit priest, was the homilist. There were many words of wisdom in his talk but one reference gave me food for thought. His main theme was about truth and how all the graduates were "consecrated in truth". As young children in kindergarten we are taught all the basic truths we need for life such as : "Always tell the truth.", "Wash your hands before you eat.", "Be polite.", "Don't hurt anyone.", "Say please and thank you.", "Stand up straight.","Don't interrupt others.",  "Clean up your own mess.", "Stay with the group.", "Look both ways before you cross.", "If you do something wrong, say you are sorry.".  There were many more.  We all learned them as children, and as children we tried our best to do all these things because they were expected, and we wanted to please the adults in our lives.  It just made life easier. If these things were true for us in kindergarten, shouldn't they be true for us as adults?  Some of the truths are obviously for safety purposes, but some have a much deeper meaning. "Don't hurt anyone and if you do something wrong, say you are sorry."  A lot of people in our society seem to ignore these two.  Or they rationalize their reasons for hurting someone, breaking laws, or abusing moral codes. Every day we learn about some athlete or politician who tries to justify his/her mistakes.  But as many celebrities as there are in the news, ten times more ordinary people are in the same situation. The corollary to not hurting anyone is to be kind to everyone.  And along with saying you are sorry goes being able to forgive. We must not just be reactive; we must also be proactive.  It is not just a lesson in what we are not suppose to do, but also implied is what we are suppose to do.  We are called to love one another -- that's all.  If someone wrongs us, we must forgive. We knew this in kindergarten. We hugged each other, held hands, stayed together as a group, shared our food and toys.  If we upset another one of us, we said "sorry" and hugged.  The wronged one of us said "that's okay" and hugged back.  Why as adults do we find this so hard to do?  If only we could live our lives as we did as children, wouldn't this world be a much kinder and more joyful place?