Then I saw myself as being at sea on a ship that was being tossed between
two rocky outcroppings. Since I was afraid that the ship would be
smashed, I climbed off into a rowboat and set forth. My rowboat is reli-
gious devotion—which, by the way, avails in every difficulty.”
[ 5 ] After that person, someone from the second row on the right
stood up and said, “My opinion is that goodwill is doing good to everyone,
whether honest or dishonest.I support this opinion as follows: Goodwill is
goodness of heart. A good heart has good intentions toward all, both the
honest and the dishonest. The Lord said that we are to do good even to
our enemies. So if you withhold your goodwill from someone, doesn’t
that part of your goodwill become no goodwill? Aren’t you then like a per-
son hopping along on one leg because the other leg has been amputated?
A dishonest person is just as much of a person as an honest one is. From
the perspective of goodwill, people are people. If someone is dishonest,
what difference does that make to me?
“Goodwill is like the warmth of the sun. It gives life to animals both
wild and tame. It treats wolves and sheep alike. It makes trees grow
whether they are harmful or beneficial. It treats thorn bushes the same as
grapevines.”
At that point the speaker picked up a grape and said, “Goodwill is
like this grape. Split it and what’s inside will fall out.” He split the grape
and its contents fell out.
[ 6 ] After that statement someone from the second row on the left
stood up and said, “My opinion is that goodwill is doing all you can for
your relatives and friends.I support this opinion as follows: Surely every-
one knows that goodwill begins from ourselves. We are each neighbor to
ourselves. Our goodwill then moves outward from ourselves to the people
closest to us—first our brothers and sisters, and then our other family
members and relatives. Goodwill’s progression has built-in limits then.
People who are more remote than this are foreign to us. Deep inside our-
selves, we don’t recognize foreigners. They are alien to our inner selves.
Siblings and blood relatives, however, are connected to us by nature.
Friends are connected to us by familiarity, which is a second nature; there-
fore these too become our neighbor. Goodwill connects us to people on
the inside and then on the outside. People who are not connected to us
on the inside should be called only acquaintances of ours.
“All birds recognize their family members. They use sound rather
than plumage to tell. At close range they also tell by the living aura ema-
nating from the bodies of their family members. In birds this innate love
§459 goodwill & good actions 543