Holy Cross Centre Trust

The Five Principles: #5 Respect

each voice is owed a listening

The United States of America was founded on the premise:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal”.

RESPECT supplies the heart and soul of democracy. It is why each of us has an equal voice, because each of us matters.

RESPECT is the listening we must give to each other, to the voices of the unheard, the voices of those who have passed and those yet to come.

RESPECT underlies free speech. It embraces both our right to listen and our right to speak. It obliges us to reach out and to hear the powerless and the oppressed.

RESPECT acknowledges the dignity to which each of us is entitled. It fuels the sense of injustice when that is denied.

We are all aware of values that go beyond the self. We all make choices that may seem to make no economic sense. In  different ways each of us is driven by values that lie outside of the market. Time Banking offers a path to realize those values. In Time Banking we try to use what we have to help others and to advance the fundamental values to which we are committed.

In the world of Time Banking, a fundamental equality unites the human family. We all fi nd ourselves asking the ultimate question:

“Why are we here?”

We all want our lives to have meaning. We all want to make a difference. Time Banking supplies a tool we can use to make a difference in the world.

Our core is our humanity: our capacity to care for each other, to come to each other’s rescue, to stand up for what is right, to seek justice, and to honor the gift of time as the ultimate gift. That sense of meaning and fellowship uplifts us. It imparts energy that is a life-force. The Navajos call the spirit that animates us the Holy Wind. One religious scholar has written: “Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.”

RESPECT is the fi nal core principle because it extends to those who are developmentally challenged, to those of different cultures, to those of different ages and genders, to everyone willing to give of their time on this planet so as to leave the kind of world we would want for our children.

RESPECT speaks to a different dimension of existence. There is an American Indian saying: “We did not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrowed it from our descendants.”