Distingquished Everybodies; A. Peace

To speak of an unfinished world may shock some. The fact of the matter is not subject to scientific proof or disproof, for it is of the nature of an expectant extension of the mind in an attempt to ade quately comprehend the involve ments of our life in this world. But, fact or faith, we humans are scarcely in a position to set limit ing boundaries when accounting for the energies operating in this world. Use any term you wish to de note the basic energies operating in this world, the gradual expan sion of our knowledge only makes plain that each advance produces more unknowns and unexplain abIes to be pursued. Principles which seemed to be unshakeable 1969 DISTINGUISHED EVERYBODIES 157 one day must be revised soon after in the light of new discoveries which suddenly become evident as parts of our world. Truly, the concept of a "devel oping world" may call for a slight re-alignment of our thinking, but even if it does it will serve as a more practical and dynamic basis for personal adjustment to the everyday experiences of our living.

It certainly enables us to slice through many of the tight limita tions which have restricted our outlook upon the world. It opens up a better basis for understand ing the many seemingly impossible experiences and questions which have been associated with the "once and for all" fixed structural conception of our world. For, to cite just one troublesome area, the difficult problems ···of understand ing unmerited suffering and hard ship maybe found to be simply rooted in the imperfect, incom pleteness of our world and its peo ples at the present stage of the building process. If, then, the world in which we live is still under construction, we who live in it are definitely parts of the ongoing process. Imperfect as we are, we are nonetheless in tegral parts of the present stage of the whole. We are "in," "of," and "by" the completing process. The abilities and personal equipment which we have are ours to be used, used up to the limit of our in dividual skills and situations.

As in any productive process, we may work for its success, "goof off," or, with a distorted sense of personal importance, impede and sabotage the process. Everyone of us has a stake in the whole, and every individual counts, for only through individual initiative and action will some small part of the process be satisfactorily aided as, and if, it advances. We have the options of choice inherent in our freedom. Within the rules every person has the right to freely choose and freely pursue his goals. This dangerous harmony in di versity is essential to the ongoing process. Like the little boy delivering an address at a school exercise in the Philippines, who after greeting the honored guests, turned to the audience and greeted them, "Dis tinguished Everybodies," we need to recognize that we are just that, "distinguished ·everybodies": ev erybodies who are here to help inch our world and mankind along nearer to the next higher level of completion. • CLARENCE B. CARSON fiEuglaub 13. REFORM IDEAS INTO POLITICAL ACTION JUST when government interven tion in England had been intro duced on a scale sufficient to mark the turn from the liberal state to the interventionist welfare state is problematical and conjectural.