September - Courtesy becomes tact of the heart

August 21 to September 21

The compassion that becomes freedom restores to courtesy its meaning and dignity.

Courtesy today has become a mere formality that, insofar as it is not deemed altogether dispensable, is only still recognized because it eases relationships or because it has become a habit.  True courtesy discerns at the same time the higher human I as well as the spiritual union of higher I-beings in a free community. Faced with discourtesy, we are therefore more affected by the self-humiliation of the ruffian than by our own dismay. For the same reason, we feel that every criticism, which is not at the same time an acknowledgment of potential development, is self-debasement of the critic. True courtesy, on the other hand, is free union with the higher being of the one we meet. We experience ourselves in him and show esteem for the spirit common to both of us. True courtesy however goes even further. It experiences not only itself in the higher being of the one it meets, but this higher being also in itself. It is dismayed on the other’s behalf if the latter did not succeed in expressing himself in word and deed as he truly is. This dismay is far more unbearable than the discomfiture at one’s own failure. Even more so does courtesy feel ashamed when upon subsequent self-examination it has to blame itself for having remained on the surface of another’s ill-mannered self-expression instead of having accorded it its most valid significance. Courtesy thus constantly supplements and transforms out of its own understanding the imperfect.  It knows, moreover, through her demeanor to create the opportunities that enable everyone it meets to open themselves. It distances itself no less, however, from a behavior that denies its own better nature.

Thus it becomes tact of the heart.

A meditation of such courtesy is:  Courtesy and tact of the heart relate to each other as diastole and systole.