The Duty of Emeralds

“Whatever anyone does or says, I must be good; just as if the emerald were always saying this: ‘Whatever anyone does or says, I must still be emerald, and keep my color.’” (Marcus Aurelius)

The story is told of Abraham Lincoln asking the question, “If you were to count a dog’s tail as another leg, how many legs would a dog have?” The answer, of course, is “five.” However, Lincoln disagreed, pointing out that the dog only has four legs despite what one calls or counts the tail. There are two observances to be made of this.

The first relates to duty. When God created all things, He declared all things to be good with one exception. It was not good that man should be alone, so He created a help-meet, woman, and gave her to the man. The first man and woman had one duty: to do good by filling the earth and subduing it as God’s vice-regent. The first man and first woman disobeyed God and all mankind in kind has fallen after them, yet duty remains the same. The edict has never changed. Man’s duty is to do good.

Then comes the age-old question: “what is good?” Has there ever been a satisfactory answer? There must be because God defined “good”. Bound up in that one word we find all things agreeable, beautiful, pleasant, valuable, useful, appropriate, better, understood, right, beneficial. Anything else is not good. There is nothing agreeable, beautiful, pleasant, valuable, etc in what is not good. When mankind does what is good, then duty is accomplished. Marcus Aurelius takes a stand that, no matter what happens, despite what anyone says, he will do his duty. Don’t miss this: he is surrounded by those who are not doing their duty and their influence is so strong that he must dig deep and hold on tight. Committing good is to do the work of God in a world where people make gods of themselves, tending to their own interests to the hurt of others. They try to rename the tail.

The second relates to identity. Have you ever had to choose paint for a project? What is the process? One surveys all the colors available in a catalog and makes a choice. One then presents to the paint counter a color sample. Let’s make the color “Sanddune Flower.” The paint-tender takes the color sample, finds the recipe to mix colors that result in “Sanddune Flower”. It might be 24 shots of ABC, 10 shots of DEF, and 7 shots of RXP. After mixing, the paint-tender opens the can and what do we find? “Penguin Black.”

“But that’s not what I ordered. It looks nothing like the paint sample here in my hand!”

“True, but if we change what we call it, everything works out.”

 That’s not how the real world works, but strangely, this is the world in which we live. Every employee expects to be paid for time worked. What would happen to the employer who paid whatever he felt, no matter the agreed-upon rate or hours worked? “I want my money, damn it!” Or what cashier would take a dollar for a $100.00 purchase? Again this is not how the real world works, but strangely, this is the world in which we live. Society is naming and renaming the tail but no matter what, the dog still has four legs. Remember where we started? The emerald must keep its color or it is no emerald.

The one who does what is not good is . . . not good. One does not get better by doing worse. As the old saying goes, “polish a turd and it’s still a turd.”We are who we are unless, by doing what is good, change. And in doing good, we become better.