A lot seems to be happening in the world at the moment. America’s financial system looks like it is in trouble. And as the saying goes, when America sneezes, the world catches a cold. But it’s not just that. The heads of government in South Africa and Israel resigned at more or less the same time, both under dubious circumstances. The suicide bombing in Pakistan is thought to have been orchestrated by al Qaeda. And there have been religiously motivated attacks in some Indian provinces.

What do these events have in common? The world has shrunk, and while it is tempting to ignore all but the most local occurrences, even things that happen far away affect us all. In the words of Martin Luther King Jr. in his address, Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution at the National Cathedral, Washington, D.C., on 31 March 1968:

Through our scientific and technological genius, we have made of this world a neighborhood and yet we have not had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood. But somehow, and in some way, we have got to do this. We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools. We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the way it is structured.