The news moderator, inquiring about the mechanics of the new plan, asked the inevitable question: Aren't fines necessary to get people to bring books back to the library/? The answer was "No." As Tony Marx, president of the New York Public Library system, explained:
"It turns out late fees for books don't work. They don't bring the books back.
Almost all the books come back anyway because people respect that if they are treated
with respect and trust, they respond in kind."
Here, the brief news story about one city's libraries seemed to be turning into a much larger moral lesson.
Not that New York's library system was advocating total suspension of human responsibility: A person would still have to pay for any books that were lost. Nevertheless, besides abolishing any future late-fees, all library-card holders' accounts were being cleared of any accumulated late-fees. That was because the library administrators recognized that accounts that had been blocked because of late-fees "are vastly disproportionately in the poorest neighborhoods. And that's exactly where we need people using the library." The news segment now seemed to be turning into a Biblical parable involving the tendency of human societies to become out of balance -- making the rich richer and the poor poorer, unless some correctives in behavior were regularly made.
Dennis Walcott, the president of Queens Public Library (part of New York City's public libraries) added a final comment that shifted the little news story into an even higher gear, turning it into something like a prophetic vision of hope. Of the library's aim with its new rules to get especially the younger back into libraries, he declared:
Not penalizing people so as to hold them responsible for little mistakes can seem "unnatural," as we might say. But is it really so unnatural? Is a mother's loving tolerance of her toddler's weaknesses really unnatural? Is it really against her nature?
And what about that larger, non-human realm of Nature that our lives are a part of? Nature can seem to be totally unforgiving when hurricanes come. But hurricanes hit a specific area of land only a few days out of the many days of the year. On most days, Nature displays more regular, sustaining rhythms that could be called "forgiving."
In the Bible's Gospel of Matthew, Jesus presents to his disciples what must be one of the most difficult of his instructions. He tells them to "love your enemies." And what does Jesus put forward to inspire his disciples in such a difficult challenge (a challenge even harder than forgiving people's ordinary mistakes)? Does Jesus point to some very noble person around him? No. Does he point to himself? No, not even that. Instead, he points to the reliable rising of the sun every morning, saying that we should be inspired by our "Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good." The sun regularly rises, despite all humans' mistakes of the previous day (even if it was just being ashamed to return a late library book). Thus it is that Jesus encourages his disciples to turn their attention to the non-human sphere -- Nature -- that they might deepen their appreciation of God, and thereby be inspired to be more loving.
~ ~ ~
(Do you see any qualities in Nature that you think we humans should emulate?)
(Quotations by the librarians are from radio segment "New York City's Public Libraries
Abolish Fines on Overdue Materials," on National Public Radio's Morning Edition show of Oct. 7, 2021.)
(The Biblical verses cited are Matthew 5:44a & 45a [NRSV].)
