Martin Luther King understood the power of doing good in a way even the most brilliant theologians missed – it feels good. That is its only reward.

“Everybody can be great,” he wrote..because anybody can serve. You only need a heartful of grace and a soul generated by love.”

People scoff at such sincerity; King is out of fashion in America in 2023, and he wouldn’t fit into our polarized and enraged culture.

But his ideas will be back,  good never dies; it just shifts around and waits. The worst people in history have never managed to kill it for good.

To serve is beautiful, said the great writer Pearl Buck, but only if it is done with joy, a whole heart, and a free mind. I guess that’s the tricky part.

For centuries, the new values of organized religion worked to get people to do good by scaring the wits out of them and offering them great rewards – a path to haven or protection from Hell. The idea was that if we did good – helped the poor, told the truth, didn’t kill anyone – there was something in it for us.

People came to expect a payoff.

The Christians promised eternal life; the Jews said God would strike them down if they lied or were terrible, and the Muslims call do-gooding a sacred obligation, not a choice.

In recent years, organized religion has receded as a moral driving force for much of the world, especially in the United States and, most dramatically, in our politics and dealings with one another.  Lying is no longer a sin, but a path to power.

Perhaps because no one is listening to priests and rabbis, we are arguing, hating, killing, and lying without fear or hesitation.  We can’t even keep our children safe from our greed and selfishness.

This gaping ethical void has been replaced by cruelty, greed, and dishonesty. When it comes to good, this is not the end of the story; it’s the beginning.

Fox News admits to lying and damaging our democracy, and they write a staggering check and go about their business; most of their viewers have never heard of the lawsuit that exposed their rot and dishonesty.

It is now okay to lie, hide, and sit by while our children are slaughtered in their classrooms. We are getting sick of this.

Money is the new morality, and corporate greed is our faith. Nothing comes before it. Politicians are the latest money changers in the Temple.

We are the Corporate Nation now; making money is our shared value. They have managed to do the impossible, create a world no one but billionaires can afford to live in, and everyone else needs to make more and more money but can never make enough.

No wonder so many of us are angry. Nobody likes being lied to.

Most people don’t care about heaven and Hell anymore, the preachers sound hollow and tired, and we are capable of making our kind of Hell,  but the idea persists among many people that if we do good, we might be rewarded by the fates and avoid the turmoil and pain of real life.

A person I am familiar with – a person of great success and good fortune is having an awful time with severe and expensive troubles in her old farmhouse.

She complained on her blog that she had nothing but bad luck and did not deserve her troubles. She described herself as constantly trying to help others, but that didn’t seem to keep her septic system from falling apart.

You never really know what happens behind the scenes in someone else’s life, but this person would be high on my list of the most successful people I know. She seems to have all of the crucial things in life – love, skill, accomplishment, family, animals, and a good heart.

And in her frustration and anger, she wrote this:

“I thought we were good people who constantly try to help others but get the short end of the stick every time,” lamenting her bad fortune.

I can’t judge her, I don’t know all of the details of her life, and it isn’t my business. She seems to be a very good person, and a very fortunate one.  But her very public anguish caught my attention and made me think.

It raised the now-ancient and profound question of why people should do good and whether there were any rewards or expectations.

She got me thinking about what we can expect to do good, which I also try to do often.

The answer was apparent when I thought about it: I should expect nothing in return. Doing good doesn’t keep my house in good shape, spare me heart disease, protect me from storms, or bring my amputated toe back to my foot.

St. Augustine helped to shape my ideas about good: “No eulogy is due to him who simply does his duty and nothing more. He that is kind is free, though he is a slave; he that is evil is a slave, though he be a king.”

I do a lot of good also, but I understand from the outside that there is only one reward for doing good for others – it makes me feel good, worthwhile, purposeful, and, well…good. And I believe there is always a punishment for doing evil, even if it’s only to the offender’s soul.

There is considerable medical evidence that being good is much healthier than being mad.

Medical researchers say our endorphins, our bodies’ feel-good chemicals, respond to doing good. It’s no coincidence that they appear whenever we do good for others.

There is a lot of research, says the American Medical Association, suggesting that when we spread kindness, we improve our mental health and well-being. That has been true for me.

I expect nothing else in return for trying to help others. Yet I am rewarded every time.

My faith is radical acceptance; I believe in life and respect it and accept it.

I can do all the good I want, but life will have its way with me. I can’t ask my foot to change its bone structure because I do good whenever possible. I can’t expect to be immortal or wealthy or without declining in health as I get older.

It doesn’t mean my pipes won’t freeze,  the bills won’t get smaller, my roof won’t collapse, my septic won’t clog up, or I will stay forever in good health. But it gives me strength, pride, and purpose, and I do good because I want to leave the world a little better than I found it.

Real good comes with no rewards and no expectations. Getting older breeds some perspective. As I inch closer to the end, what is really important gets clear and bigger.

Most of the people I do good for are too distracted, exhausted, impoverished, or sick to thank me, and there would be no easy way for them to do it if they wanted to. Those are the people I want to help, just like Jesus and St. Augustine said. Helping the needy is holy.

Doing good has no strings attached. There are no guarantees, no promise of a payoff.

If there is a heaven, my efforts to go good will not guarantee entrance. People I help owe me nothing but comfort and whatever happiness they can get.

“Not all of us can do great things,” said Mother Teresa, “But we can do small things with great love.”

That is where I’ve landed with the good: I can’t do great things; I never have and almost surely never will. But I’m great with small acts of great kindness and small deeds of love. That is where my reward is.

My unhappy friend was perhaps just upset at the moment.

If she is doing all of that good, then she will almost surely keep on doing it; doing good is addictive. Her septic will be replaced. Her goodwill and good life will flow again.

We are all human; we often stumble in fear and confusion and lose our footing. I’ve done that many times.

Looking around me, the need for good has never been greater, and I have never felt better about the person I am and wish to be. That’s the selfish part of doing good; I know I do it for myself.

Most people in the world consider themselves fortunate to have a septic system; they live in filth, disease, and deprivation.

I hope I never forget that.

Thomas Aquinas, one of my favored spiritual guides,  said that the things we love tell us who we are. When I want to know who I am, I ask myself what it is that I love. And then I see the truth.

Good can’t die, and neither can love.

Both will return – I can feel it coming –  they are the most potent forces in the world.