There's always more to other people than we realize. We pass unknown individuals daily we would honor if we only knew more about them. Each family's outcast, shunned by brothers and sisters, may become a person regarded highly by non-relatives.

Ethical Culture recognizes this when it talks about each individual having worth and dignity. Our ethical vision should also provide a ladder so we can, in the words of Felix Adler, "surmount those walls which surround the shrine" in the other. If we don't try, he said, we ourselves are spiritually dead.

Michael S. Franch was leader of the Baltimore Ethical Society for nine years and continues active in the National Leaders Council. He is affiliate minister at Baltimore's First Unitarian Church. At the end of March he retired from his day job with the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, where he worked on the coordination of mental health, substance abuse, and somatic medical services. He has a Ph.D. in history from the University of Maryland, and has published on historical, religious, and medical topics.