Where the golden rule glitters

What did you do the last time a driver cut you off in traffic?

Did knowing you'd never see that person again spur retribution? Or did you simply tell yourself the other driver must be having a bad day or needed to get somewhere fast — and let it go at that?

Those are the kinds of questions that Bonnie Phillips is hoping you'll ask. As the founder of the Golden Rule Project, she believes deeply in the principle of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

And she's in good company.

The golden rule has been at the heart of ethical and religious teaching across faith traditions for thousands of years, urging people to move beyond what is often their first instinct: to put self ahead of others, take unfair advantage or to be harsh, rather than kind.

Phillips and her mother, Jane Dooly Porter, created the Manners/Golden Rule Foundation in November 2003, to help encourage students and community organizations to adopt and practice the golden rule.

Though Porter died a year ago, her legacy lives on through the work of the foundation, not only in community outreach, but in providing a "safe space" for those who seek to implement the golden rule in a societal context.

Porter left her large home at 1229 E. South Temple to the foundation. Known fondly by those who have been welcomed there as "Jane's House," it now hosts small gatherings as diverse as a recent group of Palestinians from the West Bank, board members of the Crossroads Urban Center, the Utah Interfaith Roundtable, chaplain residents from the VA Hospital, and artists from the Center for Documentary Arts, who are working on a project documenting the Civil Rights movement.

Phillips and her husband, Denis, also own and operate Phillips Gallery, the oldest commercial art gallery in the Intermountain West.

"The premise by which we open the house is to share the truth of the golden rule with as many people as we can," she said, noting that people who hope to solve problems must learn to understand the other person's point of view and treat the other with respect, even when they disagree.

"If we were having a meeting here about Proposition 8 (the controversial gay-marriage initiative in California last year), we would invite people both in favor of it and those opposed to it. They come into a very welcoming and congenial atmosphere … with consideration of the 'other,' we're really off on the right foot when we approach something so controversial.

"That doesn't mean that every time a group comes here there is a 'black and white' side of things," she said. "Several groups have used it as a lovely place to meet that's just out of the ordinary. But they, themselves, are extraordinary."