Walking together

It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. We are made to live together because of the interrelated structure of reality.

Martin Luther King, Jr., “A Christmas Sermon on Peace,”

in The Trumpet of Conscience (Boston: Beacon Press, 2010), 70, 71.

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my mind awakens

and gropes its way

through a never-ending darkness

a never-ending sameness

 

the same small world

virus shaped

the same small study

the same desk

the same routine

 

life narrowed down

a world unraveling

 

that is it, really

the cause of my ennui

 

separation!

 

that loss of connection

with what is Sacred

with one another

 

we have chosen to believe that the way to find the self

is to separate ourselves from others

trapped in delusional and toxic individualism

we have come to believe that the way to benefit ourselves

is to focus on what we believe benefits us

to the exclusion of others

 

we have resolved to keep ourselves safe by intimidating

and threatening others

 

we are lying to ourselves

 

and we have lost the dream

the dream of common good

the dream of equality and equity

the dream of justice

 

we have instead small politicians

with small agendas blocking that dream (Manchin, Sinema, the GOP, more)

we have small people with guns

blocking that dream

we have racists

blocking that dream

we have a church

blocking that dream

 

The word religion, at its roots, means re, “again,” and ligios, “connection.

Our faith systems are meant to draw us together

To help connect that which has been separated

To draw us together

In love

 

Instead what we have is disligion (a term from Victoria Loorz)

we have an alliance with the forces of separation

 

and so fragmented

we struggle and we suffer

Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, None

Republican, Democrat, White, POC

young, old, rich, poor,

all

all

suffer

 

and so in splendid isolation

free (or so we think)

dominant

 

armed with guns, or money, or power, or ideology

armed with certainty

we separate

and suffer

 

because we are meant to be together

like a body

“joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped,

as each part is working properly,

promotes the body’s growth in building itself up

in love”  (Ephesians 4:16 NRSV)

 

common good

fellowship

love

common sense

 

for what affects one, affects all

we are bound together

joined and knit

 

it all boils down to this

the only way we truly flourish

the only way we survive

 

is to walk together

work together

sacrifice together

 

“looking not just to our own interests

but to the interests of others” (Philippians 2 NRSV)

 

seeking safety, giving safety

seeking political power, giving political power

seeking wealth, sharing wealth

seeking freedom

but using our freedom not to “indulge in [selfishness]

but rather to serve one another humbly in love” (Galatians 5 NRSV)