"Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."
- Traditional Ash Wednesday Liturgy
In Sebastian Junger's book, Tribe, he points out how people in truly dire circumstances pull together and look out for whomever is in close proximity no matter their background. Whether in times of war, famine, flood, or other catastrophes, it is a beautiful truth about our human race that we react to such frightful times by looking out for one another. And as Junger points out, we do so by essentially following the rules of the tribe, with all who are able working toward a collective good that is bigger than any one individual's self interest.
Indeed, in times of crisis, neighbors tend to help neighbors and the lines of division that exist when times are good become completely meaningless. People work together in egalitarian ways. Leaders emerge but do not dictate, nor do they take advantage of their role. There is no rich or poor in the middle of a war zone, there is no black or white, east or west. For those on the ground, there is only neighbor helping neighbor. And, as Junger reports from his experiences in war-torn Bosnia, not only do people pull together to survive, they actually form bonds of community that are stronger and more life-giving than during other times. Apparently, when the going gets tough, human beings care for one another in community in profound ways.
Interesting that what we think of as the highest moral directive, that we would "love one another, as we love ourselves," might not be something so lofty that we can barely dream of attaining it, but rather that it is something so close to us that we only find it when we are able to forget ourselves and simply "do what must be done." Of course we have instincts to protect our own, but it seems that when times are tough enough, "our own" comes to include anyone and everyone. When we are most aware that we are dust then we are most able to truly love our neighbor and see all of humanity as such.
What does it mean that we return to ourselves in this way? What does it mean that in times of peace and prosperity we lose track of this basic way of being together in community?...
I have spent my life in the safe, sterile affluence of American society at its peak. From a historical perspective, growing up in a middle-class home in a small midwest American town during the 1990's, probably puts me in the 0.0001% of human history in terms of safety and comfort (and theoretically, therefore, the opportunity to grow and thrive). I have lived a privilege beyond the comprehension of the vast majority of those in human history (not to mention the poor and outcast from our own time!).
Yet, I also know how many from this background struggle to feel at peace, how many deal with depression, anxiety, and a lack of meaning in our lives. And I have seen the vain ways we attempt to fill that void--with more and more consumption of material goods or experiences. We've been given the world, yet we've lost track of how to enjoy it together. We long for the connection of true community, a tight-knit neighborhood or tribe of people caring for one another, but we don't know how to find it. We accept endless consumption as a cheap substitute with no seeming knowledge of the actual costs of that consumption to ourselves or our world.
In the time of the greatest wealth in human history, we have the largest and most pronounced gap between the rich and the poor in our nation's history, while also approaching a tipping point in global environmental degradation. Our consuming habit (or defense mechanism) is killing our planet, it is eroding the bonds of our communities, and it is slowly suffocating our souls.
Yet we keep moving, keep buying, keep running to avoid the risk of feeling what we lack--meaningful connection to our local community, our actual neighbors (i.e. the actual people we live and work near, the ones we walk past on the street or in the aisles of the grocery store).
What would it take to remember that we (all of us, neighbor to neighbor) belong to one another? We can imagine the very real threat of global climate catastrophe or a nuclear-armed enemy, but even these actual threats can remain distant and abstract enough to ignore in our daily lives.
In the 90's we liked to imagine the end of the world. We watched movies like Armageddon, Independence Day, and Deep Impact. Thankfully, humanity always managed to pull together in those stories. We didn't pay much attention to how natural that was even as we rode the euphoric high of the imagined, global near-death experience back out of the theater doors into the physical world of our hometowns. But nor did we question, unfortunately, why we couldn't carry the good feelings of cooperation elicited by these stories over into real-life cooperation and connection with those around us.
For if there is anything true and good in those movies it is that they strike a chord of harmony, cooperation, and care for all within the human heart, yet we discount the "deep impact" of emotion as a manufactured yank of heartstrings and ignore that it points to a very real truth: ultimately, when we allow ourselves to feel it or are pushed to the brink together, we know that we belong to one another.
"Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."
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