Interdependence

“The difficulty is that… we began to think of the universe as a collection of objects rather than as a communion of subjects.” – Thomas Berry

After just celebrating the U.S. 4^th of July, I am wondering around the idea of living independently versus interdependently. Certainly there are times when we are called to pull away from a dependence that no longer works for us, but I’m thinking that interdependence is what serves us best overall.

I stumbled upon a blog post by Shane Claiborne called “40 Ways to Celebrate Our Interdependence Day on July 4” that points to a list of practical and fun ideas which can be enacted well beyond Independence Day. He reminds us, “After all, as people of rebirth independence seems to be a very counter-gospel value, but interdependence — interdependence on God and one another, this idea that we are not alone in the world — that is at the heart of the Story from which we come, the story that began long before America.”

Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts…Honor one another above yourselves.. Romans 12:4-6a, 10b

Interdependence for me is synonymous with honoring, respecting, appreciating, naming, blessing the other - whether it be a person, object, or situation.

Recently I enjoyed reading that naming cows has an effect. Winners of a 2009 Ig Nobel Prize (achievements that first make people laugh then make them think), Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University in England found that “cows who have names give more milk than cows that are nameless” (published in Anthrozoos, vol. 22, no. 1, March 2009).

Finding positive results in naming cows seem a little farfetched to me, but I’ll admit to having plenty to learn about effects we have on each other and our world. In this first Wednesday of the month post I invite you also to explore a new openness or awareness of interdependence with both the animate and seemingly inanimate. [Maybe we’ll even try reading to a tree? For more on that see below…]

I want to share two long quotations from a couple of books I’ve appreciated lately. Because they’re long, and not many of us love to read lots of text, here first are a couple of main ideas in shorter form that express the kind of interdependence that brings benefit:

“…pay attention to it…To pronounce a blessing on something, it is important to see it as it is…The key to blessing things is to receive their blessing…sometimes it is enough to see the world through a tree’s eyes.” – Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World p 196

“Your outlook actually and concretely affects what goes on. When you give in to helplessness, you collude with despair and add to it. When you take back your power and choose to see the possibilities for healing and transformation, your creativity awakens and flows to become an active force of renewal and encouragement in the world…There is a huge force field that opens when intention focuses and directs itself toward transformation.” – John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us p 216

For those that want to stop here (and I get that!) I’ll close this post with a wish for wellness and a hope for you to often experience interdependence.

“Each one of us matters, has a role to play, makes a difference…Together we must reestablish our connections with the natural world and with the Spiritual Power that is around us.” – Jane Goodall

He (Christ) is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Colossians 1:17

The LONGER quotes:

Here’s the much longer quote – that makes me laugh and sigh – from Barbara Brown Taylor’s An Altar in the World:

“I once asked a class of graduate students to read a book of poems by Wendell Berry called A Timbered Choir. The poems chronicle almost twenty years of Berry’s walks through the woods on Sunday morning. He calls them “The Sabbath Poems,” which is a good thing to call them since they are as full of reverence as any worship service. Mostly he just pays attention to the things he sees: trees, fields, warblers, light. As he does, they become doors to other things: grief, love, amazement, blessing.

Reading him, you come gradually to understand that the key to blessing things is knowing that they beat you to it. The key to blessing things is to receive their blessing. You do not always have to use the magic words, either. Sometimes it is enough to see the world through a tree’s eyes.

What do the tall trees say

To the late havocs in the sky?

They sigh.

The air moves, and they sway.

When the breeze on the hill

Is still, then they stand still.

They wait.

They have no fear. Their fate

Is faith. Birdsong

Is all they’ve wanted, all along.

Since the graduate students to whom I assigned this book were students of ministry, a few no doubt wondered why they were reading poems about trees. I was thankful that Berry had used the word “Sabbath” in his title to help justify my choice. At the beginning of class I invited volunteers to read their favorite poems out loud to the rest of the class. That worked all right. The others listened respectfully, some of them closing their eyes and some of them looking like they were holding thermometers in their mouths.

By my count, at least half of them were ready to get to the prose part of the class. They had paid good money for tuition. It was not easy for them to get time off from their churches. They wanted something they could take notes on, sooner rather than later. So I stopped the poetry reading earlier than I had planned, but at the break I asked them all to go outside and read at least one poem to a tree. I could not have asked anyone to do something like that when I was thirty years old. But at fifty-six I am willing to take more risks. Some of the students looked at me as if they were deciding whether it was too late to transfer to another class, but most of them took their Berry books with them as they left the room.

After the break, I had some converts.

“I read those poems before I got here,” one of them said, “and they were okay. Poetry’s just not my thing. But when I read one of them to the tree like you said, it sounded different to me. It was like the words had an inside and an outside and I had only read the outside. Reading them to the tree, I heard the inside. The words were so beautiful I almost cried.”

“I felt completely stupid,” another one said, “standing there in the quadrangle reading to a tree, but after a couple of lines I realized that the tree was really liking it. I am going to try reading to a bird next.”

After the testimonials were over we all agreed that we would not speak to the other graduate students about this experience, a least not until happy hour. My point is how often we are embarrassed to do and say the things that really affect us.” (pp 195-197)

And some words from John O’Donohue’s To Bless the Space Between Us:

“There is incredible power in the mind when it directs its light toward an object. I heard recently of an ongoing experiment in an American university. There is a sealed-off room; in that room there is a coin-flipping machine. All day and all night it flips coins. The results are usually fifty percent heads and fifty percent tails. Nearby there is another room into which people are invited. Each person is asked to make an intention. Which would they prefer? Heads or tails? Having made their choice, they then write it down on a page that is put in a sealed envelope and addressed to the team who conducts the research. The results are astounding. If a person wishes for heads, the machine ends up flipping up to a seventy-five percent majority of heads and vice versa…Now, if human intention can substantially affect the outcome of something as cold and neutral as the working of a coin-flipping machine, how much more must our human intentions achieve as they relate to one another?” (pp 216-217)