We are wired for care

We belong to each other. r.nial.bradshaw/Flickr/CC BY 2.0

 

On the Sunday following the 2024 election, I couldn't wait to get to church. My battered spirit was craving my community, one I know after my years of participation is guided first by compassion. In the face of political results I saw as evidence of a national dearth of empathy, I needed a spiritual reminder of capital-L Love and the deep wellspring it feeds in each of us.

As our pastor preached on the Gospel reading about the poor widow who "gave not from her excess but from her want," he reflected how only four years ago at the onset of the pandemic, the parish's food pantry went from serving 150 families to 700 "in the blink of an eye," and today serves 900 every week. Recalling how he had no idea at the time of how to meet such exponential need, he said:

"We put a call out to the parish and it spread to the wider community, and suddenly the fishes and the loaves multiplied and we were able to meet the needs of our sisters and brothers.

In the midst of the darkness, we became a light; in the midst of chaos and fear your very best inclinations and those of our neighbors shown [sic] forth … and we responded to our sisters and brothers with love and compassion.

We welcomed the stranger, we fed the hungry, clothed the naked and put our discipleship into action, all the while caring for the safety of each other."

By the end of the homily, I was crying at his words and at the congregation's long applause that followed—our fervent, audible commitment to continue to be in it together.

The tears stayed close two weeks later when I dropped off much-needed baby gear to the church's ministry for pregnant women and mothers, and the overjoyed volunteer coordinator told me with wonder in her voice, "All you have to do is ask at this parish, and donations pour in."

And I felt the lump in my throat again today when my family dropped off our donated Thanksgiving meal as part of the church's holiday food drive, and the volunteer receiving it was a friend of ours from marriage prep ministry, and he engaged my kindergartner (who shopped with me for the groceries) in a conversation about how together, we're helping other people.

I have learned something about myself these past few weeks, and it's this: I believe in the core of my being that we humans are wired for care. What confounds me, then, about the election results is their reflection of individual rather than collective concern. To be clear, I'm not judging voters whose ballots reflected personal fears or challenges. My confusion is more on a meta spiritual level: How have we forgotten that our fates are inextricably bound to others in our neighborhood, our county, our state, our country, our earth? And if we haven't forgotten, how have we managed to override, as an entire society, what I believe to be our innate orientation toward mutual protection and aid?

During that same post-election weekend, I had the great blessing to participate in the annual retreat for our parish's Minkisi Ministry, this year featuring speaker and author Deacon Art Miller. In the course of his wide-ranging remarks, Deacon Art pointed out, "Jesus asked people to roll away the stone [on Easter Sunday] because we have skin in the game. And one of the most powerful ways we can move the stone for others is simply by loving them."

As I consider how to metabolize my own anger and worry into righteous action, I keep coming back to the thought: Where am I rooted, and where can I grow? I am rooted in my family, in my friendships, and in my local community. I value feeding and sheltering people. I want people to feel loved, to know that they belong. Whether God exists or not, we do, and in sharing the state of existing, we are bound together. So I ask myself again: How can I move the stone for others?

Prayer #404: Skincare

Skin: our largest organ, our sheath, the first line of defense against a cutting world.

Skin: our stakes, our investment, the understanding that we'll lose—or gain—something when we participate.

Get the people of this world under my skin, protector God. Make me thick-skinned in the face of sneers and thin-skinned in the face of tears. After all, I'm not in this to save my own skin; I'm in this so others become my second skin—the extension of you on earth.

Amen.