There’s no such thing as other people’s children.
This simple, impossibly challenging phrase has been with me for a few
weeks now. It’s from Glennon Doyle Melton, the spark behind Momastery, and one
of my favorite gurus.
It’s been prickling my soul because on my less-redeemed days, I can
roll my eyes, sigh in exasperation, and silently judge other people’s children
whether their 2 or 22 or 82.
Thinking of some as “other people’s children”
gives me the imaginary distance to feel superior to them. It allows my
compassion to wither on the vine. It reinforces the biological and cultural
desire to care and provide for my blood kin first and foremost, even to the detriment
of “other people’s children.”
That kind of thinking is what builds walls between neighbors, whether
they are individuals or countries. We trade in vulnerability and connection for
the illusion of safety, security, and superiority.
And we do it to our own detriment. Recently, I’ve been thinking about the
amazing youth group I served at First UMC – Denton. There were a lot of things
that made those kids special, but one of my favorite things was that they
self-regulated. I didn’t have to exert control or correction from outside as an
adult. Instead, there were such strong core values instilled in the group, that
were taught and transferred even as some graduated and others middle schoolers
joined, that the youth themselves kept their peers held to high standards. It
wasn’t uncommon to hear a high school student say, “We don’t do that here.”
That was the power of the pack, to borrow a phrase from the dog
whisperer, Cesar Millan. In his work, he would occaisionally find dogs that
were so isolated, so anxious, so ungrounded in what it meant to be a dog living
right here, right now, that he would take them back to his place for some pack
therapy. He knew that there is no better cure for what ails us than the support,
encouragement, mentoring, and accountability that comes from pack life.
What we fail to realize most of the time is that we humans are pack
animals. I mean, look at us – we’re so soft and tasty. We’re not faster. We’re
not stronger. We’re not bigger. Like a school of fish or a flock of birds, the
original means of safety for us was life together. That and the really big
brains and opposable thumbs.
But over time, we’ve forgotten the simple truth that we are hard-wired –
physically and spiritually – for the power of the pack.
As a young mother, I imagine there must have been a time when women
didn’t have to be taught how to give birth or breastfeed. I imagine that life
together with other humans meant that you saw the life cycle firsthand and
learned accordingly. Heck, you might have even helped with the process, truly
living into life together.
I long for the life I imagine. To know and be known in community, where
“iron sharpens iron, and one person sharpens the wits of another…just as
water reflects the face, so one human heart reflects another” (Proverbs
27:17, 19).
Of course, there is danger in pack life – ask anyone who has experience
with the mindset of a mob or a gang. In every form, there is infinite possibility
and danger, as we know from the smallest atom to the fathomless reaches of
space.
But life rightly lived is life together.
This past week was Holy Week. For Good Friday, I prepared slides for
worship that depicted different parts of the Passion narrative. And, I’ll
confess, Lent went by in a blur this year and I wasn’t very prepared for the
work. As image after image appeared in my search of the battered, bloody body
of Christ, I felt the tears come.
But the one that hit me the hardest was when I imagined myself at the
cross, because my creativity stood me in the place of Mary, Jesus’s mother. I
felt an echo of the surge of grief and pain that must have been hers when she
looked on her son, when she touched his crucified body. “Oh, my baby!”
Because being a parent, at least for me, means always thinking of my
children as my babies. I’m sure I’ll do it even when they’re old and I’m
ancient. But a part of me will always remember, will always be viscerally
connected to their joy and pain, will always want to provide them the shelter
and comfort of my own body.
I never thought I’d think of Jesus like that.
But suddenly, he wasn’t another person’s child – my compassion had been
stretched to see him like his own mother did. It was heart-breaking in
sorrowful and beautiful ways. In the next few moments, as I heard the news of
those injured and murdered in terror attacks, I felt that same wave of
compassion flood my system. Those are our
children – somewhere there is a mother, a father, a whole pack, who mourns
them. And beyond that, I thought of those whose desperation, whose isolation,
whose warped sense of superiority and righteousness would lead them to do such
things. Those, too, are our children.
Oh, how my heart hurts for them.
I pray we all find our packs, our communities of redemption, including
all the children whom God loves. Life is meant to be done together.
