Dr King has been dead longer than he was alive. And his dream seems as wobbly as the 94 years old he would have been this year. This is what happens to dreams too tethered to specific humans as we tend to age quicker than grand hopes can be fulfilled. King got the idea of “beloved community” from Josiah Royce, who would have been 169 this year. Amos, the prophet who imagined the waters of justice rolling down would be 2,788. Born 11 miles south of Jerusalem, I doubt he’d be feeling fulfilled if he’s watching from wherever.
Closer to home in little Winston Salem there is energy stirring to come together in a different way, one organized around the “vital conditions” linked to the Leading Causes of Life. Deeply informed and illuminated by the strategic fervor for equity, the vital conditions look at the community of people and organizations who hope with the tenacity of King and Amos for justice to roll at least a bit. Monte Roulier, the bard of Community Initiatives, was here just a month ago to talk about how we might do the plumbing for those rolling waters and not just chase whatever bothers us the most at the moment (homelessness, no–addiction, no-reading levels, no-toxic waste, no-poverty, no-whatever). Precisely because we have so many non-profits within 10 miles of city hall, each of which is organized around solving something ugly, it is very hard to work together long enough to see any change. Most of the organizations have some staff and a Board and donors whose attention span competes with all the other organizations’ needs.
Our fears compete while our common hopes are starved. While tribes can be built on fear, community is built on hope and possibility.
It is odd to look at civic body experiencing the Iowa caucuses next to the day honoring Dr. King, while the journalists run out of adjectives for the suffering in Gaza, Ukraine and among those struggling north to the US border. All this while a man who once held our highest office does all he can to shred the social and legal threads that hold us together. He has a tribe built on the fear of of community. It’s not the only such tribe around the world.
Anyone who is not depressed and anxious is simply not paying attention.
TC urged me to read Johann Hari’s book, Lost Connections, an exploration of the roots of our pandemic of depression and anxiety. He unpacks how our therapists and physicians are treating our depression and anxiety with a staggering amount of pharmaceuticals rolling down like a mighty river in our veins. His simple point is that the epidemic of depression can’t be fixed by pharma because the problem is not in our heads; it’s in the space between us, the one now filled with vitriol driving us farther apart at the very moment we need each other most.
“You aren’t a machine with broken parts. You are an animal whose needs are not being met. You need to have a community. You need to have meaningful values, not the junk values you’ve been pumped full of all your life, telling you happiness comes through money and buying objects. You need to have meaningful work. You need the natural world. You need to feel you are respected. You need a secure future. You need connections to all these things.” (p318)
And of course, when he says “you,” he means me, you, himself and every single one of those we think we should fear or want to hurt. When depressed and anxious we lose the capacity to trust ourselves or anyone around us. The pills only dull the pain; they can’t resolve the disconnection.
We are deeply ill as a body politic, circling in our fears from the very people we need the most. Who do we need most? People who are annoyingly different, inconveniently complex, who don’t echo what we want to hear. Sort of like you’d find sitting down the row from you in church or standing next to you in line to vote.
Johann Hari is clear that this circling inward is serves the interests of the professionals plundering our souls by misdiagnosing our suffering . The pills for depression and anxiety are not medically effective except in rare circumstances. They create collateral damage at the individual level in such predictable things as weight gain. The pills and pill hucksters gain from our loss of energy, clarity and self efficacy. Every syllable is an accurate description of the venal way politicians exploit our fears.
No wonder people would vote for a transparent fraud. No wonder so few weep over Gaza and Nova Rave. No wonder people find the institutions of faith so hollow.
Hari suggests 7 anti-depressants—reconnections. None of these are in our heads or even our Spirit. Rather, the solutions are near at hand. He means literally at the fingertips where we touch other humans and focus on their joy or possibilities instead doing another lap inside ourselves.
Ask ourselves who is trying to make me and you more afraid. Walk away from them. Certainly, do not vote or give money to anyone who would gain from your fear.
Ask instead who might need some hope. Go toward them and show up in a real way. You should not go alone. Our culture, even hollowed out and brittle, still has an almost bizarre range of voluntary associations that will be happy to see you and give you a task that fits your hand.
Many such organizations were created in the aftermath of Dr King’s murder those many decades ago. They are what Jimmy Carter once called the mundane revolution, as practical as a bag of food, as basic electricity not being turned off, as modern as vaccine.
Hari’s hope is realistic and well-founded because it is not normal for humans to be so disconnected, medicated and fearful. Rather, we should expect to see a great turning toward the life of the whole people. It would be normal to experience an epidemic of connections of meaning, trust and respect.
A 94-year old King would remind us that he never promised that he would get there with us, and we might not either. Walking in hand is the way.
Iris Dement sings it:
Power, greed, and profit
Will never feed the soul
These three shovels have dug us
A deep dark hole
Compassion, understanding
And living one for all
And all for one is what it’s gonna take
To break this fall
How long? How long?
He said “Till justice rolls down like water
‘Till justice rolls down like water
‘Till justice rolls down like water
And righteousness flows like a mighty stream”
(You can listen to How Long: https://irisdementofficial.bandcamp.com/track/how-long)
