Balancing Individual and Community Life

Dear Friends,

Two things vie with each other for the soul of the American public in our age as well as in our history – and I daresay, in our future. Of course, there are more than two, but humor me and let’s pay attention to these two. They are the good of the individual and the good of the community.

To be totally absorbed in the good of the individual can lead to selfishness. To be totally given over to work for the good of society can leave one empty.

The important thing is to keep a balance between these competing claims.

I once heard a story from the lore of a far distant land. It goes something like this:

On this particular day, the word went out throughout the village that Sarah was about to give birth. For days, as her time grew near, the sage of the village pondered what the name of the child of Sarah and Ben should be. The sage prayed, consulted the stars, and listened to the wind. On that new birth date, the whole village fell into silence, as it always did when a birth was imminent. Necessary messages were given in whispers, and even the children seemed to learn early on that the whole village must direct its energies to the birth of the new one of theirs.

As soon as the child was born, the sage whispered the name of the baby to Sarah, who first whispered it to the baby and then to Ben. Ben, in turn went out to the grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins and whispered the name to each of them. And they, in turn, went out into the whole village to whisper the name to everyone.

As soon as the whole village knew the baby’s name, they converged on the house, stood around it and chanted, sang the baby’s name.

This was a loved child, a welcomed child, a child who belonged not only to Sarah and Ben, but to the whole community, where, as the child grew, its destiny and contribution to the life of the community would become clear.

The lessons are clear: Without the individual, there is no community. Without the individual, called by name in baptism, there is no church.

The civic community and the church welcome the individual and offer that person everything they need to grow and become more and more fully who they are. The individual also has a responsibility for the community and the church.

“If one is to do good,” says the ethicist William Blake, “good must be done in minute detail. General good is the lea of the hypocrite, the scoundrel and the flatterer,” he concludes.

But the movement from general good (e.g. I wish no one evil. All lives matter.) to the particular good (e.g. What must I do…) requires the sacrifice of some of our apparent individual goods. Therein is the rub!

To break down isolation of people by race, income and culture, to bridge the widening gaps that separate rich, poor and the shrinking middle class, to advance liberty and justice for all, we need to step up, step out, step in. Our baptism calls us to do nothing less.

~Sister Joan Sobala