“If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”
This quote by Lilla Watson speaks to and reveals the profoundly vital—that is, life giving—simultaneity of connectedness and indebtedness—to each other, to the world in which we live, to all that makes us and our flourishing possible. On the weekend of Earth Day 2018, I have been sitting with these words and a reflection from Eminent Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh on what he coins as “interbeing.” And, honestly, I am struggling a little. Here’s why…
Both Lilla Watson and Thich Nhat Hanh are expressing, at least in my mind, an amazingly luminous insight. The fabric of our very being—that which makes us possible at the deepest level—is woven in interrelatedness; so much so that there is no other way for me to be me and you to be you. And, if that isn’t enough, for us to achieve our fullest potential, we have to work together. Said differently, we are intimately connected and indebted to each other for our very being. When you are free to be you, then I am able to be me. It sounds a bit ridiculous, I know. But think about it for a second. It doesn’t say, when I am me, then you can be you, as if to say “by my permission.” Simplistically, the first movement comes from beyond me, from the Other; and recognizing that is the first step to our liberation. Perhaps, respectful gratitude is the second step; and the third is full on attentive and intentional engagement: working together because our liberation is bound up in our mutuality.
Far from doing justice to the insight these prophetic thinkers have generously shared, I am only trying to highlight a truth which, if we accept, should point us toward a way of being together in the world. This “asymmetrical” relationality (borrowing a notion from 20th century Jewish philosopher and theologian Emmanuel Levinas) makes me want to pay close attention to my neighbor (to those who are hungry, thirsty, alone, naked, sick, in prison). All of this brings me to my point, the point at the beginning where I said I was struggling a little.
I believe that Lilla Watson and Thich Nhat Hanh have let us in on a very significant truth and life lesson which has the power to transform and heal this broken world—not just on Earth Day once a year, but every day in every encounter. I suspect that there are many other thinkers with similar ideas, grounded in other spiritual, religious, humanistic traditions. Profound interdependence isn’t an original thought, but it is an originary thought in that it brings us back each time to something original yet paradoxically contemporaneous. It is a notion which, when lived, has the power to shape our world view and transform the world.
So why isn’t this the headline story on CNN each day? Why isn’t there a daily feature in the New York Times and Washington Post talking about how this is making a difference? Shouldn’t this be the big game in town? What needs to happen, what needs to change for us to see the path illuminated by this reality? Clearly, there is a “way” of being—toward each other and all that is—expressed by the idea that in, our interbeing, my flourishing is dependent on your flourishing. In all humility, I am indebted to your flourishing for my own flourishing.
Rather than pursue a social critique of having versus being, I am really asking how we shift discourse in this direction so that Earth Day is every day, and our vulnerable neighbors are at the center of our attention and not marginalized.
I don’t have a ready answer to this question. Pope Francis, Malala Yousafzai, Thich Nhat Hanh, Lilla Watson, Paul Farmer, Winona LaDuke are some of the persistent and courageous voices speaking on behalf our connectedness to each other and the Earth. Listening to those voices helps to generate the kind of hope which springs from solidarity and presence. More importantly perhaps is hearing our own interbeing in the river that gives us water to drink, in the air that we breath, in the land that we cultivate for food…hearing our own flourishing in the life of someone who may be disenfranchised and oppressed, calling out to us in need…
