All ills in the universe stem from a failure of connection
I went hiking at a place called Old Rag Mountain this past weekend with a dear friend. The location was Shenandoah National Park, Virginia, about an hour-and-a-half from where I live in Arlington.
The hike did not disappoint but I have to admit that as someone who lived in the Pacific Northwest until fairly recently, I had been a bit arrogant. Surely no East Coast hike will compare to the rough and brutal backcountry trails I had tackled and conquered while living in Seattle, I thought to myself. This one ought to be just a nice walk in the park. Literally.
Fast-forward a couple days and I’m feeling a lot humbler than I was just 72 hours ago. The climb to the top of this peak was brutally hot and steamy; I (wisely) took several liters of water and took just a few hours to consume all of it. In spots, the upper reaches of the trail were not really a trail at all but a taxing scramble over and between enormous, abrasive boulders with smooth faces that afforded little if any traction while scaling them. A few mild bruises and scrapes on my hands and knees attest to that.
Minutes after we reached the top, it began to rain. Hard. Not a misty Pacific Northwest rain. A veritable deluge. For hours. (If it had started on the way up, we simply wouldn’t have made it; the boulders would have been too slippery and dangerous.)
So hard, in fact, that by the time we got back to the car, enough water was sloshing around in my waterproof boots that my feet felt like they were in the ocean. Nothing could have kept us dry in that moment.
Eventually, we didn’t care. We were soaked; we couldn’t possibly get any wetter than we already were. We owned it. And now, it makes for a great memory and a good story.
And guess what? I felt alive. Total connection with the elements and with nature, something that I rarely experience as a city-dweller. Cooled off from the sweltering hike up. Great conversation with my hiking companion as we descended down a trail that was rapidly turning into a waterfall as the rain poured. Momentary discomfort shrouded by a sense of utter vitality. A sensation I hadn’t considered when I left that morning thinking I was just going out for a casual weekend stroll.
Perhaps because of this feeling of connection, I almost never leave the trail behind without having some sort of epiphany. Incidentally, this time around, connection itself was the very subject of that epiphany.
The Author of this universe and world is inherently relational in being, and all things that She brings into being follow that image—literally everyone and everything. A quote often attributed to John Muir is thus: “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”
It’s true. The rain that feeds the forest and the mountains on which we were hiking also feeds human life. Healthy balance of the lands and waters on Earth enable those rains to fall in the first place. Humanity is charged with stewardship of these resources, and that stewardship requires connection and relationship with one another.
Key to this dynamic is the idea that each component is critical and inherently attached to all others, yet also inherently unique. That is, each one depends on the other, but each one must also view the other with awe and reverence for being something—or someone—special and irreplaceable.
The honey bee cannot exist without the flower, but the flower cannot thrive without the honey bee. World culture and vibrancy would not exist without humanity, but humanity would not exist without everything Mother Earth provides, including elements like water and oxygen.
To turn a bit more spiritual if you wish: God the Father is unique from God the Son, but both are essential to the other and neither would be complete without perfect relationship with God the Holy Spirit. None are dispensable.
Where this dynamic breaks down — and where violence and brokenness in the universe results — is where one entity chooses to view another as nothing more than an object or a means to one’s ends. Does that sound overly simplistic? Maybe so, but it’s true. Think about it.
In the biblical story of original sin, the man and the woman were created to be in perfect relationship and to live in a state of shalom. But they chose to turn against God and each other for the sake of personal gain in the form of “knowledge.” Terrible consequences ensued.
In Nazi Germany, one people group objectified another and viewed it as less than human for the sake of power and personal promotion. The same thing happened in 1994 Rwanda. The same thing is happening today in Syria and other parts of the world that we never hear about from the mainstream media because it’s not profitable for them to cover — because what ultimately matters to the media (like other for-profit corporations) is ratings and revenue, not a genuine commitment to fellow human beings.
Again, failures of connection that produce catastrophic results.
We have a so-called “president” who views his office as nothing more than a means for personal enrichment, who takes credit for things that others have accomplished, who warps reality and lies with impunity in order to preserve his narcissistic delusions, who thinks he’s above the law, who will violate any norms or standards of decency in pursuit of self-aggrandizement, who cares only about power and “winning,” who treats others as nothing more than pawns in whatever scheme he’s obsessing over at the moment, and who treats women as toys in order to satisfy his carnal urges. He views no one but himself with love, or openness, or tenderness, or awe, or reverence, or grace. He has genuine relationship with no one but himself.
It must be a horribly lonely existence, and I hate to say it, but — mark my words — this “presidency” will end in calamity. I don’t know how or when, but it will, because this entire clown show represents a colossal failure of connection, and all failures of connection, as we have seen since the beginning of time both in recorded history and spiritual allegory, do not resolve without disastrous consequences taking place first.
Think for a moment about the biblical story of the life, betrayal, death, and resurrection of Christ. The ones who betrayed Christ did so for their own personal preservation and gain; they failed to connect and stay in relationship with the divine made flesh. Eventually this failure of connection was redeemed, but not before God Herself was murdered.
Now, think for a moment about any brokenness or violence or trauma or decay or death in this world or in your personal life. All of it, I believe, stems from failure of connection. Even physical decline and death, an inevitability that all of us will someday face, I believe is a reminder that our relationship with the eternal is out of whack in this realm. (Remember, even Christ faced physical death in the earthly realm.)
Before I close this, I want to go back to my hike at Shenandoah this past weekend. Remember how I thought it was going to be a walk in the park?
At least part of that stemmed from vanity — my belief that I’d be able to take in what nature had to offer in this place without immersing myself in it, without opening myself to it, without acknowledging my limitations, without taking part in it, without relying on it (most particularly the water I brought that prevented severe dehydration), and without being connected to it. I wanted personal gain without a true sense of reverence or awe or relationship.
That’s where my expectation fell short, and that’s where I received a spiritually important reminder.
We are meant for connection and relationship. It is at the core of all creation and being. Someday, connection and relationship is what will redeem all depravity; in the meantime, the absence of the former is what causes the latter over and over again.
