Focusing on Community
Perspective is everything. Last week I had cataract surgery; a pretty common procedure, but with uncommon insights, as it were. When the surgeon was planning for my surgery he gave me the choice – did I want to have clear vision close up or at a distance? Given I spend a lot of time at my computer and among my books, between meetings on zoom, evaluating potential curriculum and reading resources, it was more important to me to have my near vision restored. I was excited to no longer live in the foggy haze of cataracts, but what I didn’t anticipate is how this procedure would also eliminate the blur of astigmatism that I’ve lived with most of my life – I’ve been in contacts or glasses for over 50 years.
My near vision is now actually crisper than in my living memory. They won’t prescribe new glasses for another 4 weeks, so the rest of my vision is now blurry, but no longer foggy. The newness and the contrasts have begged the questions, “what have I not been seeing, in my world?” “Where do I focus my attention?” It invites me to slow down and really look at what I may have missed before.
It has brought up memories of when my perspective has shifted in the past. The surprise at what I had been missing as a child, when I got my first pair of glasses, juxtaposed with the negative perspectives and teasing that diminished my self-image as a “four-eyed” kid. When I moved to contacts as a young woman, I came to realize that with glasses on I tended to blend into the woodwork – a true wallflower. Not having the barrier of glasses allowed me to be seen and to see myself in a new light; as someone who could step into the limelight on and off stage. Having to go back to glasses in my 40s, I was better equipped and settled in my identity. But what does it mean at 66 to once again step out from behind the windows of glass?
Where do I need to put my focus now? Where do we need to focus, when so much of life is rushing by in a blur of change and chaos, in this moment? What do we choose to focus on?
My surgery was 3 days before the first night of Passover, so my immediate focus was on how to navigate hosting our family seder when my sight would be uncertain. I was reminded of another important consideration in the healing process. When we can’t see at a distance, when our capacity is limited, we need to reach out for the support of our community. I had to ask for help from those who were going to gather.
When I only have clarity of vision for what is close at hand, I must slow down to discern what lies ahead. I must be patient that as things get closer, they will become clearer. But part of that clarity comes from our shared experience, just as we all shared in the Passover journey during my recuperation. When we change our focus to a shared vision, new insight is possible.
We all saw that last weekend, when tens of thousands of people came out in every state to voice their shared concern for the direction our country is heading. A mixed multitude, just like the enslaved peoples who made the exodus out of Egypt. The exodus story tends to focus on the tribe of Israel only, but when we shift our focus, we remember that it was a mixed multitude of people who collectively stood up to the Pharoah of their time to say – No more! Their shared vision empowered them, just as it is for the mixed multitudes who are responding to this moment.
Where we focus our attention matters. For most of the last century, as the world came more sharply into view through media and internet, we have gotten to see in stark contrast the many ways our history books and leadership have blurred and glossed over the myriad ways systemic oppression has made the lives of poor folk, BIPOC folk, queer folk, and refugees a constant struggle. The powerful tried to draw our focus away from compassion and civility by pitting all of the common folk against one another. They don’t want us to focus on the slight of cruel hands which have stolen livelihoods, by shipping off jobs to foreign lands. They don’t want us to focus on the shredded social safety net that earlier generations fought to create for the common good. They want us to focus on being a melting pot, rather than remembering the perspective that we are all refugees and immigrants in this land.
Coming to a shared vision amplifies the possibilities. The old adage that there is strength in numbers is true. It is also true that when faced with an authoritarian regime, if between 3.5 – 10 percent of the population come to a shared vision of conviction and hope, regimes topple.
But what comes after regimes are brought down? Where do we focus for resilience in the near view and for the vision of a future that is still too blurry to discern? We focus on community. One of the greatest tragedies of the past 5 years of pandemic and political upheaval has been how isolated and lonely folks have become. We need community now more than ever. We need to be breaking bread, dropping off casseroles, sharing our vegetable gardens. Checking in on each other. Sharing the load and sharing the vision.
Churches and other spiritual centers used to be the place that nurtured that sense of community. And for many people that is still true. But what is also true is that the largest growing demographic, spiritually speaking, are those who identify themselves as Spiritual But Not Religious. For most, their spiritual practices have been mostly solitary endeavors. It is not that they don’t still yearn for community, but the old structures no longer hold a vision which speaks to them. So the question we must ask ourselves, is what does community look like today, for people who may have sojourned in a variety of traditions or no tradition. How does a mixed multitude find a new vision of community?
When we shift our focus, that is the real miracle of the Exodus story. That a mixed multitude of people with different beliefs and backgrounds created a new community in the wilderness. Formerly enslaved peoples made a day of rest, sacred. Rather than bowing down to pharaohs and golden idols, they lifted up the widow, the orphan and the refugee. They dedicated themselves to a divine source whose name was the interbreathing of all life, and which recognizes that each and every person regardless of race, religion or gender is made in the image of that divine source. From a mixed multitude, they shifted their focus and came to see themselves as a beloved community.