Interdependent Living

When I first started exploring moving here to Seventy Five State Street while receiving Chemotherapy this summer, I was told I had my choice between two levels of service: "Assisted Living," which included a great deal of nursing care and various other 24/7 personal services; and "Independent Living," which is basically a furnished apartment, three meals a day, weekly housekeeping service and transportation to and from my medical appointments. Naturally I chose the latter, especially since it was half the price, and in an emergency I can always call upon the nursing staff anyway and settle up the bill at the end of the month.

But the truth is (and despite receiving an "A+" from my Occupational Therapist on my ADLs/"Activities of Daily Living"), I'm not really "independent." I doubt any of us are. I need assistance; I need help with such basic things as keeping track of all my prescriptions and medical bills, making my bed, picking up my room, cleaning out the fridge of uneaten leftovers. Not to mention the really important things. My dependence upon the assistance and good-will of others is staggering. And it is my recognition of that dependence/interdependence which forms the foundation of my theology of Gratitude, Generosity, Humility and Service.

Of course, those old-time, old-school "classical" corpse-cold Unitarians of the "Golden Age" used to talk about these same values in terms of "Self-Culture" -- the development or "cultivation" of our souls, through a series of probationary "trials," into mature spirits worthy of thinking of ourselves (and behaving) as God's children. The emphasis we read so often in the inspirational literature of those days on self-discipline and individual self-reliance. service, self-sacrifice and "being of use" are all part of this larger paradigm regarding what it means to be privileged members of a larger community, and an accompanying sense of noblesse oblige -- the conviction that of those to whom much has been given, much will be expected. Advantages do not free us from our obligations. If anything, they only make them stronger.

That's the old-school way. How ironic that so many of those dead white males (Theodore Parker and Henry Ware Jr. among them) died so young....