We Are In This Together

 

   It’s been said that, “We are (not all in the same boat but we are) all in the same storm.” This is a metaphor I’ve seen used to describe the crisis we are all experiencing as we endure a global pandemic. The image seeks to communicate that we are all in this together and yet experience things differently based on our individual circumstances and perspectives.

    I’ve been thinking of another this week from the letters of Paul, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ…As it is, there are many members, yet one body…If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it” (Excerpts from 1 Corinthians 12, NRSV).

    If we apply the body metaphor (particularly the phrase ‘If one member suffers, all suffer together with it’) to our current local and global context, I wonder what applications and implications we might discover together that could help us endure, heal, and even thrive collectively, compassionately, and courageously as one, common humanity. Here’s some that come to mind for me today. What would you add or how would you say it differently?

-      We are suffocating from our knee weighing on our own neck. We are saying, “I can’t breathe. My stomach hurts. My neck hurts. Everything hurts. They’re going to kill me” – George Floyd.

-      We are burning up from a centuries long fever of pent up frustration, pain, and longing for justice, racial equality, freedom, and life with the symptom presenting in the city of Minneapolis and communities of color across the country. While fever can bring healing, it can also be self-destructive.

-      We are starving with staggering numbers of people out of work, families seeking food assistance, and businesses going bankrupt.

-      We are grieving from loss upon loss, trauma upon trauma, and isolation upon isolation. 

-      We are drowning in a flood of misinformation, political polarization, and distrust of our fellow human beings.

-      We are dying from an infectious disease with 100,000 members of our national body having perished in the last 2½ months from Covid-19.

-      We are suffering because “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it.”

We are one body. We are in this together.