A Crisis of Connection
The Second Mountain is the most recent book by New York Times columnist David Brooks. Like many Op-Ed contributors, Brooks has a keen ability to articulate what’s wrong with our culture. Like too few of his colleagues, Brooks also has the ability to inspire hope for what can be done. The Second Mountain represents the best of these abilities, and, without apology, you will likely hear me quote it too much lately. In its introduction, he diagnoses the problem eroding the core of our culture AND prescribes the cure:
“Our society suffers from a crisis of connection, a crisis of solidarity. We live in a culture of hyper-individualism. There is always a tension between self and society, between the individual and the group. Over the past sixty years we have swung too far toward the self. The only way out is to rebalance, to build a culture that steers people toward relation, community, and commitment—the things we most deeply yearn for, yet undermine with our hyper-individualistic way of life.”
I believe God has abundantly equipped St. Paul’s for precisely this work: to help restore relationships, community, and commitments for the common good of Greenville and beyond. I see glimpses of this in you on a regular basis. I see it in a group of parishioners who take small gifts of encouragement (and cheesecake) to others just to remind them that they’re loved. I see it in a growing number of neighbors who are welcomed to our food pantry each week. I saw it as more than a hundred people ages six to 92 gathered for Rise Against Hunger to assemble thousands of meals for unknown neighbors around the globe. I see it every week as people from every generation gather around God’s table here to share a meal.
The more we experience such things together, the more we stand to resist the crisis of connection that’s consuming our culture. No one can restore connection by themselves. It takes all of us, and that includes you. We need each other. With that in mind, I ask each of you to consider making two commitments to connection with us this fall. First, make a commitment to regular connection to worship on Sunday or Wednesday: to build community, we need to see each other and give thanks together for God’s gifts in our lives. Second, make a regular commitment to connect through one of the many opportunities to learn, serve, and share with us: be that through participating in Sunday school, Wednesday night suppers, the Food Pantry, Episcopal Youth Community (EYC), the Episcopal Church Women (ECW), Paulsmen, Hosts and Helpers, desk volunteers, choir, the altar and flower guilds, and altar ministers, to name just a few.
I’m not asking you to commit to these things to make you a better person. Whatever personal benefit they may have, I’m asking you to commit to restoring communities of connection with the church to which God has called you for the sake of resisting the crisis of connection plaguing our world. Our lives may seem small in the scope of such a crisis, which means we’ll have to rely all the more on the very big God whose love relentlessly draws us together.
Need help connecting? Get in touch with Fr. Skip Walker for help.
– Andrew