Triple-braided Cord



Ecclesiastes 4:12 A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is
not easily broken.

I made a conscious decision when I began this blog to work hard to ensure it was not incomprehensible to those outside my own world-view of Christianity. I eschewed Christian insider language and the temptation to assume the beliefs and behaviors I hold dear are universally held. I have other venues and platforms to speak in the insider's language of Christianity and have places where those of my own world-view congregate to read or hear what I believe and how I behave because of my deeply held convictions stemming from my world-view.

But in writing in that other place I sent out an idea that I feel belongs here as well despite the danger it may be incomprehensible to those outside Christianity. So if this sounds like gibberish to you, please excuse the lapse, but I hope I can transcend the sub-cultural linguistic and intellectual barriers between world-views and communicate a concept that I believe exists in many places under many guises.

I spend my life devoted to helping late adolescents become inter dependant adults. Many feel the largest challenge is helping them see that their spiritual identity in this journey to adulthood is as essential as the physical or emotional aspects of their growth. But in many ways I believe the greater challenge is the belief that their goal in becoming adults is to become independent not inter dependant.  Among those who believe my world-view there is a growing sense of individualism that is reaching pandemic proportions.

Ecclesiastes is one of the wisdom books in the Christian Bible and in the text I quoted it speaks of the benefits of community, of accepting the burden and the advantages of being inter dependent on others. It brings safety in numbers but also the constraining aspects of being responsible for others.

I confess it isn’t only the younger generation who reach for independence in our new age of self-orientation. I see in myself and my peers a growing trend to be self-reliant; to be wearied of waiting for others to catch up or to find myself unhealthily straining beyond my capacity rather than admit weakness or vulnerability by calling out for help from those beside me. I’m 41 and in that time I’ve too often accepted the need to look after me and mine rather than binding myself to community that may limit my own dreams or desires. Then I bemoan the fact that the young men and women I walk with are reluctant to tie themselves to communities of inter dependent adults!

 The sacred texts that I follow in my Christian world-view demand an approach of inter dependence and self-denial for the common good. Yet I find myself to be far too independent and far from willing to accept the limitations and vulnerabilities of being tied to other adults in a constraining community of diverse ideas and goals.

 I’m certain other world-views extoll the virtues of selfless giving to the communal good of humanity and the other inhabitants of this planet. But despite the many exhortations from a multitude of divergent world-views I’m shocked by the reluctance we in the western world have to give ourselves to others in inter dependent commitment.

 My old mentor and leader back in Northern Ireland repeatedly reminded me that a person can only lead and teach others to the limit of their own reach and place. Before I can extoll the virtues of inter dependence to young men and women perhaps I should revisit my own willingness to be tied by a triple braided cord!