Part of the Whole
By Andrea Lingle
I was raised up believing I was somehow unique
Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes, unique in each way you can see
And now after some thinking, I'd say I'd rather be
A functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond meFrom “Helplessness Blues” by Fleet Foxes
What does it mean to be part of the holy? Can we even BE holy? Highway construction zones would indicate that the human race is very far from holy. We are an I-am-in-too-much-of-a-hurry-to-get-in-line kind of a species. We are are not the only ones who look out for ourselves. The other day my Golden Retriever was holding the (in our house) coveted duck toy. My Clumber Spaniel gave him and the duck the side eye and waggled over to me to beg for pets. The Golden’s brown eyes sharpened to green, and he nosed his way between the Clumber’s shorter head and my hand. Her strategy paid off as his anticipated jealousy, indeed, made him forgetful of the treasured duck. The Clumber ducked out from under my hand, swooped over to the abandoned duck, and trotted off with her prize.
This world is full of myopic number ones.
But could we dare to deviate from this well-worn track? Could we submit to life as “A functioning cog in some great machinery ” I am terrible at hearing lyrics, but my second child is finishing up her permitted driving, so I am now the DJ. I love Fleet Foxes, the band responsible for these lines, but never had the time to glimpse at the lyrics until I was promoted to passenger. My music streaming service has a feature wherein you can see the lyrics as they are sung, which feels like a miracle to this lyric-impaired, liner-notes reading girl. I have always loved the chorus of this song, which is perfect for singing in the car, but I couldn’t hear the words of the verses. That afternoon, in the right seat, I stared down at my phone, dumbfounded. “I was raised up believing I was somehow unique/Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes/unique in each way you can see.” I was also told I was special. More than that, I was told I should want to be special. Songs (what I could make out of them), t-shirts, cat-posters, quippy calendars all seem to agree: it is best to insist on being special. In fact, being special is supposed to make up for suffering, for hopelessness, for the endless afternoons of exchanging time for resources.
Yes, the world feels a bit sideways, but, at least, I am special.
It is false comfort, because we all know, just below the ridges of our fingerprints, we are all pretty much a wad of proteins. You and me and the hovering bee are all semi-regular arrangements of Carbon, Oxygen, Nitrogen, and Stardust. You and me can’t even fly.
In Plato’s Republic, which my high schoolers and I are reading, round about Book IV, Socrates finally breaks down and gives defining justice a whirl. After a little over a hundred pages of prevaricating, one hundred sixteen to be exact, he finally lands on the most underwhelming definition of justice imaginable. It is so underwhelming that you read right over it without realizing that this is the treasure for which we have been panning.
Do what is yours to do.
That, according to Socrates, is justice. Now, we aren’t done reading yet, so I have no doubt that we will end up standing on our heads and dangling this definition over many verbal cliffs in the next six books, but, for now, we finally have a definition. Justice for Plato (in Socrate’s voice) is not the study of ethics and morality, the distinction between right and wrong, but the framework or system where society works well. It is more about balance and order than our image of a Judge presiding over getting-what-you-deserve. Justice isn’t a courtroom affair, it is being a cog in a machine.
Could you take on the mind of a cog? of a bee? of a grove-bound tree?
Paul talked about being a part of a whole. He used the metaphor of a body to explain the Divine Community. Perhaps he had a copy of the Republic too. Justice wasn’t enough for Jesus. Plato’s guiding virtue was Justice; Jesus’s was Love. What does that mean? It means we can’t only do what is ours to do, we must pay attention to what the machine is doing. We must participate within the machine that brings more life, not just to all humans, but to all of creation. It is not enough to be part of the Whole. We must become part of the Holy.
If you feel inclined, comment with one word or one sentence that answers: What are you part of?