Dave Belden’s last post “So What’s a Spiritual Progressive to Do?” stuck with me all last night. Dave’s voice rings with urgency, an urgency to which all of us spiritual progressives respond. Who doesn’t know that we have to make change now? At least as quickly as humanly possible?

But those two — now and as quickly as humanly possible — are different animals. Now would have been yesterday for Dave, since he wrote his piece on the 30th. And humanly possible…that’s the rub for us. Humanly possible should be yesterday as well. But there are a lot of us humans, and we spiritual progressives have to educate many before the changes can be made.

All those “others” is what frustrates us, but it’s also our liberation in a paradoxical sense. I know that I can’t do this myself. And I can’t do it all. Each of us has to do what we can. And that means that some of us will work more locally, while others work more nationally. It means that some us will be learning how to more effective, while others are putting that knowledge into action. It means that some of us will take a spiritual retreat to rejuvenate ourselves, while others throw themselves into the middle of change-making.

“Spiritual progressive” as a term is only problematic when we look at it from an individualistic perspective, when we somehow expect everything to come together in each person, rather than in an entire movement. I don’t fault Dave for that understanding. It’s mine, too. I’ve been molded by the most individualistic culture in the world, that of the United States of America.

Part of the reason for American individualism lies in how all-emcompassing work has become during the last half of the twentieth century. With two-career families and greatly expanded work hours, Americans can no longer involve themselves in their communities or in political activism as they did in the 1960s and before. Many of us who are white and middle class have also become much more separated from our extended families than our ancestors during the first half the century, having traveled long distances to advance our careers. This throws us back on the resources of our nuclear families to a degree that is unhealthy. We’re busier, and, as a result, we end up hiring people to perform tasks that in earlier days would have been carried out by friends or relatives. Grandma doesn’t babysit anymore, because she’s living in Florida or Arizona. Instead we pay a child care provider, shifting one more relationship to the individualistic values of the marketplace.

For most of us in North America, community is fleeting or elusive. In the U.S. we move on average every 4 years, so how can we put down roots? We spend far too much time alone or with our families in front of the TV set or the computer, twittering or texting, time that used to be spent talking or getting together with friends and extended family. In fact, a recent study of the high-tech families of Silicon Valley found that they used technology to skip face-to-face contact, subsituting pagers, cell phones, faxes and e-mails to schedule their non-stop meetings, social functions, school time and errands.

We also live, if we can afford it, in hermetically-sealed boxes so that we don’t have to see or hear our neighbors nor smell what they’re cooking for dinner. The last item on this list became as plain as the nose on my face when I did a “lit drop” for my twenty-two year-old nephew when he was running for county supervisor in his student district in Madison. One of the apartment buildings I canvassed was full of foreign students, something that was immediately apparent when I opened the door to the building, and the smells of Indian and Chinese cuisine alternately tantalized and assailed my nostrils. When I walk in my neighborhood of small to medium-sized private homes, I can occasionally tell when someone is doing the laundry, because the air from their dryer is vented to the outdoors, but unless it’s summer and someone is grilling, I rarely know what’s for dinner.

All of this, plus more, makes the United States the most individualistic culture in the world. Harry Triandis did a survey of the the research on individualistic and communal cultures in 1972 and concluded the U.S. had the dubious distinction of being the most individualistic. And we haven’t become more communal since then. Just look at the fact that prospective students write smear letters about competitors in order to increase their chances of getting a spot at the university of their choice.

I almost always look at things from a personal, individualistic point of view. When I think about women and our position in society, I think in larger terms. But that’s because I was a Women’s Studies researcher for decades.  When I think about nature and the environment, I do as well. And that’s because I practice Wicca, and experience myself as a part of the allness of the universe.  But in other areas of my life my fallback position is often very personal.

In fact, the only way I came to this change in my thinking last night was that it bothered me –personally — so much that I had to reach a different conclusion. I’ve burned out a number of times. Why? Because I had to do it all myself, and immediately. Change the world or else! I know Dave wasn’t talking in those terms, but the urgency in his post caught fire in my veins, and that’s where I went.

Instead we need to know that we have help along the way. That we have a movement to depend on. That people will care for each other on the way, restore each others’ spirits on the way, not just when we burn out or get to the utopian end of the road when a Global Marshall Plan has been instituted and world governments look out for the world, not just their little neck of the woods.

The small scale is powerful, because it’s the one we live in and know. We live in our communities, with people we know. We can effect tangible change there. But we can also effect tangible change in our spiritual progressive movement if we don’t forget to ask for help, to enjoy the people we’re working with, and to breathe deeply with each other.

I know how to balance my life best when I’m actively involved in peace work, because peace activism attracts people who often know that they need peace in their personal lives as well as in their families, their communities, and in the world. We won’t get there with either/or. We will get there with both/and/and/and. “I get by with a little help from my friends.”


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