Care and Civilization

Whether or not the American anthropologist Margaret Mead actually said it, the image is haunting: a femur bone, thousands of years old, bearing the scars of a healed fracture. That broken leg suggested something profound about an ancient culture. It was not—Mead would have answered a student's question—a grinding stone, a clay vessel, or a fishing hook that marked the birth of civilization. The first sign was this: someone had chosen to care for the injured person. Not alone, perhaps, but with others. They stayed. They kept the wounded one safe from wild animals and the elements. They brought food. They offered protection. How many times have we heard or read it: how we care for the most vulnerable measures the true progress of a society. But do we actually believe that? The pull toward self-sufficiency remains strong. So does "the temptation and illusion that we can stand alone, that we can do without relationship and encounter"—especially when the other seems different from us. This was the message at an ecumenical vigil held in Rome on September 30th, organized by the Taizé community with help from various ecumenical groups. Among them was Fede e Luce, which, during the part of the gathering devoted to gratitude for the other, meditated on the Gospel story of the Good Samaritan through the language of mime. You will read about it in this issue, along with stories and testimonies that show, in many forms, how care becomes relationship—an encounter with the other, to be "protected and nurtured," as Lino writes in his diary. As Christmas approaches, may it deepen in our hearts the awareness that God chose us to be with one another, and that only in relationship will "the seed of beauty planted in each of us" bear fruit. May Emmanuel—the other par excellence, God with us—lead us to rediscover that beauty, that Love which is "our purpose and our very being," every single day.