Published 11/05/08

 

No Individual Can Thrive In A Dying Community

 

If we observe a healthy pepper plant growing in a garden we can see that, so long as it gets the nourishment it needs, it flourishes and bears its fruit.  If we look closer, however, we might notice that occasionally there will be wilted leaves, broken branches, or areas that bear more leaves than peppers.  Does the plant not continue to draw up nutrients from the soil, and deliver them to the sickly or less productive branches, along with the healthy and fruitful?

 

Most plants thrive in this manner, and so long as their unproductive portions do not overwhelm the available nutrients, ALL parts of each plant live.

 

Is this not also the case with human communities?  It seems to me that, at this nation’s beginning, we were composed primarily of small communities that functioned very much like any other living organism.

 

Now consider a pepper plant being grown on a large farm along with countless other plants of the same species.  The farmer, wanting to mimic the functioning of the individual plant’s “community,” withholds a portion of food from those plants that are doing well and gives EXTRA food to poor plants.  Thus, rather than each plant nurturing its own “needy” portions, whole plants are deprived of a portion of what they need in order to ensure the survival of all.  This unnatural arrangement then requires the continual interposition of the farmer to keep the whole process going.

 

Is this not how America has evolved?  How many of us rely on third parties; government, company retirement, Wall Street investors, insurance companies, etc., for our health and future welfare, while at the same time forgetting the people in our communities?

 

The past few years have shown that ALL of our institutions have significant vulnerabilities.

 

How well do you know your neighbors?