Firefly, Joss Whedon's unfinished (or half-finished, since Serenity came out) epic deep-space series, resonates very deeply with outsiders, with our crazy culture. It's a story of finding family in the most unlikely of places, of making family with the people around you in a fragmented society. Each character has an opinion on each of the others, a mix of respect and annoyance. Each individual finds a fragile but beautiful family brought together by chance, difficult pasts, and a little love.
I think one of the reasons that the poor are blessed is that they have to depend on one another. Because they realize they couldn't do what they're doing on their own. And perhaps one of the most destructive beliefs, no, it goes deeper than that, roots of American culture is the idea that in order to succeed, you have to leave it all behind and go it alone. You have to be able to make it on your own to be a real man, a truly independent woman. That in order to succeed, you have to go it alone.
Gangs are a reality of inner-city life in this hemisphere. You see the tags and tats in almost every major city: New York, Guate, LA, DF. On a local level, you could think of them as grassroots labour organizations or pyramid schemes, but I think the essential allure of gang life is family. Of knowing that when you walk out into the streets, you're not alone.
We're a homeless culture, the United States the vanguard in a global society where place is becoming less and less particular. In such a global society, flows of capital and labour mean that while a "living" might not be sustainable in an overcrowded refugee camp, the flexible and willing to compromise can rise to great heights thousands of miles from "home." But orphans of divorce, emotionally abandoned children, wealthy and poor line the halls of every school in every country. Those without family are manipulated to kill, prostitute, and suffer by evil and desperate individuals in places like Oklahoma City, San Diego, Pensacola, and Atlantic City. Out at 18, foster children in the United States, impovershed youth in Guatemala's slums, and orphans in the Ukraine all fall prey to gangs, suicide, and drug addiction. They medicate their helplessness with violence, their lonliness and lack of self-worth with sex and "under the table" medications. Many college students aren't that different. Grad schools and jobs lead us further and further away from family and often dehumanize us altogether. Those of us who are "good" often medicate these same afflictions that street kids face with much smoother veneers: we work for houses, cars, to "provide" for our family, and for the accolades of teachers and bosses, we volunteer and give, and these things make us feel accepted and good and a part of something.
But it's not family, it's not true community. I've seen family in Mexico: when churches and friends come together and truly focus on serving one another. When a family takes in abused, neglected, and previously unwanted children and makes them their own. I've seen family in Oklahoma, when a family invites me to share Thanksgiving with them, in worship nights, or when my friends and I would stay up til all hours of the night reading, eating, talking, and listening to music together. I've seen churches and schools in Lithuania adopt orphanages as their own. I've seen family in Russia as well: a couple of the church families I met there were truly extended, in that you couldn't really tell where blood ends, but you knew that family spread beyond just being related. I see family in California and Pensacola, when I'm welcomed back no questions asked, and welcomed home. Family can be brief, when one person takes on the burdens of another person for a conversation, a moment, or some support between paychecks. But true family is unconditional, and as such, although life is change, unchanging. It's a lifelong commitment to another, a marriage of individuals. Family can be united around a common idea or task, but it knows no religion and doesn't even need common interests. My most profound experience of community was in Scotland, where our shared experience wasn't much more than that we shared meals together, did laundry with each other, walked to the grocery store together, and had a "community night" once a week where we shared dinner and sometimes we'd have music nights. It was as simple as us deciding to be together and treat each others as equals, and to open up what was really going on in our lives a bit. Frisbee and movies are also something that have brought me closer to my roommates, past and present. But I think true community happens when we pray, and when we do dishes or run errands together, not as a favor, but as a part of family.
So I would encourage you to be a person that invites family wherever you are. Invite people over, bring people in. Talk to strangers on the bus and in elevators and lines at the grocery store. Ask lots of questions. Listen a lot. Don't settle for status quo with the people you live with. Love the people around you more than you love yourself and your grand story. Get involved in theirs. And when you do that, and really commit to it, you'll create community.
To be continued...
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