A Time to Build and A Time to Tear Down

This post is cross-posted at the Denver Presbytery Mental Health and Well-Being Blog.

Our religious traditions often include wisdom literature, whether those are in the forms of scripture or in the forms of interpretation and midrash. Wisdom is meant to be a grounding place when the world feels chaotic. When I feel like chaos is becoming overwhelming, I will sometimes return to Ecclesiastes.

Without delving deep into exegesis, I find the wisdom of Ecclesiastes to be comforting and challenging. Rather than the one-liners of Proverbs or the deep interpretive possibilities of the parable, Ecclesiastes simply reminds us there is a time for everything under the sun.

Through the wisdom of this writer, we begin to see the complexity of life. It is not a resignation to the cycles that we are all a part of; death and life, planting and uprooting, weeping and laughing, and breaking down and building up.

It’s that last one that has me thinking about mental health and well-being. Often, we equate mental health with individual mindsets, frames, and ways of being. To be mentally well is to take care of our emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual lives. What gets lost is the communal life; and, what may feel lost during the chaos of a pandemic is connection.

Good mental health and well-being is predicated on connection to the community around us. In order to build up resilience, we must break down relational barriers. We see some of this happening with the plethora of zoom calls, online groups and worship, and virtual happy hours and shared meals. However, I think we can do better.

To thrive, though, we need to move beyond self-care and into community care. “Community care is basically any care provided by a single individual to benefit other people in their life.” We see all forms of community care happening in the digital world today. However, I want us to begin thinking about the world right outside our front door as well. Here are some thoughts:

Create a contact list for your block, your apartment complex floor, your immediate surroundings.

How many of us know our immediate neighbors? Maybe we know a couple of them; we’re friendly in passing to what seems like a familiar face. Take a moment, print out a brief description of who you are and what you’d like to do. “My name is _________. I live at _________. I’d like to create an email and phone list for our block, floor, area. Would you be willing to share your name and contact information? You can drop it off at _______, and I’ll be in touch soon.”

Get some exercise and deliver the small slips of paper to each of your neighbors, or better yet enlist a neighbor help or get your kids to write the notes and deliver them (with supervision). You don’t have to be the one to do it all, but as spiritual leaders we are trained to be attuned to communities, use that knowledge well.

Offer to help.

Once this list is established, frame its use. Send out a welcome email. Introduce yourself, ask others to do the same. Offer to help. “One of the things I enjoy is ________.” “If anyone needs help with _______ I’d be happy to try.” Don’t give a blank check, give specifics. If you are willing to make a grocery run for an elderly couple, then say so. If not, don’t promise it.

Get curious.

Curiosity is one of the best tools we can use to connect. Rather than leave all our interactions to email, pick up the phone and call. Without interrogating another person, ask meaningful questions. These generally begin with “what” or “how” and followed up with a paraphrase of their answer. Be wide-eyed with wonder and invite people to share their interests and expertise. Share your own as a point of connection, rather than comparison.

Begin with being thankful.

For some people sharing is difficult. We’ve created a culture that is seemingly more interested in what separates us than what connects us.  Simply thank people for who they are and what they bring with them. You may differ widely and wildly in worldview, now is not the time to correct and cajole. To truly change yourself and others around you takes a great deal of time, and most importantly a relationship built on trust.