Hardwired to Connect

I can't resist just one more blog post about Rod Dreher's book The Little Way of Ruthie Leming, the story of the life and early death of cancer of Rod's sister.

Reflecting on Ruthie's life and death in the little town of Starhill, Louisiana and on the fact that like it or not suffering and death comes into every family and every life, Dreher writes:

The insurance company, if you're lucky enough to have insurance, pays your doctor and pharmacists, but it will not cook for you when you're too sick to cook for yourself and your kind. Nor will it clean your house, pick your kids up from school, or take them shopping when you're too weak to get out of bed. A bureaucrat from the state or the insurance company won't come sit with you, and pray with you, and tell you she loves you. It won't be the government or your insurer who allows you to die in peace, if it comes to that, because it can assure you that your spouse and children will not be left behind to face the world alone.

Only your family and your community can do that. 

In 2003, the Institute for American Values produce a report entitled "Hardwired to Connect" that addressed "the rising rates of mental problems and emotional distress among U.S. children and adolescents." Their solution is to encourage what they called "authoritative communities."

Authoritative communities are groups that live out the types of connectedness that our children increasingly lack. They are groups of people who are committed to one another over time and who model and pass on at least part of what it means to be a good person and live a good life. Renewing and building them is the key to improving the lives of U.S. children and adolescents.

Let me go further to say that renewing, building, and participating in such communities, places that are small enough that we know and are known--families, churches, clubs, small groups, towns--is the key to improving all of our lives regardless of our ages.