The Myth of Independence

“The Myth of Independence.” A strange title for a blog the day before our July 4th celebration of Independence Day! Actually, I toned down the title a little; it was going to be called, “The Independence Delusion,” but I didn’t want any of my readers to think I was calling them delusional. (Of course, some of you may think that the description applies to the author of this blog . . . )

Calling the idea of independence a myth is not a political statement. It is not a slam against the holiday nor against our nation’s history or sovereignty. I do not long for those days of yesteryear when we were English colonies ruled by King George the Something. No, my comment about the mythical nature of our ideas of independence is much broader than that.

My position is two-fold. First, that none of us is independent in our personal or social lives. We need other people. Even the most “self-made man” (as we used to call a successful person) depended on others to get where he is. And second, that’s the way God desired and designed us to be – dependent on each other, and ultimately, on him.

We are truly dependent on each other and on God, and that’s the way God intended us to be.

Let’s look briefly at each point, since I know you’d rather get out and grill something and watch fireworks and celebrate Independence Day than read some guy’s blog. So here goes:

First: we are dependent on each other from the start of our lives to the very end. We are born not on our own, but we were conceived, gestated, born, nursed, fed, sheltered, and clothed all by the loving acts of our parents (or other guardians if something happens to them). We are taught and acculturated by family, school teachers, books and other media produced by others. The languages we speak were created and passed on by others: I don’t speak Richeddyese; I speak English and smatterings of other languages developed and taught to me by other people.

Then it comes to our material needs, which are met by things produced by other people. I could survive for a while eating grubs and berries and tasty insects, but all the food I eat was grown or raised and processed by others. (As Luther said, it’s good we have farmers, because if we were all pastors we would starve without anyone to grow us our food!) We even depend on others for the water we drink: not that they created it, but they filter, purify, and pump it into our homes and workplaces. And some people bottle that water and sell it to us at high prices! And how do we buy that and other products? With money and a monetary system created and regulated by others.

And what about our clothes, our homes, our cars, our computers and phones, our TVs and radios – for all these things we depend on others to create, manufacture, distribute, and repair. Sure, we could sew fig leaves together for clothing (that was tried once) but given my luck, I’d probably grab poison ivy or stinging nettle by mistake.

Then we get into categories like medicine, medications, medical equipment and instruments, physicians, other skilled health care workers, and care-givers. And what about police, firefighters and rescue workers, armed forces to defend our country, and government services to protect us and help us in case of personal need or social tragedies.

Even the most successful billionaire who thinks he or she has done it all and doesn’t need anyone else is delusional: they only got to where they were by the help of others, including lenders, partners, employees, and customers – or wealthy parents or a rich uncle.

I thought about the myth of independence when I first heard Hank Williams, Jr.’s song, “Country Boy Can Survive.” I like the song’s tune, Hank’s voice, and the pride in self-reliance it proclaims, but it’s that last thing, self-reliance where I also have an issue. The main point of the song is that “country folks” know how to take care of themselves from living close to the land with old-fashioned values. One verse goes like this:

I live in the back woods you see, A woman and the kids and a dog and me. I got a shotgun, a rifle, and a 4-wheel drive. And a country boy can survive; Country folks can survive.

What bothered me about the song was not the skills that country folks have (which can be awesome) , but Hank’s mention of some of the tools of their self-reliance: shotgun, rifle, and 4-wheel drive truck. Where did they get those things? Did they make them themselves? No. Or were they manufactured by city folks somewhere? What about the ammo for their shotgun and rifle? Did they make that? What happens when they run out of bullets? Sure, they can load their own ammo – but where do they get the gunpowder, brass casings, slugs, etc. to load more rounds? And as for the 4-wheeler, did they manufacture that themselves? And what about the gasoline to run it? (Okay, maybe they could use moonshine instead.)

Our need for each other extends to basic social interactions as well. We need human contact for our mental health, and even to be fully human. Children left abandoned or unheld as babies can become feral or emotionally ill; this was the case in Romania where infants were warehoused in large orphanages without human touch; they failed to develop physically, mentally, and emotionally. In prisons, one of the hardest punishments is to be put in solitary confinement, away from most interactions. Studies show serious physical and mental effects on prisoners, such as migraines, digestive problems, anxiety, hallucinations, heart palpitations, and paranoia, to name just a few.

Let me illustrate how hard isolation can be: in 1951, McGill University conducted a study of volunteers who were to spend six weeks in isolation. They all quit after just one week, unable to take it any longer.

We are truly dependent on each other – as John Donne famously wrote in 1624, “No man is an island.” But is that a weakness? An aberration? Are we just not tough enough to make it on our own, socially, mentally, and materially when we should be able to? No, the fact is that our need for others, our mutual dependence, is hard-wired into us. It is an essential trait of being human.

Second: that is because God designed us that way. This is a point that is worthy of its own book, let alone a complete blog article, but I think I can lay out enough evidence here to justify my claim. God designed us to be dependent in two ways: on each other, and on him.

Regarding our dependence on other people, we can go right back to the creation. The very act of creating us male and female and commanding us to reproduce requires some social interaction (actually of the most intimate kind), provision, and protection. In that day of creation, after God made Adam, he pronounced, “It is not good for the man to be alone,” which right there shows God’s intent for us to need each other. So he created Eve – who was dependent on Adam’s rib for her existence. He proclaimed in Genesis 3 that the woman’s desire would be for her husband, again showing interpersonal need. God’s judgment of Cain in Genesis 4 showed the falsity of Cain’s attempt to deny his responsibility to care for his brother (let alone not to murder him!). Even the fact that of all animals, we are the most helpless at birth, born needing others to provide and care for us, is proof that God intended us to be dependent on each other.

Psalm 133:1 proclaims, “Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!” and Proverbs 18:22 says, “He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.” Christ, the all-powerful Creator of the world, surrounded himself with disciples to join in his work of proclaiming the kingdom of God. And as he hung dying on the cross, Jesus made sure his mother would be cared for by his disciple, John. These are just hints of God’s design for humanity.

But our ultimate, hard-wired and essential dependence is on God. At the most basic level, neither we nor the earth itself would exist apart from God (Psalm 8 and Genesis 1 and 2). We would cease to exist if God ever withdrew his sustaining power: Acts 17:28 proclaims, “In him we live and move and have our being,” and Colossians 1:16-17 tells us that Christ is our Creator, who made us “and in him all things hold together.” Psalm 145:15 tells of our need for God’s provision, “The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season.”

We affirm this dependence on God in the Lord’s Prayer: “Give us this day our daily bread,” which we know from the Small catechism includes much more than bread, extending to all our material needs. And note that our dependence is a daily thing: our prayer asks him to give us our needs this day; tomorrow is a new day and our dependence is new once again (it actually never goes away).

Our dependence on God finds its final and complete fulfillment in Jesus Christ, who by his love and grace did what no “self-made man (or woman)” could ever do, and that is to reconcile us to God through his death and resurrection. We depend totally on Christ for our forgiveness and for eternal life; recognizing that dependence and knowing that Christ meets that need for us is the very definition of faith.

So, let’s not perpetuate the “myth of independence,” for we are truly dependent on each other and on God, and that’s the way God intended us to be. And have a great 4th of July celebration!

And now may the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.

Read: Psalm 8, Colossians 1:15-20