A lone figure outlined against the sky, preferably on a horse, always male. He’s been played by many stars over the years--Gary Cooper, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood. An outsider who doesn’t talk a lot and doesn’t quite fit in. He’s the rugged individual.
A part of the American myth, he rides into town to right all wrongs, then rides out again, leaving a grateful populace and a few heartbroken women and children who dreamed that he’d stay. But he’s the rugged individual, after all. He can’t bother to settle down and contribute to the growth of a family, a church, a school, a society.
The people who do that aren’t rugged individuals. Oh, they may be individualistic, with minds and ideas of their own. But they recognize the need, as my elementary school report card used to put it, to “work well with others.”
It takes a village to rear a child. It takes diversity to create a society and the institutions that make it strong. As Roger Rosenblatt pointed out in his Time magazine essay, “The Rugged Individual Rides Again,” you can’t imagine “an individual so rugged he could raise a roof beam on his own.”
We need each other. That’s the conclusion of most of us, male and female. It’s the conclusion of city planners, who encourage mixed development, neighborhood empowerment, and public spaces. And it’s the conclusion of Jesus, the reason he put his followers together into churches and charges us to worship, study, pray and work together.
This issue of my website treats community, including an article on the Pepperdine Bible Lectures, centered this year on the theme of “Life Together”; the biblical concept of Koinonia or fellowship; and Tom Olbricht, whose book on the theme of the Lectures and whose daily expository study of 1 John formed the basis for our weeklong consideration of our need to avoid the “rugged individual” mindset and cooperate in families, churches, schools and communities.
It’s time to let that concept, and the man who embodies it, ride off into the sunset.
I’d love to hear from you in response to the website. I hope you’ll suggest topics that you’re interested in and let me know if the site is helpful to you. This is my website, but I believe in sharing. You can reach me at b.silvey@sbcglobal.net. |
