We usually relate “assisted living” as a need for persons during their later years of life. Yes, aging happens and most of us are going to need help with our daily activities as we grow older. However, such thinking is very shortsighted and can easily distort our attitude toward others and cloud the reality of our living together as humans.
One of the most contagious social disease in our Western society is individualism with its consequence of a diminished sense of community. In a culture that glorifies rugged independence and individualism, we need to be reminded that none of us goes it alone. None of us goes through life totally independent and unassisted from our birth to our death.
We are “assisted” in life from the cradle to the grave. Countless people, our parents, teachers, friends, pastors, neighbors, employers, have all helped us along the way. So, if we might need some “special assistance” later in life, it is no embarrassment; that is, if we have acknowledged that others have been helping us all along as neighbors and friends in community.
God, in His great wisdom, created all of us to be relational human beings. Shortly after God created man, he said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”(Genesis 2:18). In doing so, God created inside man a kind of “human-shaped-void” that can only be filled and satisfied when in relationship with other human beings.
And so, every human being has a need, a yearning to belong, to be accepted, included, and cared for in a family of families, better known as community. But today, in our nation and world, so few people seem to understand that this yearning for belonging comes from the one God who created us all to live in community with other human beings.
The fact is that our life on earth has been “assisted” living whether we know it or not. “Assisted” living is the only way we can get through life with any sense of worth and purpose. To think otherwise is to be extremely unrealistic. There is no such thing as “independent” living. It is a myth. Yet, as true as this is, most of us find it hard to ask for help, or even to extend help to the stranger in our community.
If we are honest with ourselves, I think most, if not all of us, would admit to having tried in some manner to live life independent of others and found it to be inadequate. We have learned, sometimes the hard way, that such efforts are extremely unrealistic and dangerous.
That is why hikers are warned not to travel in the high country alone, mountain climbers never to climb alone, and swimmers never to swim alone. That is why women are encouraged to be careful when traveling or walking alone in the city, and children are given a buddy when taking field trips to the zoo. And that is why God gave Adam and Eve to each other. God knew it was not good nor safe for us to be alone and independent of others.
I share the following prayer by Marjorie Holmes as my desire and prayer for an “assisted-living community” in every church and neighborhood of our divided nation and world.
“Oh, God, we go through life so lonely,
needing what other people can give us, yet ashamed to show that need.
And other people go through life so lonely,
hungering for what it would be such a joy for us to give.
Dear God, please bring us together, the people who need each other,
who can help each other and would so enjoy each other.
AMEN!
I sincerely believe the cry of every human heart is for an “assisted-living” community. A place where no one need to fear asking for help or being taken advantage of. A place where all individual gifts and abilities are acknowledged and accepted as enriching community.
May we always remember that the one purpose of community is to be in relationship, striving together in assisting one another toward living a meaningful life of purpose and enjoyment.
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“Healing Rays of Righteousness” – July 14, 2021
Ray M. Geigley
Healing Rays of Righteousness 
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