In her new book The Dignity of Dependence: A Feminist Manifesto, Leah Libresco Sargeant makes the case for recognizing the reality that we human beings, far from being unattached autonomous individuals or replaceable pleasure-seeking widgets, are made with dignity and to be dependent on each other, and that we ought to build our homes, families, schools, institutions, and policies in view of the reality of dependence.
I spoke recently with Leah about a talk she gave at a Front Porch Republic conference, wherein she built on this idea of dependence through a theological lens: We are finite creatures made by an infinite God, and our finitude teaches us not only who we are in relation to God, but also of the love of our Creator. For Christians especially, it should be clear that the goal of human life is not to eliminate suffering altogether, but to be present in the other’s suffering, to serve and love one another, just as our Creator suffered for us for the sake of love.
This idea affects every area of our lives, from our everyday choices of how to run a household, to how we treat our neighbors, to how we rule the household of a town, state, and nation. And we can begin right where we are: Leah concludes with practical tips of what we can do now to serve our neighbors and be served by them. (Leah’s book Building the Benedict Option: A Guide to Gathering Two or Three Together in His Name contains more practical tips and wisdom on how to serve others from within our own limitations.) To ask for help from persons, rather than a search engine, is a crucial part of recognizing the dignity of our neighbor’s humanity, and of our irreplaceable need for personal relationships.
Tessa Carman: Leah, you spoke recently at a Front Porch Republic conference on “The Gift of Finitude.” Can you explain briefly how we should see being finite, being limited, as a gift, rather than, say, a curse?
Leah Libresco Sargeant: I’d say, first, before we weigh whether it’s a gift or a curse, we should start by admitting it’s true. Pretending we are not what we are—finite, dependent creatures—limits our freedom to act rightly in the world. It’s always harder to act justly if you start with a false understanding of the human person.
Finitude might be tragic if we were creatures without a creator, but we are not. Our limitedness is a pointer to God’s infinite love and our potential to participate in His plan for the world as subcreators. Our physical limits turn us outward, towards each other and ultimately toward God. The noisiness and obviousness of our physical need (in infancy, in illness, in injury, etc.) help us practice the habits that allow us to recognize our moral neediness.
TC: What does it mean to be a created being? How should being a creature inform the way we understand ourselves?
LLS: Being a created being means recognizing we live in relationship. As Psalm 139 says, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” Before we attain any merit through our deeds, we are loved into being. God loves us perfectly and knows us perfectly. Each of our mothers knows us only dimly in pregnancy—a beloved stranger she wants to see face to face—and begins a love that depends not on merit, but on givenness.
I find the metaphor of stewardship very helpful. Life, and being itself, is a gift placed in our hands. We want to take care of ourselves, for our own sake, but also as a way of returning love back to God, loving ourselves for His sake. To steward something or someone well, you have to begin with curiosity—who am I? How should I treat myself to act in accord with my nature?
TC: “Independence” of one kind and another has been all the rage for a good few hundred years or so, but you’ve been writing and arguing for the dignity, rather, of dependence. Can you respond to this objection: Isn’t it in general better to be independent rather than dependent? Shouldn’t we want to make our own decisions and not rely on others, as a rule?
LLS: Again, I return to the language of stewardship. We should all want to be good stewards of what we have received as a gift. But what we receive is not only our talents, but also our debilities. I have a duty to make use of my strengths (for however long God lends them to me) and to put them at the service of others, but I have a parallel duty to make use of my illnesses, my weaknesses, etc., and to see how God works through them and how they can connect me to others.
I think of how Richard John Neuhaus described the dying of Pope John XXIII in Death on a Friday Afternoon:
I recall being deeply impressed as a young man by the death of Pope John XXIII. It was slow in coming, and over the days there were regular news bulletins reporting that he was offering up one day’s suffering for those with cancer, another day’s suffering for homeless refugees, another for mothers with difficult pregnancies and so forth. He seemed to be going about his dying with such purpose, with almost workmanlike efficiency, wasting none of it.
We are not ever, in the most important things, “independent.” So, in our periods of strength, when our dependence is less apparent, we should still be trying to live in a way that will build up the habits we need to die well and die generously.
TC: One of my favorite lines from a conference I once attended is this, from a talk on Charlotte Mason: When in a rut, “always go back to the philosophy.” How does understanding both being dependent and created help us to a better picture of who we are and how we ought to live?
LLS: Part of my test for any philosophy is what it has to say to the harder parts of life. Whenever I’m in a conversation about various theories of marriage, I ask, “Does this theory say something true about how to live in love with a spouse who is dying?” A lot of theories (that the man must always be a provider, that the wife has an obligation to keep up her looks) fall silent in these moments.
I like to look at the stories of the saints for a throughline on what a good life, given completely to God can look like for people living in a wide range of times, with a tremendous range of talents. Someone like St. Rafael Arnaiz Baron, a Trappist whose illness prevented him from taking his vows, found a way to live a saintly life even as door after door was closed to him, because he tried to faithfully steward whatever God set before him, no matter how small. (I strongly recommend this children’s book about him!).
TC: What are some ways we’ve misread or misunderstood our place in the world that have affected our relationships with our neighbors?
LLS: When people seek euthanasia, they’re much more likely to cite the fear of being a burden than the actual pain they’re experiencing or expect to experience. People acquire that perspective about the end of life through the slow catechesis of all the ways they offer and ask for help up to that point. You see it in the smallest ways in the habitual “it’s no trouble” people offer as reassurance that, of course, the help you need did not burden them.
Sometimes what we need from each other is costly! It’s good to have practice giving and accepting help that does mean someone went out of their way for you, or cancelled their plans, or adjusted their budget. If it never happens before you’re dying, it’s hard to learn how to accept that kind of love for the first time at the end.
TC: What are some practical things you’ve noticed that help us imaginatively grow in a sound philosophy of the human being—i.e., what are some practices of a family or neighborhood that grow out of the truth that we are both created and dependent?
LLS: The biggest thing I would recommend is having a lively noticeboard (virtual or physical) where neighbors frequently post prayer requests and other requests for tangible help. When this is a norm (as it is in my neighborhood) strangers become more transparent to others.
It feels less like everyone leads a “normal” life except for strange, rare eruptions. It becomes quickly obvious that there are always multiple people, within a few blocks of you, living through acute or chronic crises and attendant needs. It’s a bit of a return to seeing each other (and yourself) as fundamentally permeable, not buffered, in the language of Charles Taylor.
Plus, of course, you get and give more help! I’d add that it’s good to make a special effort to ask for the kinds of help teenage boys are best able to give. Teenage girls are often called upon as babysitters, but people default too much to getting paid professional help with the kinds of tasks teenage boys need to learn how their strength can be used for service.
TC: Thank you, Leah!
Image Credit: Jóhannes S. Kjarval
