Change, Survival, Community

This week, I have been teaching Octavia Butler's novel Parable of the Sower to my students. It's an engrossing and haunting story about the United States in a not so distant future. What is most frightening and illuminating about it is that the scene Butler paints could indeed occur, perhaps not in the details she describes but in the emotional and social portrait of people she paints. While the world may never see a drug like Pyro that causes people immense pleasure when they set fire to things, we may see a time when water is more expensive than gasoline and gasoline is too expensive to support motorized transportation. Similarly, many people already live in the walled communities Butler creates which keep her protagonist and others feeling safe from the chaos that exists beyond their walls.

That protagonist, Lauren, recognizes that her community is not as safe as they want to believe they are. She understands that they need to be more prepared in case their walls are breached; in fact, they need to be prepared to live without their walls if that becomes necessary. Lauren begins describing a worldview, a religion, that sees change as the most powerful, unavoidable reality in the world. Since she acknowledges that God is the most powerful, constant, and present force in the world, she begins to see change as God, God as change.

I'll not comment on the religion she begins to form or this idea on which it is based, I will say that the book has me reflecting on faith as a means for coping with change and facilitating survival. Parable of the Sower deals with change and survival in very physical ways, but I can see the book offering a metaphor for dealing with all sorts of change and enhancing one's survival through that change to whatever exists on its other side.

Interestingly, Lauren also lives with a "disease" called hyperempathy syndrome, which means that she feels in her own body andy pain or pleasure that she sees others experiencing. This is important to consider because, on a larger level, if our society is to survive the many changes that are occurring now, we need some of that hyperempathy; we need to place ourselves in the skins of others, as best as possible, and imagine that their pain is ours, their well-being is ours. Our faiths, our various religions, acknowledge this. Our faith, then, whether organized into a religion or not, helps us to survive change and to live in community.

And faith can help us thrive. It is what gives Lauren hope for the future of her community and ultimately society. It does the same for me.