Ros Boydell ponders the question: ‘What if it wasn’t independence we were aiming for, but interdependence?’

A few years ago the British actress Sally Phillips made this comment in an interview, in response to the assumption that the very best outcome for her teenage son with Down’s Syndrome was that he would live as independent a life as possible.

The question she posed strikes very deeply into our cultural identity. From an early age, whether with additional needs or not, our progression into a state of independence is marked and celebrated. The child who goes into nursery without crying for their parent is praised. The teenager who moves far away from home is commended for their courage. We are not culturally used to multi-generational living or communal housing, many people choosing to live alone. If an adult in their twenties is living with their parents, it’s seen as a sign of failure.

Alone

In Genesis we see God going through the steps of creation. After each day is done, he looks at what is made and declares, ‘It is good.’ That pattern is broken only when God creates man, Adam. God looks at him and says,

‘It is not good for the man to be alone.’ (Genesis 2:18, italics added)

Humanity was always intended to live in relationship with each other and with God, in total unity and dependence. Adam and Eve relied on God for everything: food, safety, purpose, belonging.

This all changed when the perfect relationship between humanity and God was shattered (Genesis 3). Immediately Adam and Eve started blaming each other and hiding from God (3:12,8). From that point on – and here is the problem – humanity has sought to live by self-reliance alone.

The self-list

Our instinct tells us that we need to find all the answers to the issues of life in ourselves. Self-awareness, self-improvement, self-made, self-taught; the self-list goes on and on. The self is very much central to our cultural sense of being.

But this sits uneasily with another after-effect of our broken relationship with God: our deep need for belonging. We long to be seen as we are, enjoyed and accepted. We yearn to have a tribe to belong to and identify with.

But we also don’t want to have to rely on other people for anything. No wonder the loneliness epidemic is much documented: people are starving for friendship and belonging, but culturally indoctrinated to seek independence.

Personal space

So what does it look like to live in the way we were originally intended, in relationship with each other and God, in unity and dependence?

My family and I have had a taste of that through a community called L’Abri, which over the years we visited during the holidays. Set up in the ’50s with branches across the world, L’Abri Fellowship is a place that invites people to ask the big questions of life, whilst living and working together in the same house.

We were somewhat surprised when our eldest daughter decided to spend a year there after she finished school – after all, it’s a draughty old house where you sleep in dorms and there’s no Wi-Fi – but something drew her to the place. Despite the challenges that come living closely with others, there is so much inherent goodness in the sharing of lives. She’d experienced people being welcomed as they are, with all their idiosyncrasies, and that had felt so different to the pressure to conform at school and on social media, that it was worth the sacrifice of her ‘personal space’.

Fruit doesn't grow on its own

In our quest for independence, we inadvertently cut ourselves off from so much blessing. We think we want to be left alone to live our life as we choose, but actually real life – as in the fullness of life that Jesus calls us to – is only found in the midst of these relational connections (even when it feels risky). The picture we see in John 15 of abiding in the vine isn’t an individual pursuit, it’s communal: we don’t bear fruit on our own, but only as part of an ecosystem, nourished and shaped by Jesus’ love.

We’re so used to our cultural norms that we need examples, like L’Abri, of ways of living differently. Flatmates in a house deciding not just to co-exist, but to create a community that others can be invited into. Church small groups intentionally going deeper. Friends taking seriously their commitment to one another, so that marriage isn’t seen as the only covenantal relationship.

And beneath all that, we need a fundamental shift in the way we view ourselves. Is my life all about me, my own goals and purpose? Or can I see my life swept up into something so much greater and more compelling: God’s great purposes for his people? When we are set free from our preoccupation with self, we grow comfortable with our need for others.

Despite what we’re fed as a cultural norm, interdependence isn’t weakness; it’s strength, and it’s the only way to fruitfulness.