By the Way: ‘Does the centre hold?’
By Oz Lorentzen on November 25, 2023.
I am struck by the unrest in our world, and think of the eerie similarities between our current time and that of a century ago; observed, for instance, by Yeats famous observation (in 1919) that “things fall apart; the centre cannot hold” (written following a war, in the middle of a revolution and a pandemic…). This sentiment is a perennial question, coined by D. Palmer in the title of his Philosophy text, Does the Center Hold? The metaphor invokes the disintegrating effect of centrifugal force without the stabilizing counter of gravitational pull from the centre: a (soon to be no-longer) solar system without the sun. A reality that holds in the realm of ideas and society as well – when the centre does not hold there is chaos. “Will the centre hold?” We must wait for the answer to that question. In the meantime, instead of pushing every panic button we can find, we can begin to recover our own centre, and then strengthen a centre in our communities. One important facet of the centre that has held for the last 100 years is the fact that all humans have an inherent dignity. And that, as such, all humans are worthy of respect and care: to be listened to and cared for, to be treated with dignity and responded to with compassion. And while the basis for this centre was a Judeo-Christian worldview and ethic, we can continue to strengthen its presence in our world through the choice to be compassionate and kind: to be respectful and thoughtful in all our interactions with others, interactions on line, in traffic, at work and play, with our neighbours and friends and with our elected officials and service personnel. “Treat [all] people the same way that you would want others to treat you” is, perhaps, a simpler way to put it! Does the centre hold? It has a better chance of doing just that, if we do our part. Oz Lorentzen is pastor at St. Barnabas Anglican Church 11-10
