Joined at the Thigh

My husband was diagnosed three years ago with stenosis of the spine, and several months before, I had fallen over a concrete stop in a parking lot in Eureka Springs and hurt my knee. As we have consulted several doctors through the years, had MRI's, and gone through physical therapy, we have often joked that we needed to tie our bad legs together (his left and my right) in order to make a whole person. This lesson was brought home to us on Sunday in our spiritual formation class.

The video series we have been watching each week is entitled "Living the Questions." On Sunday, we heard a pastor speak on the development of compassion in civilization. The famous anthropologist Margaret Mead evidently was asked this question once. She replied that civilization began with the discovery of a healed thigh bone. She then went on to explain that the "survival of the fittest" theory began to change at that time. You see one cannot do the hunting and gathering necessary in ancient times with an injured femur. Someone else must come along and shoulder the responsibility for him or her if life is to continue. Compassion for others, in her learned conclusion, was evidence for the development of civilization.

I like this idea and have certainly found it to be true in my own marriage. Often, when one is weak, the other becomes strong. When my husband was downsized from his position as a mid-level hospital administrator ten years ago, I (who never thought I could) helped shoulder the responsibility. I continued to teach in my full-time job but also took on up to ten extra jobs per year to make our budget work. He began to take on jobs within the house he had never done before--finances, cleaning, cooking (even occasionally making desserts), and errands.

My husband's response was very unlike the two men last night at a Hillary Clinton rally who held up a sign toward her as she was speaking saying, "Iron my shirts." He ironed my clothes instead. That's being joined at the thigh, I'd say.