The End of Civilization

A couple of weeks I used an illustration in a sermon concerning the anthropologist Margaret Mead. In a University lecture, Mead asked the students what was the first sign of civilization?

She held up various objects:
a bowl?
a weapon?
the forging of iron?

Mead said none of these were the first signs of civilization.
She then held up a human femur bone. Upon closer inspection, you could see that the bone had been broken and then had healed over.
She said - the healing of this bone means that someone cared for this person.
Someone hunted for them.
Fed them.
Insured their personal comfort.
.... all at expense to their own needs.

Civilization began there and is only sustained if human beings can continue to display these same acts continue on through our line.
To care for the broken among us is the sign that the body of humanity is still healthy and functioning.

This story that I have shared via my friend Selina Robinson shows us what will be part of the downward trajectory of human civilization.

Fran Flann has been forced to live in a homeless shelter while recovering from cancer surgery while her apartment undergoes repairs. She shares her days and nights with the usual broken inhabitants of such places: the mentally ill, drug addicted, recent prison released. Mainly men.

If you read further down, you will read of the desperation among social workers trying to house people like Fran. People who "fall through the cracks". With each individual descent, our culture also falls .... away from civilization, towards animalistic sadism.

Fran is homeless because of an institutional breakdown of those who have both the power and resources to expend towards her recovery.

I pray and hope someone will enter her life and help her femur heal - and we can continue to live in a civilization.

Here is Fran's plight:

http://www.nsnews.com/news/senior-struggles-in-north-vancouver-shelter-1.2174349