Humans are built for community. We are meant for each other. Community is essential for survival. It takes two to create children, and children add to the crowd. The crowd only grows.

A couple wrote about their completely independent survival in the extreme north for a year. It was impressive, but inaccurate. It took the entire planet to make it possible for them to appear self sufficient. Governments were involved. Rescue set ups were involved. Communications, weapons, camping gear, clothing, and accumulated knowledge were involved. They rode on the back of others. Self sufficiency is a myth that is very popular in America, but it is a myth, an image and not a reality. We are a part of each other, for better or worse.

We might see ourselves as separate from others, but we are not. I was part of the failings of the educational system I served for thirty-three years, even while I tried to overcome some of the failings I recognized. I was a piece of a machine and not separate from it. I was part of its failing and part of its success. We suffer together because we are inseparably a part of each other.

We remind people at the museum that they are looking at artifacts produced by people that lived in a bubble created by their knowledge base and their circumstances. Their thoughts and ideas were shaped and defined by their place on the historical timeline, even as they changed the future. All people suffered the effects of the Civil War, even European countries who did not take part. We are citizens of this planet, impacted by the events all around our globe.

Compassion is required because all suffer, and all suffer because others suffer. Compassion is a conduit through which healing can take place because it embraces love, the power of positive change. Jesus is the epitome of love and compassion, even when He was most wronged by the ones He came to help. He gave us tools to deal with suffering, as individuals and as community members.