What’s at the heart of our health crisis?
A Deliberation: How Might We Help Americans Recover Health?
What if health isn’t what we’ve been told—a number on a scale, a pill in a bottle, a fight against a failing body—but something else entirely? What if it’s who we are and how we are naturally designed—holy, whole, gifts created by a joyful God to live in a “we,” not an “I”? What if every initiative, every expert, every gadget promising to save us has faltered, not because they lack power, but because they aim at the wrong mark. They see a broken “me” when the truth is a scattered “we”—humans, creatures, earth, aching for connection, not correction. What if the chronic disease epidemic—kids on insulin, adults on edge, land on fumes—isn’t a failure of medicine, but a cry of a reality we’ve refused to see?
Consider this: we’re not unhealthy; we’re not unholy—but we have we participated in desecrating what God made sacred. Wendell Berry whispers it: “The grace that is the health of creatures can only be held in common.” What if health isn’t mine to fix, but ours to live—together, face-to-face, in a community that breathes? Picture a place where you’re seen, known—not a profile, but a person—where hands dig dirt with neighbors, where meals aren’t gulped alone but shared with laughter. What if that’s health—not a cure, but a coming home —a re-membering.
But here’s the rub: we can’t see it. Our eyes are blinded—by screens that shrink the “we” to “me,” by cities that trade soil for concrete, by a diagnosis too timid to name the rift. What if the first step isn’t a program, but a clearing—a chance to see our reality? Not the system’s lie—“You’re broken, buy this”—but God’s truth: “You’re holy, live this.” What if we paused, looked, asked: “Who’s telling me who I am?” Not the ads, not the apps, but the One who says, “You’re Mine—Blessed, Beloved, Whole.” What if that awareness cracked the lie wide open?
Now, if health is connection of the “we”—a living, loving community—how do we recover it? Not by prescribing or following a formula—God forbid we mimic the system—but by offering rest, honor, and help. What if we invited folks to a table—not a clinic—where bread’s broken, stories are told, and the earth’s gifts (not junk) feed us? What if gathered together in a field—not a gym—where work’s shared, sweat’s real, and the “we” grows food, not profits? What if we looked at the stars—not screens—where we worship the Creator as a “we,” not an “I,” and rest is a grace, not a guilt?
Health is weakened because we lack material intelligence and practical skills—it’s buried because we’ve traded meaningful work for convenience. What if we relearned the practical—how to grow, cook, mend—with others, not alone? Berry says, “Good work finds the way between pride and despair”—what if that work, done together, is health? Not pride’s lonely tech, not despair’s cheap fixes, but hands joined, cultivating a “we” that remembers who we are—holy gifts, not broken things.
And what of our places? “There are no unsacred places,” Berry insists, “only sacred places and desecrated ones.” What if health waits where the “we” lives—near dirt, near kin—not in sterile cubicles cut off from life? Imagine moving closer—literally, figuratively—to the “we,” to Creation. What if kids played in mud, not in a digital world, and adults worked with hands, not keyboards? What if it’s our gathering places “where” we can let us lose the “I” and find the “we” again and again—health now appears as the dance of that finding, of the mingling of the many?
What if it health does not change by prescribing a pill—but by remembering who we are and how we are naturally designed to be healthy, whole, holy human beings?. What if Americans recovered health by seeing what we have neglected- what we have trashed—not to shame but make us aware of the damage done? What if we asked, “How am I designed?” and heard, “For this—relationship, gifts, community.” What if we lived it—not to “get” health, but because we are— held in a community that’s bigger than “me”? The epidemic’s not a mystery—it’s a desecration of that truth. What if we were helped not just to see it but live it, not as duty, but as joy?
Ponder this: no system saves us—it’s too proud, too lonely. Health’s the “we” restored—not by force, but by invitation. What if we—started there, with one table, one field, one community? What if that’s enough to start to recover everything we have lost?
