Alive Together with Christ

“But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ…”
Ephesians 2:4-5

This writing is inspired by Philip Shepherd’s Radical Wholeness, in which he talks about the contrasts of western culture and the culture of the Anlo-Ewe of Ghana.

In western cultures we feel ourselves contained within a personal boundary that keeps our life separate from that of the world. It’s so interesting to consider our view of self by comparing it to another culture, such as the Anlo-Ewe in West Africa.

When we consider ways to enhance our personal well-being, we would probably begin setting strategies to include dietary supplements, perhaps eating more organically, an exercise regimen with a focus on more quality sleep. These rituals are all good, and all do the right things for the body. Something like “improved maintenance of a machine,” this practice sees the body as an independent entity separate from the rest of the world.

For the Anlo-Ewe, well-being is something quite different. They experience self as porous rather than self-contained. Their belief reflects an understanding of being itself: not stable, highly changeable, always in transformation, and having a radical indeterminacy of self. In keeping with this world view, well-being is understood to be dependent upon interactions between the self and others; interactions that include the flow of energy, matter, and information. In the Anlo-Ewe culture well-being is ardently sustained by dynamic relationship.

I’ve been considering the idea of dynamic relationship since reading about it, and right now I think of it as love, as the source of our well-being, as the love of God which makes “us alive together with Christ.”

Roger Conville