Part of the Whole
Wednesday, November 11, 2026
Author and activist Liza J. Rankow considers how intergenerational service is the fruit of understanding our universal connection:
In the subtropical forests of northeastern India, there is a network of living root bridges that traverse the steep terrain across valleys and rivers. Generation after generation, the Indigenous peoples of the region have twisted and woven the aerial roots of giant ficus trees, guiding their growth from one bank of the river to join with roots from the opposite shore. Over decades, the roots become thick and strong enough to walk upon. These bridges can last for centuries but require the tending of each generation, weaving in new young roots to shape and sustain them. When the monsoons come, and gentle streams turn into raging torrents, the bridges hold, and the people can pass safely across them….
Each individual root makes an essential contribution but is insufficient alone. The bridge requires their union in a common purpose. A similar commitment and collaborative strength are needed now as we cross the hazardous terrain of this epochal turning.
These times are calling us to reach toward one another, to recognize the truth of who we are and who we can become, together. To take love seriously—as if the world depends on it. Because, of course, it does. “The moment we choose to love we begin to move against domination, against oppression,” wrote scholar and activist bell hooks (1952–2021). “The moment we choose to love we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others.” [1]…
The culture of colonial modernity tells us we are separate, atomized beings, and we are now experiencing the conditions that ideology creates. However, the nature of Life is oneness. We are woven together with all that is. Remembering this shifts everything. Our capacity as agents of transformation is amplified through our belonging within the web of all being. And just like with a spider’s web, where a tap anywhere transmits vibration to the whole of it, every touch upon the web of Life vibrates everywhere. [2] Every act of love and justice ripples out farther than we will ever know. And every act of violation likewise echoes beyond our reckoning.…
Times of crisis call us to our soul’s intent, the reason we are alive now, at this crucial moment in history. We can move beyond what is comfortable or familiar, to let the qualities of “who we are, really” shine forth. Through this, we inspire others to remember and live into the deeper truth that lies within them, and that in turn ignites an ever-wider awakening.
We may never see our impact on the life of another or understand how pivotal the smallest acts can be. But I truly believe that if we are guided by the intention to be a beneficial presence, if we commit ourselves to making a positive difference in the world, Life will not waste our willingness.
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From Diana Butler Bass
Today is a solemn holiday in many countries. In the United States, it is Veterans Day. Others call this Remembrance Day.
I want to take a moment and paraphrase a question once uttered by Frederick Douglass about a different American holiday. Douglass asked, What to a Slave is the Fourth of July?
But that’s not the only American holiday that needs rethinking.
I humbly submit another question for consideration: What to a Christian is the Eleventh of November?
On November 11, 1918, the Great War, the conflict we know as World War I, ended. Earlier that day, the Allies and Germany signed a peace treaty calling for an armistice between combatants at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the year.
A year later, the British and French commemorated Armistice Day, and a solemn annual memorial continued thereafter every November 11. Eventually, the day was re-christened as Remembrance Day throughout the British Commonwealth and as Veterans Day in the United States.
November 11, however, wasn’t always a day to remember lives lost in a war between the great imperial powers of Europe. Across Europe, November 11 was an important festival on the Christian calendar — St. Martin’s Day, or Martinmas, in memory of a pious bishop of the early church, Martin of Tours.
Martin of Tours (ca. 316-397) was born into a pagan family, but as a young man expressed interest in Christianity. His father, a soldier, was appalled by the religion and forced Martin to join the Roman army. While a soldier, Martin’s curiosity about Christianity grew and he became a catechumen, a “learner” of the faith.
According to legend, Martin was on patrol when he saw a naked beggar on the road. Moved with compassion, he dismounted his horse, took off his military cloak, tore it in half, and covered the man. In a dream that night, Jesus appeared to Martin and said, “Martin, a simple catechumen, covered me with this garment.”
Martin decided to be baptized and asked to be released from the army. “I am Christ’s soldier,” he maintained, “I am not allowed to fight.” He refused to wield the sword for Caesar.
Martin didn’t invent this position. He stated what most early Christians believed. Before theologians made a case for just war, Christians were primarily pacifists. Indeed, no record exists that Christians served in the Roman army before 170. The overwhelming consensus of the early church was that war was killing in service to the empire, killing was murder, and murder was wrong.
Martin left the army and became a monk, a priest, and finally, a bishop. He was known for peacemaking and his generosity toward the poor, especially children.
In the context of his own time, Martin’s insistence that faith in Christ precluded soldiering was both important and profound. Indeed, when he refused the sword, the church itself was cozying up to empire. In 312, Constantine legalized Christianity; by the end of the century, Christianity had become the imperial religion. The Roman army became warriors for both empire and church.
But Martin embodied the ancient pacifist way of Jesus — the practice of his first followers — as the church slowed accommodated itself to the Empire. While the institutions of Christianity forgot the old path, Martin remembered.
After his death, Martin was made a saint. His festival coincided with the end of harvest in northern Europe — and the day came to celebrate gratitude, abundance, and gift giving. It focused on the poor in memory of Martin’s good deeds (notice: the western church minimized the anti-military part of the story!). Martinmas was one of the most popular of all Christian holy days through the Middle Ages and into early modern Europe.
Martin’s story did, however, lend itself to one peacemaking tradition — the practice of signing peace treaties on his feast day. Several wars ended with peace made in honor of St. Martin, including signings in 1500, 1606, 1648, 1865, and 1918. The ancient celebration of this Roman soldier turned conscientious objector was the reason why Armistice Day wound up on November 11.
But the memory of St. Martin has largely faded. And now, Armistice Day-Remembrance Day-Veterans Day is mostly a solemn commemoration of soldiers who served more modern empires at war, not to remember a soldier who rejected empire to serve the poor and outcast.
History takes us down some unanticipated pathways. And November 11 is surely one of its weirder journeys. Few recall Martin’s mercy on the road, the surrender of his military cloak to cover a poor man, and his rejection of violence on behalf of an empire. Instead, we extol military service as the highest form of sacrifice to a state. One of the most moving stories of nonviolence and anti-nationalism in the history of Christianity has become a holiday to valorize soldiers as national saints.
Both the poor and peacemaking have been lost along the way.*
In a world of wars and warriors, we do well to remember what has been forgotten.
