Having just watched the BBC series, Band of Brothers, for the second time, an entirely new range of questions emerges. The series follows the exploits of Easy Company, of the US 101st airborne division, through their exploits in the final year of the second world war. The horror of the series was no shock, having already seen it and having heard and read of it many times over. More disturbing on my second journey through the ten episodes, was the experience of companionship described by members of this company. Survivors of this Company, and their children, were still meeting regularly when the series was filmed several years ago.
In other words, the horrors shared by these people during the course of twelve months, has kept them together for over half a century! Why is that? Sure, it hardly reflects every veteran’s experience of war.
Sure, close community exists between people who have not undergone these horrors together. But is there something about the quality of human company flourishing most fully when hardship and suffering are experienced so deeply? Of course, not all suffering leads to such an experience of fellowship. But the disturbing question it left for me is the extent to which a depth of human fellowship is dependent upon mutual suffering – or ‘compassion’ if we dare to use that word. I’m not trying to make some masochistic virtue out of suffering. Still less would I want people to describe the trivial disappointments of comfortable western living as ‘suffering.’
It’s just a question. In a world obsessed with security, of warding off suffering and hardship and pain, have we made genuine human fellowship impossible. Has our obsession with security (military or financial or relational), dehumanised us?
Simon (uploaded by Ruth)