There is only being held up

 There is only being held up

Each of us can only seize by the scruff whoever happens to be closest to us in the mire. This is the ‘neighbor’ the Bible speaks of. And the miraculous thing is that, although each of us stands in the mire of our self, we can each pull out our neighbor, or at least keep him from drowning. None of us has solid ground under our feet; each of us is only held up by the neighborly hands grasping us by the scruff, with the result that we are each held up by the next one, and often, indeed most of the time hold each other up mutually. All this mutual upholding (a physical impossibility) becomes possible only because the great hand from above supports all these holding human hands by their wrists. It is this, and not some non-existent ‘solid ground under one’s feet’ that enables all the human hands to hold and to help. There is no such thing as standing, there is only being held up.

                    – the theologian Franz Rosenzweig, in a letter to his future sister-in-law, 1920

(from Oliver Burkeman's newsletter)