What mother would throw her child into the cold?

Timothy Keller makes the point (The Reason for God) that every community is exclusive in some way. The right and the left of any issue form a community around certain beliefs and certain values that will exclude members of the community that rebel or don’t comply with them.
So to call Christianity an exclusive community separate from others is rather rich when a closer look at your own community will unearth a similar exclusivity. What should be considered in all communities is the value of how that community respects, love and care for other communities. What should also be carefully monitored is if the community condemns, violates, is aggressive toward and demonizes other communities not like theirs. No community is entirely inclusive of all people regardless of what their moral and belief structures are.

I would like to add that although Christianity is inclusive of all race, gender and class there is a value and belief structure that is expected of all its members. In saying that it is important to note that ‘grace’ is a fundamental doctrine of the Church and thus one often finds members who contravene the core set of values still being a part of its meetings and community life. It takes extraordinary circumstances for a mother to throw her child into the cold.

L’chaim – to life

We lift our glasses to celebrate community life. We raise our glasses around the simplest pot of stew to the toast we lift for the new bride and groom. The gesture is taken for granted and is something we often just do. As we clink glasses together we declare we will live this in concert, together, this experience - this cup of life.Life is scarce at times, the resources are few, but as we raise those glasses we toast to life and together we give it its due.

“Thus as we lift up our cup in a fearless gesture, proclaiming that we will support each other in our common journey, we create community.” Henri Nouwen “Can you drink the cup"

Why art work? I just like it.

Christmas family likeness

Another Christmas around the corner. A time with people we were born with. A time with people we got involved with through marriage and maybe a time with those friends we accrued through life’s interests. That yearly community that sits around the table with silly coloured hats, crackers and turkey drumsticks. Every year those Christmas photographs look exactly the same. The only differences are issues of weight gain, greying hair, and baldness. A strange community it is. Yours no doubt very different to mine. I sometimes think I can do without it. Just give me sandy beaches, blue sky and a fishing rod ! But, there is something about that group of present swopping folk that reminds me what I look like and where I come from. The group that formed my initial reference point for life, its questions and answers and will no doubt be the ones who will wrap up my end?

AA for everyone

“Recognition of the continuing crisis of alcoholism is part of the genius of AA.” This thought by M. Scott Peck is worth consideration. The perpetual recognition (confession) of ones brokenness in community is medicine for the human condition. The moment we exempt ourselves from the perpetual human lot of unmet dreams, broken promises, habitual ills we will not find our redemption. Peck points out that the success of AA is that there is never a time that you meet without confessing ones weakness. I suppose this is very similar to the Christian who is allowed to bring his/her confessions with them to Church on Sunday. It ties in with the “John the Baptist” text this time of year. We are never to stop confessing our need of help and our dependence on “Spirit and fire” to bring wholeness.

Psychotherapists don't heal!

M. Scott Peck writes some important stuff in his book “The Different Drum – The Creation of True Community, the first step to World peace.” A psychotherapist himself he says, “Experienced psychotherapists usually come to recognize this truth. As neophytes they see it as their task to heal the patient and often believe they succeed in doing so. With experience, however, they realize that they do not have the power to heal. But they also learn that it is within their power to listen to the patient, to accept him or her, to establish a “therapeutic relationship.” So they focus not so much on healing as on making their relationship a safe place where the patient is likely to heal himself.” For all of us minister/lay, young or old, male or female, we need places of safety where we can be ourselves, share our fears, weep our tears and expose our true selves and find in the safe community of others a healing anointment that tells that together we are whole.

Conflict resolution skills

Conflict can either rip us apart or bring healing in and towards greater expressions of Godly community. When leaders of the Church are at logger-heads we are aware that they are not seeing past the things they have idolized. The matters at hand have become the ends in themselves and not the means through which we establish the reign of God. I can foresee that the only true means of embracing conflict is to embrace a deeper prayer life that helps us transcend the finite. Let us neither forget the important work of conflict management studies that provide an excellent way of helping people see beyond themselves and the competitive environment we live in. I stumbled over this site on the internet yesterday, it could be of great help to anybody having to deal with conflict, there are some excellent free resources…. “Conflict Resolution Network.”

Alone

“ The roots of loneliness are very deep and cannot be touched by optimistic advertisement, substitute love images or social togetherness. They find their food in the suspicion that there is no one who cares and offers love without conditions, and no place where we can be vulnerable without being used.” Henri J.M. Nouwen, Reaching Out, pg 26

I wonder whether everybody is lonely? Some people seem to have it all together, the veneer of social smiles, social wit, and public appeal. It is frightening to think that one can be lonely in the midst of a crowd, friends, colleagues, and even in the family. Loneliness is not dispelled because we have found another. I am often lonely, but I quickly fill it up with things that supposedly matter. The result is that loneliness is always with us, a circuitous famine of emptiness woven with festivals of communion. The communion is sweet when experienced, but never to be taken for granted.

The others

Faith by example. Vicarious learning. If he can do it, well, so can I. They are rooting for you. The perfect example in Christ. These are the thoughts that surround the Hebrews reading for this Sunday. The community that encourages. The community who persevered for Love, the community who knows your name when cheering on the sidelines of your life. I have thought it quite scary to think that there is this cloud of witnesses gawking on at my life. I usually think, “What would they think if they saw me now?” I had a grandfather who was a Methodist minister. I have a box of his sermons and a few bits and pieces of his prayers still with me. To be honest, I am not sure what he would be saying to me now. I did not know him that well. All I know was that he married off a number of people in my congregation in the 1950’s and that he was a typical minister of the early 20th century, still Victorian in moral stature and autocratic in nature. Would he be encouraging me or would he be making clicking noises with his mouth? On further reflection I think 'Gamps', the man I once spilt coffee on at a drive-in would be very proud to have a grandson in the Methodist ministry. It is a great pity we did not have the time to talk and share things. If we did he would have had the chance to share how he had persevered and how he had sacrificed much to bring the Gospel to this country. Oh, how I wish he had had a diary, a journal from which I could have gleaned something from. That would have encouraged me greatly. The cloud of witnesses stands ever before us to encourage and empower us by their example. We can still read the journals, the autobiographies, the biographies, and history books that tell us much about this cloud of witnesses. Not only do our examples lie buried in history. There are currently in our times people who are burning examples of the faith. In our confirmation class this year the one exercise was for the confirmation candidates to find somebody who they regarded as a ‘saint’ and go and interview them. They asked about their lives and how they lived out their Christian example. It is good to look around and be encouraged by so many who have shown us the way.

We are praying

I grew up in a tradition that placed the ‘quite time’ as a paramount part of ones spiritual routine. If you weren’t having your ‘quite time’ you weren’t in touch with God or self. The ‘quite time’ was an ubiquitous term that necessarily implied the reading of scriptures and prayer. The power of the ‘quite time’ was the ability to prioritize the other activities of life in order of importance. The time alone with God was regarded as the crucial element that should precede all other. It was that moment that would streamline and guide ones focus and direction for the day. The ‘quite time’ was very much a ‘me and God’ thing. It was about my ‘personal relationship’ with the Maker. One left the time alone with God with a sense of awkwardness at times, realizing that whatever happened there would now have to be applied in real life. It was the moment where you could dream you dreams, have your say and sense in your hear that it was all possible. The place of refuge is always a necessary place to find in the hurly burly existence of contemporary humanity. Others have grown up in a world of corporate prayer - The Morning Prayer and Evening prayer regimen. Up to chapel twice a day for prayers as a community is still practiced in numerous quarters of the Church. The bells will toll at many a monastery today, bringing the faithful to their knees in quite and communal prayer. Collective song, prayer, quietness and recitation will affirm their ‘community relationship’ with God. To be just to all, the incorporation of both means of worship is important for our spiritual make-up. The sense of being unique as an individual is bound up within the uniqueness of the Godly community. God is me and us focused.

Unsmothered love

The fruit of life is finding the God who loves you. Knowing this central and core acceptance is reformation to the uttermost. The deeper we are utterly dependent on this love the less we manipulate the attentions of others. The closer this truth rests with us the less we feel we are missing out on something. All life’s fulfillment is found at the feet of the God man Jesus. When acceptance is found others find a peace with us that is warm and reassuring. We no longer look to them for our survival which helps put them at ease. We are not wanting to win their attention for affection which helps them relax. Our acceptance by God is the bridge for bringing others to ease in our presence. The Christian community is bathed in unconditional acceptance. This is our magic, our brew our tea.

Bird logic

They walked with bird like astuteness down the lawn toward the house. Three well adorned ring neck doves. They had found some bread crumbs that were thrown out the night before and were enjoying the early morning breakfast. Then in succession they took to flight and disappeared over the roof of the house. I was unaware of the lesson I would learn when they returned. It was not ten minutes later and with a rustle of wings they landed near the bread but this time there were six well adorned ring neck doves with prestigious collars and well groomed chests. It could not be helped, the thought that in this simple avian moment the truths of the Church lay exposed. At the table of the God-man their lies a broken loaf of bread, a loaf shared, a life shared, a message waiting to be devoured. The earlier worshipers having eaten their full went off fulfilled to share the news with all. They returned with more, and each day the Church grew double score.

The middle road

I am called to repay a curse with a blessing. The path of non-violence and not non-resistance. I am called not to be silent but to walk as Jesus walked. He chose the path of non-violence and suffering. Working this out in everyday life is the trick. It seems easier when there are clear cut evil boundaries like the sea meeting the land. The everyday dialogue is filled with so much grey, misinformation and smudged boundaries that to speak up and not be resistant to evil is difficult. It is possibly the moment my own heart is troubled by injustice, unfair criticism or is hurt that the alarm bells ought to ring for me to be cautious with my words and my actions. This and at the same time to be aware that it is possibly the time I need to gracefully resist the evil. The disciplines of my faith should be the building blocks of my hearts reaction to the subtle play of evil all around me. The easier route from violent reaction is the other evil, silent hatred. Both are as bad as the other. Help me find the middle road. The path that is bold enough to speak the truth with love. (My thoughts are provoked by 1 Peter 3:8-12 and “Daily bible Study – Adult bible Studies”)