meditatio at the water's edge

Talked to a friend of mine today who is a real encouragement to me. In our conversation, we both came to see how easy it is to talk about community, but how difficult it is to live it out. It really gets messy. You risk getting burned--and often you do get burned. Hey, people are stupid and insensitive and wrong sometimes. Sometimes you just catch them after they've had some bad cabbage.

But God has given us these people 'for better or for worse,' and we had better start learning to give each other some slack as well as some love (which may mean sacrificing our time, money, possessions, not to mention our right to tell each other off). Let me say that I think this is happening within our group. I just think we will need to keep putting it before ourselves, because we need each other. To a degree, we need to work through tough times on our own (I have to deal with my inner life), but we also need to share our burdens with other people (trusted apprentices of Jesus).

We need to face the inherent problems with our individualistic mindsets, and submit ourselves to one another. Do you see how our story is in conflict with our culture there? Patience, love, vulnerability, forgiveness, joy, perseverance...these things are not easy or natural apart from a life immersed in the Spirit of Jesus. Let it be our goal, then, to do the risky, painful things that will enable us to make them the natural and easy way of life (easy and natural because of God's continued action in our lives).