Community

"If each person is joined to another like a limb is joined to a torso, then there is nothing voluntary or occasional about the relationship." - Norman Wirzba

My friend Katie wrote an excellent blog about the difficulty of being left here.  Her friend Maria responded with a blog about the difficulty of leaving here.  She wrote, "Feeling settled seems like the apex of grown-up life."

Now that I am married with a kid, I feel like I should feel settled.

We have small group tonight.  In our mobile, ever-changing society, my husband and I are working hard to find some stability, to find a place where we feel settled.  Finding and making new friends is difficult, but it is even more difficult to reach the place where, as Norman Wirzba wrote, we are joined together like a limb to a torso.

On the other hand, we follow in the footsteps of our father Abraham who "made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God." (Hebrews 11:9-10)

This is a difficult place to be. Created to be part of a body but with hearts that "are restless until they rest in [God]."

Like so many other aspects of Christianity, our lives in community are paradoxical.  We compulsively search for a place to rest, to be joined to others.  But we will not find that place until the coming of God's kingdom.  Until then, we are probably more like Bob the Blob, part of one body that is constantly being separated and rejoined.

 

Image from Youtube.com

Note: this reference may be a little obscure, but once again I find myself writing the blog while watching random tv shows with a 7-year-old